English Travellers of the Renaissance
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Title: English Travellers of the Renaissance
Author: Clare Howard
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH TRAVELLERS OF THE RENAISSANCE ***
ENGLISH TRAVELLERS
OF THE RENAISSANCE
BY
CLARE HOWARD
BURT FRANKLIN: BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCE SERIES #179
1914
PREFACE
This essay was written in 1908-1910 while I was studying at Oxford as
Fellow of the Society of American Women in London. Material on the
subject of travel in any century is apparently inexhaustible, and one
could write many books on the subject without duplicating sources. The
following aims no further than to describe one phase of Renaissance
travel in clear and sharp outline, with sufficient illustration to
embellish but not to clog the main ideas.
In the preparation of this book I incurred many debts of gratitude. I
would thank the staff of the Bodleian, especially Mr W.H.B. Somerset,
for their kindness during the two years I was working in the library of
Oxford University; and Dr Perlbach, Abteilungsdirektor of the Königliche
Bibliothek at Berlin, who forwarded to me some helpful information
concerning the early German books of instructions for travellers; and
Professor Clark S. Northup, of Cornell University, for similar aid. To
Mr George Whale I am indebted for the use of his transcript of Sloane
MS. 1813, and to my friend Miss M.E. Marshall, of the Board of Trade,
for the generous gift of her leisure hours in reading for me in the
British Museum after the sea had divided me from that treasure-house of
information.
I would like to acknowledge with thanks the kind advice of Sir Walter
Raleigh and Sir Sidney Lee, whose generosity in giving time and
scholarship many students besides myself are in a position to
appreciate. Mr L. Pearsall Smith, from whose work on the _Life and
Letters of Sir Henry Wotton_ I have drawn copiously, gave me also
courteous personal assistance.
To the Faculty of the English Department at Columbia University I owe
the gratitude of one who has received her earliest inclination to
scholarship from their teachings. I am under heavy obligations to
Professor A.H. Thorndike and Professor G.P. Krapp for their corrections
and suggestions in the proof-sheets of this book, and to Professor W.P.
Trent for continued help and encouragement throughout my studies at
Columbia and elsewhere.
Above all, I wish to emphasize the aid of Professor C.H. Firth, of
Oxford University, whose sympathy and comprehension of the difficulties
of a beginner in the field he so nobly commands can be understood only
by those, like myself, who come to Oxford aspiring and alone. I wish
this essay were a more worthy result of his influence.
CLARE HOWARD
BARNARD COLLEGE, NEW YORK
_October_ 1913
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION
Among the many didactic books which flooded England in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were certain essays on travel. Some of these have
never been brought to light since their publication more than three
hundred years ago, or been mentioned by the few writers who have
interested themselves in the literature of this subject. In the
collections of voyages and explorations, so often garnered, these have
found no place. Most of them are very rare, and have never been
reprinted. Yet they do not deserve to be thus overlooked, and in several
ways this survey of them will, I think, be useful for students of
literature.
They reveal a widespread custom among Elizabethan and Jacobean
gentlemen, of completing their education by travel. There are scattered
allusions to this practice, in contemporary social documents: Anthony à
Wood frequently explains how such an Oxonian "travelled beyond seas and
returned a compleat Person,"--but nowhere is this ideal of a
cosmopolitan education so explicitly set forth as it is in these essays.
Addressed to the intending tourist, they are in no sense to be confused
with guide-books or itineraries. They are discussions of the benefits of
travel, admonitions and warnings, arranged to put the traveller in the
proper attitude of mind towards his great task of self-development.
Taken in chronological order they outline for us the life of the
travelling student.
Beginning with the end of the sixteenth century when travel became the
fashion, as the only means of acquiring modern languages and modern
history, as well as those physical accomplishments and social graces by
which a young man won his way at Court, they trace his evolution up to
the time when it had no longer any serious motive; that is, when the
chairs of modern history and modern languages were founded at the
English universities, and when, with the fall of the Stuarts, the Court
ceased to be the arbiter of men's fortunes. In the course of this
evolution they show us many phases of continental influence in England;
how Italian immorality infected young imaginations, how the Jesuits won
travellers to their religion, how France became the model of deportment,
what were the origins of the Grand Tour, and so forth.
That these directions for travel were not isolated oddities of
literature, but were the expression of a widespread ideal of the English
gentry, I have tried to show in the following study. The essays can
hardly be appreciated without support from biography and history, and
for that reason I have introduced some concrete illustrations of the
sort of traveller to whom the books were addressed. If I have not always
quoted the "Instructions" fully, it is because they repeat one another
on some points. My plan has been to comment on whatever in each book was
new, or showed the evolution of travel for study's sake.
The result, I hope, will serve to show something of the cosmopolitanism
of English society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; of the
closer contact which held between England and the Continent, while
England was not yet great and self-sufficient; of times when her
soldiers of low and high degree went to seek their fortunes in the Low
Countries, and her merchants journeyed in person to conduct business
with Italy; when a steady stream of Roman Catholics and exiles for
political reasons trooped to France or Flanders for years together.
