Gentlemen and Their Knowledge of the World

Abstract

In the above lines from Dryden’s panegyric to Charles Stuart, the restored King emerges no worse for wear. Figured as necessary components of the young man’s political education, travail and travel render Charles a wiser king. What’s striking about these lines is the way they authorize Charles’s claim to the throne, both by labeling that claim “rightful,” with all that it connotes in terms of the authority of lineage, and by augmenting this authority through a rhetoric of experience. Astraea Redux (1660) does identify Charles, by way of David and the phrase “God’s anointed,” with the divine right of kings, but it also takes pains to modernize the monarchy. Who better to inherit the throne than someone who’s seen something of the world? Someone who’s “made all countries where he came his own”? Someone whose knowledge of men, manners and things, of foreign courts and foreign tongues, easily translates into political prowess? The sacred lineage of the Stuart line is indubitable, and yet it hardly matters; for in a geopolitical world, even a monarch requires an education and some experience. As nimble as it is celebratory, Dryden’s verse performs a rhetorical sleight of hand that is a recurring concern of this study: the redeployment of traditional signs and symbols in the making of modern Britain.

How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express,

That must his sufferings both regret and bless?

For when his early valour heaven had crossed,

And all at Worcester but the honour lost,

Forced into exile from his rightful throne,

He made all countries where he came his own;

And viewing monarchs’ secret arts of sway,

A royal factor for their kingdoms lay.

Thus banished David spent abroad his time,

When to be God’s anointed was his crime;

And when restored made his proud neighbours rue

Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.

—John Dryden, Astraea Redux

Education is always the worse, in Proportion to the Wealth and Grandeur of the Parents: Nor do I doubt in the least, that if the whole World were now under the Dominion of one Monarch … the only Son and Heir of that Monarch, would be the worst educated Mortal that ever was born since the Creation: And I doubt the same Proportion will hold through all Degrees and Titles, from an Emperor downward to the common Gentry.

I DO not say, that this has been always the Case; for in better Times it was directly otherwise; and a Scholar may fill half his Greek and Roman Shelves with Authors of the noblest Birth, as well as highest Virtue.

—Jonathan Swift, The Intelligencer No. IX