SECT. V.
XXVI. Neither do I believe above half that is said, of the neglect that is shewn to merit, and the abandoned situation it finds itself in at court; for the number of candidates for preferment that may be found there, who have no merit at all, would upon enquiry appear to be very considerable, and that among them, you will meet with mischief-makers, together with crafty, deceitful, and treacherous people, whose bad practices and characters, it is almost beyond the power of language to describe; who are a sort of imps of Satan, that for the most part serve the Devil without pay; and are a kind of galley slaves upon earth, who join to that slavery, being the galley boatswains mates, or drivers of each other, whose oar, and whose scourge, are never out of their hands, for fear of their not being the first to arrive at the desired port, and to accomplish what they had in view. They are a species of idolaters of Fortune, who sacrifice as victims to that deity, their companions, their relations, their friends, and their benefactors; and in the end themselves also, or their own souls. What have we not to expect, or what have we not to fear from men of this character?
XXVII. I have been three times at court, but either from my natural incuriosity, or because my stay there each time was but short, I came away as ignorant of the practices of a court, as I went; and only took particular notice of one circumstance, which is relative to the subject I am now treating of. I saw there, as in other places, Urbanity degenerate into that fulsome kind of ceremony, which may be termed cringing complaisance. Accident furnished me with numberless opportunities of seeing such things; and I have frequently observed two people who have usually met together in their walks, and who, as I have been informed, had a tolerable indifference for each other, and even looked upon one another with reciprocal contempt; I say I have seen these people upon their meeting, strive which should excel in expressions of the love, veneration and respect they bore to each other. There was scarce a word came out of their mouths, which was not accompanied with some affected gestures. Their eyes cast glances of tender devotion on each other, and milk and honey flowed from their lips; but at the same time their affectation was so palpable, that any man of the least discernment, might have perceived the disagreement there was, between their hearts and their appearances. I laughed inwardly at them both, and I believe they also in their hearts, laughed mutually at each other.
XXVIII. I saw once two lawyers accost each other, with such extreme expressions of tenderness, that a Portuguese might have learned from them, phrases and gestures for feats of gallantry. Both these people had places at court, on which account they could not avoid seeing each other pretty frequently; and there was no friendship between them; notwithstanding which, their expressions were like those of the most cordial friends, who had met together after a long absence.
XXXIX. Having expressed to some people who were used to the court, how disgusting this appeared to me, they answered that this was behaving in the court stile; but would not any one who hears this, conclude the court was nothing but a comic theatre, where all the world act the part of enamoratos; although to speak the truth, it was only in spirits of inferior order, that I noted this amorous kind of farrago. In those of more elevated hearts and minds, if they don’t owe the thing to their own genius and disposition, the education of a court produces a better effect, and exhibits people of a more noble behaviour, and such as is proper to, and expressive of true urbanity. I say I have observed in such, affability, sweetness, expressions of benevolence, and offers of kind services; all which were tendered with propriety, and in a decent generous manner, free from affected exaggerations, but animated at the same time, and expressed with so natural an air, that the articulations of the tongue, were indications of the emotions of the mind, and the feelings of the heart.
XXX. Cato, as Tully tells us, said, he wondered how two augurs whenever they met, could refrain from laughing at each other; as they both well knew, that their whole art was a mere imposture. I think the saying may be applied to two fulsomely complaisant courtiers; for I do not see how those who have once saluted each other in this cringing and affected way, can upon meeting again, forbear laughing in each others faces, as they both know, that all the hyperbolical professions of their esteem, affection, and readiness to oblige, mean nothing, and that this is all a mere common-place farrago or rhapsody, quite destitute of truth or reality.
XXXI. I have said, that in the lesser towns I have visited, I have not observed so much by a great deal, of this ridiculous parade. It is true, that you will find in them, some few people who walk about the streets with incense in their hands, to offer up to, and idolize all those, whom they fancy can be of any service to them; but they are looked upon like what they are, not as men of worth, but as men of craft, whose incense smells savoury in the nostrils of none but fools. This sort of behaviour about the court, frequently passes for good-breeding; but in these other places it is condemned as meanness.