The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1883-09-22 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

PEDANTRY.  (SELECTED.) lo least symptom of learning, or w more than your footmen, is nco against the rules of polite.nded with the name of pedantry g. The very sound of a Roman namel, or a hard name, as the -though their own, perhaps, is -is enough to disconcert the terncountesses, and to strike a y of find gentlemen dumb with  nishness of theirs is owing to to pedantry, which they underIrt of mustiness that can only be recluse and a studious life, and  it foible peculiar to men of letters. But if a strong attachment to a peculiar subject, a total ignorance of every other, an eagerness to introduce that subject upon all occasions, end a confirmed habit of declaiming upon it without either wit or discretion be the marks of a, pedantic character, as they certainly are, it belongs to the illiterate as well as the learned; and St. James's itself may boast of producing as arrant pedants as were ever sent forth from acollege. I know a woman of fashion who is perpetually employed in remarks upon Lb* weather, who observes from morning to noon that it is likely to rain, and from noon to night I that it spite, that it rnizzles, that it is set in for I a wet evening; and, being incapable of any other discourse, is as insipid a companion, and just as pedantic, as he who quotes Aristotle over his tea or talks Greek ate-card-table. A gentleman of my acquaintance is a constant attendant upon Parliamentary business, and I have heard him entertain a large circle, by the hour, with the speeches that were made in a debate upon mum and perry. He has a wonderful memory, and a kind of oratorical tone in his elocution that serves him instead of an emphasis. By those means be has acquired the reputation of having a deal to say for himself; but as it consists entirely of what others have said for themselves before him, and if he should be deaf during the sessions he would certainly be dumb in the intervals, I must needs set him down for a pedant. But the most troublesome, as well as most dangerous character of this sort that I am so unhappy as to be connected with is a stripling who spends his whole life in a fencing school. This athletic young pedant is indeed a most formidable creature. His whole conversation lies in quart and fierce. If you meet him in the street he salutes you in the gymnastic manner, throws him,--elf back upon his left hip, levels his cane at the pit of your stomach, and looks as fierce as a prize-fighter. In the midst of a discourse upon polities he starts from the table on a sudden, and splits himself into amonstrous lounge against the wainscot. Immediately he puts a foil into your hand, insists upon teaching you his murdering thrust, and if in the course of his instructions he pushes. out an eye or a front tooth, he tells you that you flapped your point or dropped your wrist, and imputes all the (mischief to the awkwardness of his pupil. I The musical pedant, who, instead of attending to the discourse, diverts himself with humming an air, or if he speaks expresses himself in the language of the orchestra; the Newmarket pedant, who has no knowledge but what he gathers upon the turf; the female pedant, who is an adept in nothing but the patterns of silks and flounces; and the coffee-house pedant, whose whole erudition lies within the margin of a newspaper, are nuisances so extremely common that it is almost unnecessary to mention them. :Yet, pedants as they are, they shelter themselves under the fashionableness of their foible, and, with all the properties of the character, generally escape the imputation of it. In my opinion, however, they deserdh our censure more than the merest bookworm imaginable. The man of letters is usually confined to his study, and having but little pleasure in conversing with men of the world, does not intrude himself into their company. These unlearned pedants, on the contrary, are to be met with everywhere; they have nothing to do but to run about and be troublesome, and are universally the bane of agreeable conversation.