These discussions of the art of travel are relics of an age when
Englishmen, next to the Germans, were known for the greatest travellers
among all nations. In the same boat-load with merchants, spies, exiles,
and diplomats from England sailed the young gentleman fresh from his
university, to complete his education by a look at the most civilized
countries of the world. He approached the Continent with an inquiring,
open mind, eager to learn, quick to imitate the refinements and ideas of
countries older than his own. For the same purpose that now takes
American students to England, or Japanese students to America, the
English striplings once journeyed to France, comparing governments and
manners, watching everything, noting everything, and coming home to
benefit their country by new ideas.
I hope, also, that a review of these forgotten volumes may lend an added
pleasure to the reading of books greater than themselves in Elizabethan
literature. One cannot fully appreciate the satire of Amorphus's claim
to be "so sublimated and refined by travel," and to have "drunk in the
spirit of beauty in some eight score and eighteen princes' courts where
I have resided,"[1] unless one has read of the benefits of travel as
expounded by the current Instructions for Travellers; nor the dialogues
between Sir Politick-Would-be and Peregrine in _Volpone, or the Fox_.
Shakespeare, too, in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, has taken bodily the
arguments of the Elizabethan orations in praise of travel:
"Some to the warres, to try their fortune there;
Some, to discover Islands farre away;
Some, to the studious Universities;
For any, or for all these exercises,
He said, thou Proteus, your sonne was meet;
And did request me, to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home;
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
In having knowne no travaile in his youth.
(Antonio) Nor need'st thou much importune me to that
Whereon, this month I have been hamering,
I have considered well, his losse of time,
And how he cannot be a perfect man,
Not being tryed, and tutored in the world;
Experience is by industry atchiev'd,
And perfected by the swift course of time."
(Act I. Sc. iii.)
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAVEL FOR CULTURE
Pilgrimages at the close of the Middle Ages--New objects for travel in
the fifteenth century--Humanism--Diplomatic ambition--Linguistic
acquirement.
CHAPTER II
THE HIGH PURPOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN TRAVELLER
Development of the individual--Benefit to the Commonwealth--First books
addressed to travellers.
CHAPTER III
SOME CYNICAL ASPERSIONS UPON THE BENEFITS OF TRAVEL
The Italianate Englishman.
CHAPTER IV
PERILS FOR PROTESTANT TRAVELLERS
The Inquisition--The Jesuits--Penalties of recusancy.
CHAPTER V
THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH ACADEMIES
France the arbiter of manners in the seventeenth century--Riding the
great horse--Attempts to establish academies in England--Why travellers
neglected Spain.
CHAPTER VI
THE GRAND TOUR
Origin of the term--Governors for young travellers--Expenses of travel.
CHAPTER VII
THE DECADENCE OF THE GRAND TOUR
The decline of the courtier--Foundation of chairs of Modern History and
Modern Languages at Oxford and Cambridge--Englishmen become
self-sufficient--Books of travel become common--Advent of the Romantic
traveller who travels for scenery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
FOOTNOTES
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF TRAVEL FOR CULTURE
Of the many social impulses that were influenced by the Renaissance, by
that "new lernynge which runnythe all the world over now-a-days," the
love of travel received a notable modification. This very old instinct
to go far, far away had in the Middle Ages found sanction, dignity and
justification in the performance of pilgrimages. It is open to doubt
whether the number of the truly pious would ever have filled so many
ships to Port Jaffa had not their ranks been swelled by the restless,
the adventurous, the wanderers of all classes.
Towards the sixteenth century, when curiosity about things human was an
ever stronger undercurrent in England, pilgrimages were particularly
popular. In 1434, Henry VI. granted licences to 2433 pilgrims to the
shrine of St James of Compostella alone.[2] The numbers were so large
that the control of their transportation became a coveted business
enterprise. "Pilgrims at this time were really an article of
exportation," says Sir Henry Ellis, in commenting on a letter of the
Earl of Oxford to Henry VI., asking for a licence for a ship of which he
was owner, to carry pilgrims. "Ships were every year loaded from
different ports with cargoes of these deluded wanderers, who carried
with them large sums of money to defray the expenses of their
journey."[3]
Among the earliest books printed in England was _Informacon for
Pylgrymes unto the Holy Londe,_ by Wynkin de Worde, one which ran to
three editions,[4] an almost exact copy of William Wey's "prevysyoun"
(provision) for a journey eastwards.[5] The tone and content of this
_Informacon_ differ very little from the later Directions for Travellers
which are the subject of our study. The advice given shows that the
ordinary pilgrim thought, not of the ascetic advantages of the voyage,
or of simply arriving in safety at his holy destination, but of making
the trip in the highest possible degree of personal comfort and
pleasure. He is advised to take with him two barrels of wine ("For yf ye
wolde geve xx dukates for a barrel ye shall none have after that ye
passe moche Venyse"); to buy orange-ginger, almonds, rice, figs, cloves,
maces and loaf sugar also, to eke out the fare the ship will provide.
