then the modest Man must proceed, and shew a latent Resolution in himself; for the Admiration of his Modesty arises from the Manifestation of his Merit.  I must confess we live in an Age wherein a few empty Blusterers carry away the Praise of Speaking, while a Crowd of Fellows over-stock’d with Knowledge are run down by them.  I say Over-stock’d, because they certainly are so as to their Service of Mankind, if from their very Store they raise to themselves Ideas of Respect, and Greatness of the Occasion, and I know not what, to disable themselves from explaining their Thoughts.  I must confess, when I have seen Charles Frankair rise up with a commanding Mien, and Torrent of handsome Words, talk a Mile off the Purpose, and drive down twenty bashful Boobies of ten times his Sense, who at the same time were envying his Impudence and despising his Understanding, it has been matter of great Mirth to me; but it soon ended in a secret Lamentation, that the Fountains of every thing praiseworthy in these Realms, the Universities, should be so muddied with a false Sense of this Virtue, as to produce Men capable of being so abused.  I will be bold to say, that it is a ridiculous Education which does not qualify a Man to make his best Appearance before the greatest Man and the finest Woman to whom he can address himself.  Were this judiciously corrected in the Nurseries of Learning, pert Coxcombs would know their Distance:  But we must bear with this false Modesty in our young Nobility and Gentry, till they cease at Oxford and Cambridge to grow dumb in the Study of Eloquence.

T.

[Footnote 1:  The citation is from a charming letter in which Pliny (Bk. v. letter 17) tells Spurinna the pleasure he had just received from a recitation by a noble youth in the house of Calpurnius Piso, and how, when it was over, he gave the youth many kisses and praises, congratulated his mother and his brother, in whom, as the reciter tried his powers, first fear for him and then delight in him was manifest.  To the sentences quoted above the next is

  ’Etenim, nescio quo pacto, magis in studiis homines timor quam fiducia
  decet.’

  ’I don’t know how it is, but in brain-work mistrust better becomes men
  than self-confidence.’]

[Footnote 2:  Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act v. sc. 1.]

* * * * *

No. 485.  Tuesday, September 16, 1712.  Steele.

  ‘Nihil tam firmum est, cui periculum non sit, etiam ab Invalido.’

  Quint.  Curt.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,