g to my lodgings, I could not
forbear throwing together such reflections as occurred to me upon
that subject.

A man who has been brought up among books, and is able to talk of
nothing else, is a very indifferent companion, and what we call a
pedant. But, methinks, we should enlarge the title, and give it to
every one that does not know how to think out of his profession and
particular way of life.

What is a greater pedant than a mere man of the town? Bar him the
play-houses, a catalog of the reigning beauties, and an account of a
few fashionable distempers that have befallen him, and you strike him
dumb. How many a pretty gentleman's knowledge lies all within the
verge of the court! He will tell you the names of the principal
favorites, repeat the shrewd sayings of a man of quality, whisper an
intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere
of his observation is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps
enter into all the incidents, turns, and revolutions in a game of
ombre. When he has gone thus far, he has shown you the whole circle of
his accomplishments, his parts are drained, and he is disabled from
any further conversation. What are these but rank pedants? and yet
these are the men who value themselves most on their exemption from
the pedantry of colleges.

I might here mention the military pedant, who always talks in a camp,
and is storming towns, making lodgments, and fighting battles from one
end of the year to the other. Everything he speaks smells of
gunpowder: if you take away his artillery from him, he has not a word
to say for himself. I might likewise mention the law pedant, that is
perpetually putting eases, repeating the transactions of Westminster
Hall, wrangling with you upon the most indifferent circumstances of
life, and not to be convinced of the distance of a place, or of the
most trivial point in conversation, but by dint of argument. The state
pedant is wrapt up in news, and lost in politics. If you mention
either of the kings of Spain or Poland, he talks very notably; but if
you go out of the Gazette, you drop him. In short, a mere courtier, a
mere soldier, a mere scholar, a mere anything, is an insipid pedantic
character, and equally ridiculous.

Of all the species of pedants which I have mentioned, the book pedant
is much the most supportable: he has at least an exercised
understanding, and a head which is full tho confused, so that a man
who converses with him