And this although he is to make the patron swear, before the pilgrim
sets foot in the galley, that he will serve "hote meete twice at two
meals a day." He whom we are wont to think of as a poor wanderer, with
no possessions but his grey cloak and his staff, is warned not to embark
for the Holy Land without carrying with him "a lytell cawdron, a fryenge
panne, dysshes, platers, cuppes of glasse ... a fether bed, a matrasse,
a pylawe, two payre sheets and a quylte" ... a cage for half a dozen of
hens or chickens to have with you in the ship, and finally, half a
bushel of "myle sede" to feed the chickens. Far from being encouraged to
exercise a humble and abnegatory spirit on the voyage, he is to be at
pains to secure a berth in the middle of the ship, and not to mind
paying fifty ducats for to be in a good honest place, "to have your ease
in the galey and also to be cherysshed." Still more unchristian are the
injunctions to run ahead of one's fellows, on landing, in order to get
the best quarters at the inn, and first turn at the dinner provided; and
above all, at Port Jaffa, to secure the best ass, "for ye shall paye no
more for the best than for the worste."
But while this book was being published, new forces were at hand which
were to strip the thin disguise of piety from pilgrims of this sort. The
Colloquies of Erasmus appeared before the third edition of _Informacon
for Pylgrymes_, and exploded the idea that it was the height of piety to
have seen Jerusalem. It was nothing but the love of change, Erasmus
declared, that made old bishops run over huge spaces of sea and land to
reach Jerusalem. The noblemen who flocked thither had better be looking
after their estates, and married men after their wives. Young men and
women travelled "non sine gravi discrimine morum et integritatis."
Pilgrimages were a dissipation. Some people went again and again and did
nothing else all their lives long.[6] The only satisfaction they looked
for or received was entertainment to themselves and their friends by
their remarkable adventures, and ability to shine at dinner-tables by
recounting their travels.[7] There was no harm in going sometimes, but
it was not pious. And people could spend their time, money and pains on
something which was truly pious.[8]
It was only a few years after this that that pupil of Erasmus and his
friends, King Henry the Eighth, who startled Europe by the way he not
only received new ideas but acted upon them, swept away the shrines,
burned our Lady of Walsingham and prosecuted "the holy blisful martyr"
Thomas à Becket for fraudulent pretensions.[9]
But a new object for travel was springing up and filling the leading
minds of the sixteenth century--the desire of learning, at first hand,
the best that was being thought and said in the world. Humanism was the
new power, the new channel into which men were turning in the days when
"our naturell, yong, lusty and coragious prynce and sovrayne lord King
Herre the Eighth entered into the flower of pleasaunt youthe."[10] And
as the scientific spirit or the socialistic spirit can give to the
permanent instincts of the world a new zest, so the Renaissance passion
for self-expansion and for education gave to the old road a new mirage.
All through the fifteenth century the universities of Italy, pre-eminent
since their foundation for secular studies, had been gaining reputation
by their offer of a wider education than the threadbare discussions of
the schoolmen. The discovery and revival in the fifteenth century of
Greek literature, which had stirred Italian society so profoundly, gave
to the universities a northward-spreading fame. Northern scholars, like
Rudolf Agricola, hurried south to find congenial air at the centre of
intellectual life. That professional humanists could not do without the
stamp of true culture which an Italian degree gave to them, Erasmus,
observer of all things, notes in the year 1500 to the Lady of Veer:
"Two things, I feel, are very necessary: one that I go to Italy, to gain
for my poor learning some authority from the celebrity of the place; the
other, that I take the degree of Doctor; both senseless, to be sure. For
people do not straightway change their minds because they cross the sea,
as Horace says, nor will the shadow of an impressive name make me a whit
more learned ... but we must put on the lion's skin to prove our ability
to those who judge a man by his title and not by his books, which in
truth they do not understand."[11]
Although Erasmus despised degree-hunting, it is well known that he felt
the power of Italy. He was tempted to remain in Rome for ever, by reason
of the company he found there. "What a sky and fields, what libraries
and pleasant walks and sweet confabulation with the learned ..."[12] he
exclaims, in afterwards recalling that paradise of scholars. There was,
for instance, the Cardinal Grimani, who begged Erasmus to share his life
... and books.[13] And there was Aldus Manutius. We get a glimpse of the
Venetian printing-house when Aldus and Erasmus worked together: Erasmus
sitting writing regardless of the noise of printers, while Aldus
breathlessly reads proof, admiring every word. "We were so busy," says
Erasmus, "we scarce had time to scratch our ears."[14]
It was this charm of intellectual companionship which started the whole
stream of travel _animi causa_. Whoever had keen wits, an agile mind,
imagination, yearned for Italy. There enlightened spirits struck sparks
from one another. Young and ardent minds in England and in Germany found
an escape from the dull and melancholy grimness of their uneducated
elders--purely practical fighting-men, whose ideals were fixed on a
petrified code of life.
