It is shocking in nature for the young to see those whom they should have an awe for in circumstances of contempt. I shall therefore utterly forbid, that those in whom nature should admonish to avoid too gross familiarities, shall be received in parties of pleasure where there is the least danger of excess. I should run through the whole doctrine of drinking, but that my thoughts are at present too much employed in the modelling my Court of Honour; and altering the seats, benches, bar, and canopy from that of the court wherein I last winter sat upon causes of less moment. By the way, I shall take an opportunity to examine, what method is to be taken to make joiners and other artificers get out of a house they have once entered, not forgetting to tie them under proper regulations. It is for want of such rules, that I have a day or two longer than I expected been tormented and deafened with hammers, insomuch that I neither can pursue this discourse, or answer the following and many other letters of the highest importance.
"We are man and wife, and have a boy and a girl: the lad seventeen, the maiden sixteen. We are quarrelling about some parts of their education. I, Ralph, cannot bear that I must pay for the girl's learning on the spinnet, when I know she has no ear. I, Bridget, have not patience to have my son whipped because he cannot make verses, when I know he is a blockhead. Pray, sir, inform us, is it absolutely necessary that all who wear breeches must be taught to rhyme, all in petticoats to touch an instrument? Please to interpose in this and the like cases, to end much solid distress which arises from trifling causes, as it is common in wedlock, and you will very much oblige us and ours.
From _Saturday, Nov. 18_, to _Tuesday, Nov. 21, 1710_.
----Pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant.
EXTRACT OF THE JOURNAL OF THE COURT OF HONOUR, 1710.[196]
Die lunae vicesimo Novembris, hora nona ante-meridiana.
The court being sat, an oath prepared by the censor was administered to the assistants on his right hand, who were all sworn upon their honour. The women on his left hand took the same oath upon their reputation. Twelve gentlemen of the Horse Guards were empanelled, having unanimously chosen Mr. Alexander Truncheon, who is their right-hand man in the troop, for their foreman in the jury. Mr. Truncheon immediately drew his sword, and holding it with the point towards his own body, presented it to the censor. Mr. Bickerstaff received it, and after having surveyed the breadth of the blade, and sharpness of the point, with more than ordinary attention, returned it to the foreman in a very graceful manner. The rest of the jury, upon the delivery of the sword to their foreman, drew all of them together as one man, and saluted the bench with such an air, as signified the most resigned submission to those who commanded them, and the greatest magnanimity to execute what they should command.