Note 14 — Chapter I · CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. (Boys.)

Although French, High Dutch, and Italian were taught, it was a Classical age, and every gentleman was bound to be a fair, if not a good, classical scholar; indeed, other branches of education were neglected for this, as Steele complains (Spectator, No. 147) that boys at school, 'When they are got into Latin, they are looked upon as above English, the reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very little purpose.' We might look a long time now-a-days for an advertisement such as the following: 'At Hogarth's[14] Coffee House in St. John's Gate, the mid-way between Smithfield Bars and Clerkenwel, there will meet every day at 4 o'clock some Learned Gentlemen who speak Latin readily, where any Gentleman that is either skilled in that Language, or desirous to perfect himself in speaking thereof, will be welcome. The Master of the House, in the absence of others, being always ready to entertain gentlemen in the Latin Tongue.' It is much to be doubted if that literary society, the Urban Club, which till lately held its meetings at the same place, St. John's Gate, could do the same.