I need not explain how Englishmen first felt this charm of urbane
civilization. The travels of Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, of Gunthorpe,
Flemming, Grey and Free, have been recently described by Mr Einstein in
_The Italian Renaissance in England_. As for Italian journeys of
Selling, Grocyn, Latimer, Tunstall, Colet and Lily, of that
extraordinary group of scholars who transformed Oxford by the
introduction of Greek ideals and gave to it the peculiar distinction
which is still shining, I mention them only to suggest that they are the
source of the Renaissance respect for a foreign education, and the
founders of the fashion which, in its popular spreadings, we will
attempt to trace. They all studied in Italy, and brought home nothing
but good. For to scholarship they joined a native force of character
which gave a most felicitous introduction to England of the fine things
of the mind which they brought home with them. By their example they
gave an impetus to travel for education's sake which lesser men could
never have done.
Though through Grocyn, Linacre and Tunstall, Greek was better taught in
England than in Italy, according to Erasmus,[15] at the time Henry VIII.
came to the throne, the idea of Italy as the goal of scholars persisted.
Rich churchmen, patrons of letters, launched promising students on to
the Continent to give them a complete education; as Richard Fox, Founder
of Corpus Christi, sent Edward Wotton to Padua, "to improve his learning
and chiefly to learn Greek,"[16] or Thomas Langton, Bishop of
Winchester, supported Richard Pace at the same university.[17] To
Reginald Pole, the scholar's life in Italy made so strong an appeal that
he could never be reclaimed by Henry VIII. Shunning all implication in
the tumult of the political world, he slipped back to Padua, and there
surrounded himself with friends,--"singular fellows, such as ever
absented themselves from the court, desiring to live holily."[18] To his
household at Padua gravitated other English students fond of "good
company and the love of learned men"; Thomas Lupset,[19] the confidant
of Erasmus and Richard Pace; Thomas Winter,[20] Wolsey's reputed natural
son; Thomas Starkey,[21] the historian; George Lily,[22] son of the
grammarian; Michael Throgmorton, and Richard Morison,[23]
ambassador-to-be.
There were other elements that contributed to the growth of travel
besides the desire to become exquisitely learned. The ambition of Henry
VIII. to be a power in European politics opened the liveliest
intercourse with the Continent. It was soon found that a special
combination of qualities was needed in the ambassadors to carry out his
aspirations. Churchmen, like the ungrateful Pole, for whose education he
had generously subscribed, were often unpliable to his views of the
Pope; a good old English gentleman, though devoted, might be like Sir
Robert Wingfield, simple, unsophisticated, and the laughingstock of
foreigners.[24] A courtier, such as Lord Rochford, who could play
tennis, make verses, and become "intime" at the court of Francis I.,
could not hold his own in disputes of papal authority with highly
educated ecclesiastics.[25] Hence it came about that the choice of an
ambassador fell more and more upon men of sound education who also knew
something of foreign countries: such as Sir Thomas Wyatt, or Sir Richard
Wingfield, of Cambridge and Gray's Inn, who had studied at Ferrara[26];
Sir Nicholas Wotton, who had lived in Perugia, and graduated doctor of
civil and canon law[27]; or Anthony St Lieger, who, according to Lloyd,
"when twelve years of age was sent for his grammar learning with his
tutor into France, for his carriage into Italy, for his philosophy to
Cambridge, for his law to Gray's Inn: and for that which completed all,
the government of himself, to court; where his debonairness and freedom
took with the king, as his solidity and wisdom with the Cardinal."[28]
Sometimes Henry was even at pains to pick out and send abroad promising
university students with a view to training them especially for
diplomacy. On one of his visits to Oxford he was impressed with the
comely presence and flowing expression of John Mason, who, though the
son of a cowherd, was notable at the university for his "polite and
majestick speaking."
King Henry disposed of him in foreign parts, to add practical experience
to his speculative studies, and paid for his education out of the king's
Privy Purse, as we see by the royal expenses for September 1530. Among
such items as "£8, 18s. to Hanybell Zinzano, for drinks and other
medicines for the King's Horses"; and, "20s. to the fellow with the
dancing dog," is the entry of "a year's exhibition to Mason, the King's
scholar at Paris, £3, 6s. 8d."[29]
Another educational investment of the King's was Thomas Smith,
afterwards as excellent an ambassador as Mason, whom he supported at
Cambridge, and according to Camden, at riper years made choice of to be
sent into Italy. "For even till our days," says Camden under the year
1577, "certain young men of promising hopes, out of both Universities,
have been maintained in foreign countries, at the King's charge, for the
more complete polishing of their Parts and Studies."[30] The diplomatic
career thus opened to young courtiers, if they proved themselves fit for
service by experience in foreign countries, was therefore as strong a
motive for travel as the desire to reach the source of humanism.
