Every art has its dialect, uncouth and ungrateful to
all whom custom has not reconciled to its sound, and
which therefore becomes ridiculous by a slight
misapplication, or unnecessary repetition.
The general reproach with which ignorance
revenges the superciliousness of learning, is that of
pedantry; a censure which every man incurs, who
has at any time the misfortune to talk to those who
cannot understand him, and by which the modest
and timorous are sometimes frighted from the display
of their acquisitions, and the exertion of their
powers.
The name of a pedant is so formidable to young
men when they first sally from their colleges, and
is so liberally scattered by those who mean to boast
their elegance of education, easiness of manners,
and knowledge of the world, that it seems to require
particular consideration; since, perhaps, if it were
once understood, many a heart might be freed from
painful apprehensions, and many a tongue delivered
from restraint.
Pedantry is the unseasonable ostentation of
learning. It may be discovered either in the choice of a
subject, or in the manner of treating it. He is
undoubtedly guilty of pedantry, who, when he has
made himself master of some abstruse and uncultivated
part of knowledge, obtrudes his remarks and
discoveries upon those whom he believes unable to
judge of his proficiency, and from whom, as he
cannot fear contradiction, he cannot properly expect
applause.
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