George Washingtons Rules of Civility | Page 6

these things, thy own guilt will multiply Crimes by example, and as it were, confirme Ill by authority." And "Shift not yourself in the sight of others" hardly does duty for the precept, "It is insufferable impoliteness to stretch the body, extend the arms, and assume different postures." There are, however, but few instances in which the sense of the original has been lost; indeed, the rendering of the Washington MS. is generally an improvement on the original, which is too diffuse, and even more an improvement on the Hawkins version.
Indeed, although Washington was precocious,--a surveyor at seventeen,--it would argue qualities not hitherto ascribed to him were we to suppose that, along with his faulty grammar and spelling, he was competent at fourteen for such artistic selection and prudent omission as are shown by a comparison of his 110 Rules with the 170 much longer ones of the English version. The omission of religious passages, save the very general ones with which the Rules close, and of all scriptural ones, is equally curious whether we refer the Rules to young Washington or to the Rector who taught him. But it would be of some significance if we suppose the boy to have omitted the precept to live "peeceably in that vocation unto which providence hath called thee;" and still more that he should have derived nothing from the following: "Do not think thou canst be a friend to the King whilst thou art an enemy to God: if thy crying iniquity should invite God's judgments to the Court, it would cost thy Soveraigne dear, to give them entertainment." If Washington was acquainted with
Part II. of "Youth's Behaviour," relating to women and
dedicated to ladies of the Washington race, it is remarkable that no word relating to that sex is found among his Rules.[1]
[Footnote 1: In the edition of Hawkins (1663) bound up with
Part II. in
the British Museum (bearing on the cover the name and arms of the "Hon'ble Thos. Greville") there is just one precept concerning women: "If thou art yet unmarried, but intendest to get thee a wife modest, rather than beautiful, meddle not with those Ladies of the Game, who make pageants of their Cheeks, and Shops of their Shoulders, and (contrary to all other Trades) keep open their Windows on the Sabbath-day, impudently exposing their nakedness to the view of a whole Congregation," &c. There are, in an appendix, pictures of a puritanically shrouded "Virtue," and a "Vice" who, apart from the patches on her face, singularly resembles a portrait of pretty Lady Ferrars in Codrington's book (ante, p. 21) ed. 1672.]
On the whole, though it is very uncertain, the balance of probabilities seems to favour the theory that the Rules of Civility, found in a copy-book among school exercises, exceedingly abbreviated, and marked by clerical errors unusual with Washington, were derived from the oral teachings of his preceptor; that this Frenchman utilised (and was once or twice misled by) the English version along with the original, which had been used as a manual in his Rouen College.
The Marie family of Rouen,--from which came the Maryes of Virginia,--is distinguished both in Catholic and Huguenot annals. Among the eminent Jesuit authors was Pierre Marie, who was born at Rouen, 1589, and died at Bourges, 1645. He was author of "La Sainte Solitude; ou les Entretiens solitaires de l'ame," and of "La Science du Crucifix: en forme de méditations." The family was divided by the Huguenot movement, and a Protestant branch took root in England. Concerning the latter, Agnew (French Protestant Exiles, i. p. 100) gives the following information:--
"Jean Marie, pasteur of Lion-sur-mer, was a refugee in England from the St. Bartholomew massacre. He is supposed to have belonged to the same family as the Huguenot martyr, Marin Marie, a native of St. George in the diocese of Lisieux. It was in the year 1559 that that valiant man, who had become a settler in Geneva, was arrested at Sens when on a missionary journey to France, laden with a bale of Bibles and New Testaments, and publications for the promotion of the Protestant Reformation; he was burnt at Paris, in the place Maubert, on the 3d of August of that year. Our pasteur was well received in England, and was sent to Norwich, of which city he appears to have been the first French minister. He was lent to the reformed churches of France when liberty of preaching revived, and so returned to Normandy, where we find him in 1583. The first National Synod of Vitré held its meetings in that year, between the 15th and 27th of May. Quick's 'Synodicon' (vol. i. p. 153) quotes the following minute:--'Our brother, Monsieur Marie, minister of the church of Norwich in England, but living at present in Normandy, shall be obliged