This again merged into the pursuit of a still more informal
education--the sort which comes from "seeing the world." The marriage of
Mary Tudor to Louis XII., and later the subtle bond of humanism and high
spirits which existed between Francis I. and his "very dear and
well-beloved good brother, cousin and gossip, perpetual ally and perfect
friend," Henry the Eighth, led a good many of Henry's courtiers to
attend the French court at one time or another--particularly the most
dashing favourites, and leaders of fashion, the "friskers," as Andrew
Boorde calls them,[31] such as Charles Brandon, George Boleyn, Francis
Bryan, Nicholas Carew, or Henry Fitzroy. With any ambassador went a bevy
of young gentlemen, who on their return diffused a certain mysterious
sophistication which was the envy of home-keeping youth. According to
Hall, when they came back to England they were "all French in eating and
drinking and apparel, yea, and in the French vices and brags: so that
all the estates of England were by them laughed at, the ladies and
gentlewomen were dispraised, and nothing by them was praised, but if it
were after the French turn."[32] From this time on young courtiers
pressed into the train of an ambassador in order to see the world and
become like Ann Boleyn's captivating brother, or Elizabeth's favourite,
the Earl of Oxford, or whatever gallant was conspicuous at court for
foreign graces.
There was still another contributory element to the growth of travel,
one which touched diplomats, scholars, and courtiers--the necessity of
learning modern languages. By the middle of the sixteenth century Latin
was no longer sufficient for intercourse between educated people. In the
most civilized countries the vernacular had been elevated to the dignity
of the classical tongues by being made the literary vehicle of such
poets as Politian and Bembo, Ronsard and Du Bellay. A vernacular
literature of great beauty, too important to be overlooked, began to
spring up on all sides. One could no longer keep abreast of the best
thought without a knowledge of modern languages. More powerful than any
academic leanings was the Renaissance curiosity about man, which could
not be satisfied through the knowledge of Latin only. Hardly anyone but
churchmen talked Latin in familiar conversation with one. When a man
visited foreign courts and wished to enter into social intercourse with
ladies and fashionables, or move freely among soldiers, or settle a bill
with an innkeeper, he found that he sorely needed the language of the
country. So by the time we reach the reign of Edward VI., we find Thomas
Hoby, a typical young gentleman of the period, making in his diary
entries such as these: "Removed to the middes of Italy, to have a better
knowledge of ye tongue and to see Tuscany." "Went to Sicily both to have
a sight of the country and also to absent myself for a while out of
Englishmenne's companie for the tung's sake."[33] Roger Ascham a year or
two later writes from Germany that one of the chief advantages of being
at a foreign court was the ease with which one learned German, French,
and Italian, whether he would or not. "I am almost an Italian myself and
never looks on it." He went so far as to say that such advantages were
worth ten fellowships at St John's.[34]
We have noted how Italy came to be the lode-stone of scholars, and how
courtiers sought the grace which France bestowed, but we have not yet
accounted for the attraction of Germany. Germany, as a centre of travel,
was especially popular in the reign of Edward the Sixth. France went
temporarily out of fashion with those men of whom we have most record.
For in Edward's reign the temper of the leading spirits in England was
notably at variance with the court of France. It was to Germany that
Edward's circle of Protestant politicians, schoolmasters, and chaplains
felt most drawn--to the country where the tides of the Reformation were
running high, and men were in a ferment over things of the spirit; to
the country of Sturm and Bucer, and Fagius and Ursinus--the
doctrinalists and educators so revered by Cambridge. Cranmer, who
gathered under his roof as many German savants as could survive in the
climate of England,[35] kept the current of understanding and sympathy
flowing between Cambridge and Germany, and since Cambridge, not Oxford,
dominated the scholarly and political world of Edward the Sixth, from
that time on Germany, in the minds of the St John's men, such as
Burleigh, Ascham and Hoby, was the place where one might meet the best
learned of the day.
We have perhaps said enough to indicate roughly the sources of the
Renaissance fashion for travel which gave rise to the essays we are
about to discuss. The scholar's desire to specialize at a foreign
university, in Greek, in medicine, or in law; the courtier's ambition to
acquire modern languages, study foreign governments, and generally fit
himself for the service of the State, were dignified aims which in men
of character produced very happy results. It was natural that others
should follow their example. In Elizabethan times the vogue of
travelling to become a "compleat person" was fully established. And
though in mean and trivial men the ideal took on such odd shapes and
produced such dubious results that in every generation there were
critics who questioned the benefits of travel, the ideal persisted.
There was always something, certainly, to be learned abroad, for men of
every calibre. Those who did not profit by the study of international
law learned new tricks of the rapier. And because experience of foreign
countries was expensive and hard to come at, the acquirement of it gave
prestige to a young man.
Besides, underneath worldly ambition was the old curiosity to see the
world and know all sorts of men--to be tried and tested. More powerful
than any theory of education was the yearning for far-off, foreign
things, and the magic of the sea.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
THE HIGH PURPOSE OF THE ELIZABETHAN TRAVELLER
The love of travel, we all know, flourished exceedingly in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. All classes felt the desire to go beyond seas upon
"Such wind as scatters young men through the world,
To seeke their fortunes farther than at home,
Where small experience growes."[36]
The explorer and the poet, the adventurer, the prodigal and the earl's
son, longed alike for foreign shores. What Ben Jonson said of Coryat
might be stretched to describe the average Elizabethan: "The mere
superscription of a letter from Zurich sets him up like a top: Basil or
Heidelberg makes him spinne. And at seeing the word Frankford, or
Venice, though but in the title of a Booke, he is readie to breake
doublet, cracke elbowes, and overflowe the roome with his murmure."[37]
Happy was an obscure gentleman like Fynes Moryson, who could roam for
ten years through the "twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohmerland,
Sweitzerand, Netherland, Denmarke, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France,
England, Scotland and Ireland" and not be peremptorily called home by
his sovereign. Sad it was to be a court favourite like Fulke Greville,
who four times, thirsting for strange lands, was plucked back to England
by Elizabeth.
At about the time (1575) when some of the most prominent
courtiers--Edward Dyer, Gilbert Talbot, the Earl of Hertford, and more
especially Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Philip Sidney--had just
returned from abroad, book-publishers thought it worth while to print
books addressed to travellers. At least, there grew up a demand for
advice to young men which became a feature of Elizabethan literature,
printed and unprinted. It was the convention for a young man about to
travel to apply to some experienced or elderly friend, and for that
friend to disburden a torrent of maxims after the manner of Polonius.
John Florio, who knew the humours of his day, represents this in a
dialogue in _Second Frutes_.[38] So does Robert Greene in _Greene's
Mourning Garment_.[39] What were at first the personal warnings of a
wise man to his young friend, such as Cecil's letter to Rutland, grew
into a generalized oration for the use of any traveller. Hence arose
manuals of instruction--marvellous little books, full of incitements to
travel as the duty of man, summaries of the leading characteristics of
foreigners, directions for the care of sore feet--and a strange medley
of matters.
Among the first essays of this sort are translations from Germanic
writers, with whom, if Turler is right, the book of precepts for travel
originated. For the Germans, with the English, were the most
indefatigable travellers of all nations. Like the English, they suddenly
woke up with a start to the idea that they were barbarians on the
outskirts of civilization, and like Chicago of the present day, sent
their young men "hustling for culture." They took up assiduously not
only the Renaissance ideal of travel as a highly educating experience,
by which one was made a complete man intellectually, but also the
Renaissance conviction that travel was a duty to the State. Since both
Germany and England were somewhat removed from the older and more
civilized nations, it was necessary for them to make an effort to learn
what was going on at the centre of the world. It was therefore the duty
of gentlemen, especially of noblemen, to whom the State would look to be
directed, to search out the marts of learning, frequent foreign courts,
and by knowing men and languages be able to advise their prince at home,
after the manner set forth in _Il Cortegiano_. It must be remembered
that in the sixteenth century there were no schools of political
economy, of modern history or modern languages at the universities. A
sound knowledge of these things had to be obtained by first-hand
observation. From this fact arose the importance of improving one's
opportunities, and the necessity for methodical, thorough inquiry, which
we shall find so insisted upon in these manuals of advice.
Hieronymus Turlerus claims that his _De Peregrinatione_ (Argentorati,
1574) is the first book to be devoted to precepts of travel. It was
translated into English and published in London in 1575, under the title
of _The Traveiler of Jerome Turler_, and is, as far as I know, the first
book of the sort in England. Not much is known of Turler, save that he
was born at Leissnig, in Saxony, in 1550, studied at Padua, became a
Doctor of Law, made such extensive travels that he included even
England--a rare thing in those days--and after serving as Burgomaster in
his native place, died in 1602. His writings, other than _De
Peregrinatione_, are three translations from Machiavelli.[40]
Turler addresses to two young German noblemen his book "written on
behalf of such as are desirous to travell, and to see foreine cuntries,
and specially of students.... Mee thinkes they do a good deede, and well
deserve of al men, that give precepts for traveyl. Which thing,
althoughe I perceive that some have done, yet have they done it here and
there in sundrie Bookes and not in any one certeine place." A discussion
of the advantages of travel had appeared in Thomas Wilson's _Arte of
Rhetorique_ (1553),[41] and certain practical directions for avoiding
ailments to which travellers were susceptible had been printed in Basel
in 1561,[42] but Turler's would seem to be the first book devoted to the
praise of peregrination. Not only does Turler say so himself, but
Theodor Zwinger, who three years later wrote _Methodus Apodemica_,
declares that Turler and Pyrckmair were his only predecessors in this
sort of composition.[43]
Pyrckmair was apparently one of those governors, or Hofmeister,[44] who
accompanied young German noblemen on their tours through Europe. He drew
up a few directions, he declares, as guidance for himself and the Count
von Sultz, whom he expected shortly to guide into Italy. He had made a
previous journey to Rome, which he enjoyed with the twofold enthusiasm
of the humanist and the Roman Catholic, beholding "in a stupor of
admiration" the magnificent remnants of classic civilization and the
institutions of a benevolent Pope.[45]
From Plantin's shop in Antwerp came in 1587 a narrative by another
Hofmeister--Stephen Vinandus Pighius--concerning the life and travels of
his princely charge, Charles Frederick, Duke of Cleves, who on his grand
tour died in Rome. Pighius discusses at considerable length,[46] in
describing the hesitancy of the Duke's guardians about sending him on a
tour, the advantages and disadvantages of travel. The expense of it and
the diseases you catch, were great deterrents; yet the widening of the
mind which judicious travelling insures, so greatly outweighed these and
other disadvantages, that it was arranged after much discussion, "not
only in the Council but also in the market-place and at the
dinner-table," to send young Charles for two years to Austria to the
court of his uncle the Emperor Maximilian, and then to Italy, France,
and Lower Germany to visit the princess, his relations, and friends, and
to see life.
Theodor Zwinger, who was reputed to be the first to reduce the art of
travel into a form and give it the appearance of a science,[47] died a
Doctor of Medicine at Basel. He had no liking for his father's trade of
furrier, but apprenticed himself for three years to a printer at Lyons.
Somehow he managed to learn some philosophy from Peter Ramus at Paris,
and then studied medicine at Padua, where he met Jerome Turler.[48] As
Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine he occupied several successive
professorships at Basel.
Even more distinguished in the academic world was the next to carry on
the discussion of travel--Justus Lipsius. His elegant letter on the
subject,[49] written a year after Zwinger's book was published, was
translated into English by Sir John Stradling in 1592.[50] Stradling,
however, has so enlarged the original by whatever fancies of his own
occurred to him, that it is almost a new composition. Philip Jones took
no such liberties with the "Method" of Albert Meier, which he translated
two years after it was published in 1587.[51] In his dedication to Sir
Francis Drake of "this small but sweete booke of Method for men
intending their profit and honor by the experience of the world," Jones
declares that he first meant it only to benefit himself, "when pleasure
of God, convenient time and good company" should draw him to travel.
The _Pervigilium Mercurii_ of Georgius Loysius, a friend of Scaliger,
was never translated into English, but the important virtues of a
traveller therein described had their influence on English readers.
Loysius compiled two hundred short petty maxims, illustrated by apt
classical quotations, bearing on the correct behaviour and duties of a
traveller. For instance, he must avoid luxury, as says Seneca; and
laziness, as say Horace and Ovid; he must be reticent about his wealth
and learning and keep his counsel, like Ulysses. He must observe the
morals and religion of others, but not criticise them, for different
nations have different religions, and think that their fathers' gods
ought to be served diligently. He that disregards these things acts with
pious zeal but without consideration for other people's feelings ("nulla
ratione cujusque vocationis").[52] James Howell may have read maxim 99
on how to take jokes and how to make them, "joci sine vilitate, risus
sine cachinno, vox sine clamore" (let your jokes be free from vulgarity,
your laugh not a guffaw, and your voice not a roar).
Loysius reflects the sentiment of his country in his conviction that
"Nature herself desires that women should stay at home." "It is true
throughout the whole of Germany that no woman unless she is desperately
poor or 'rather fast' desires to travel."[53]
Adding to these earliest essays the _Oration in Praise of Travel_, by
Hermann Kirchner,[54] we have a group of instructions sprung from German
soil all characterized by an exalted mood and soaring style. They have
in common the tendency to rationalize the activities of man, which was
so marked a feature of the Renaissance. The simple errant impulse that
Chaucer noted as belonging with the songs of birds and coming of spring,
is dignified into a philosophy of travel.
Travel, according to our authors, is one of the best ways to gain
personal force, social effectiveness--in short, that mysterious "virtù"
by which the Renaissance set such great store. It had the negative value
of providing artificial trials for young gentlemen with patrimony and no
occupation who might otherwise be living idly on their country estates,
or dissolutely in London. Knight-errantry, in chivalric society, had
provided the hardships and discipline agreeable to youth; travel "for
vertues sake, to apply the study of good artes,"[55] was in the
Renaissance an excellent way to keep a young man profitably busy. For
besides the academic advantages of foreign universities, travel
corrected the character. The rude and arrogant young nobleman who had
never before left his own country, met salutary opposition and contempt
from strangers, and thereby gained modesty. By observing the refinements
of the older nations, his uncouthness was softened: the rough barbarian
cub was gradually mollified into the civil courtier. And as for giving
one prudence and patience, never was such a mentor as travel. The
tender, the effeminate, the cowardly, were hardened by contention with
unwonted cold or rain or sun, with hard seats, stony pillows, thieves,
and highwaymen. Any simple, improvident, and foolish youth would be
stirred up to vigilancy by a few experiences with "the subtelty of
spies, the wonderful cunning of Inn-keepers and baudes and the great
danger of his life."[56] In short, the perils and discomforts of travel
made a mild prelude to the real life into which a young man must
presently fight his way. Only experience could teach him how to be
cunning, wary, and bold; how he might hold his own, at court or at sea,
among Elizabeth's adventurers.
However, this development of the individual was only part of the benefit
of travel. Far more to be extolled was his increased usefulness to the
State. That was the stoutest reason for leaving one's "owne sweete
country dwellings" to endure hardships and dangers beyond seas. For a
traveller may be of the greatest benefit to his own country by being
able to compare its social, economic, and military arrangements with
those of other commonwealths. He is wisely warned, therefore, against
that fond preference for his own country which leads him to close his
eyes to any improvement--"without just cause preferring his native
country,"[57] but to use choice and discretion, to see, learn, and
diligently mark what in every place is worthy of praise and what ought
to be amended, in magistrates, regal courts, schools, churches,
armies--all the ways and means pertaining to civil life and the
governing of a humane society. For all improvement in society, say our
authors, came by travellers bringing home fresh ideas. Examples from the
ancients, to complete a Renaissance argument, are cited to prove
this.[58] So the Romans sent their children to Marseilles, so Cyrus
travelled, though yet but a child, so Plato "purchased the greatest part
of his divine wisdome from the very innermost closets of Egypt."
Therefore to learn how to serve one's Prince in peace or war, as a
soldier, ambassador, or "politicke person," one must, like Ulysses, have
known many men and seen many cities; know not only the objective points
of foreign countries, such as the fortifications, the fordable rivers,
the distances between places, but the more subjective characteristics,
such as the "chief force and virtue of the Spanyardes and of the
Frenchmen. What is the greatest vice in both nacions? After what manner
the subjects in both countries shewe their obedience to their prince, or
oppose themselves against him?"[59] Here we see coming into play the
newly acquired knowledge of human nature of which the sixteenth century
was so proud. An ambassador to Paris must know what was especially
pleasing to a Frenchman. Even a captain in war must know the special
virtues and vices of the enemy: which nation is ablest to make a sudden
sally, which is stouter to entertain the shock in open field, which is
subtlest of the contriving of an ambush.
Evidently, since there is so varied a need for acquaintance with foreign
countries, travel is a positive duty. Noah, Aristotle, Solomon, Julius
Cæsar, Columbus, and many other people of authority are quoted to prove
that "all that ever were of any great knowledge, learning or wisdom
since the beginning of the world unto this present, have given
themselves to travel: and that there never was man that performed any
great thing or achieved any notable exploit, unless he had
travelled."[60]
This summary, of course, cannot reproduce the style of each of our
authors, and only roughly indicates their method of persuasion.
Especially it cannot represent the mode of Zwinger, whose contribution
is a treatise of four hundred pages, arranged in outline form, by means
of which any single idea is made to wend its tortuous way through
folios. Every aspect of the subject is divided and subdivided with
meticulous care. He cannot speak of the time for travel without
discriminating between natural time, such as years and days, and
artificial time, such as festivals and holidays; nor of the means of
locomotion without specifying the possibility of being carried through
the air by: (I) Mechanical means, such as the wings of Icarus; or (2)
Angels, as the Apostle Philip was snatched from Samaria.[61] In this
elaborate method he found an imitator in Sir Thomas Palmer.[62] The
following, a mere truncated fragment, may serve to illustrate both
books:--
"Travelling is either:--
I. Irregular.
II. Regular. Of Regular Travailers some be
A. Non-voluntaries, sent out by the prince,
and employed in matters of
1. Peace (etc.).
2. Warre (etc.).
B. Voluntaries. Voluntary Regular Travailers
are considered
1. As they are moved accidentally.
a. Principally, that afterwards they
may leade a more quiet and contented
life, to the glory of God.
b. Secondarily, regarding ends,
(i) Publicke.
(a) What persons are inhibited
travaile.
(1) Infants, Decrepite persons,
Fools, Women.
(b) What times to travaile in
are not fitte:
(2) When our country is
engaged in warres.
(c) Fitte.
(1) When one may reape
most profit in shortest
time, for that hee aimeth
at.
(2) When the country, into
which we would travaile,
holdeth not ours in jealousie,
etc."
That the idea of travel as a duty to the State had permeated the
Elizabethans from the courtier to the common sailor is borne out by
contemporary letters of all sorts. Even William Bourne, an innkeeper at
Gravesend, who wrote a hand-book of applied mathematics, called it _The
Treasure for Travellers_[63] and prefaced it with an exhortation in the
style of Turler. In the correspondence of Lord Burghley, Sir Philip
Sidney, Fulke Greville, the Earl of Essex, and Secretary Davison, we see
how seriously the aim of travel was inculcated. Here are the same
reminders to have the welfare of the commonwealth constantly in mind, to
waste no time, to use order and method in observation, and to bring
home, if possible, valuable information. Sidney bewails how much he has
missed for "want of having directed my course to the right end, and by
the right means." But he trusts his brother has imprinted on his mind
"the scope and mark you mean by your pains to shoot at. Your purpose is,
being a gentleman born, to furnish yourself with the knowledge of such
things as may be serviceable to your country."[64]
Davison urges the value of experience, scorning the man who thinks to
fit himself by books: "Our sedentary traveller may pass for a wise man
as long as he converseth either with dead men by reading, or by writing,
with men absent. But let him once enter on the stage of public
employment, and he will soon find, if he can but be sensible of
contempt, that he is unfit for action. For ability to treat with men of
several humours, factions and countries; duly to comply with them, or
stand off, as occasion shall require, is not gotten only by reading of
books, but rather by studying of men: yet this is ever held true. The
best scholar is fittest for a traveller, as being able to make the most
useful observations: experience added to learning makes a perfect
man."[65]
Both Essex and Fulke Greville are full of warnings against superficial
and showy knowledge of foreign countries: "The true end of knowledge is
clearness and strength of judgment, and not ostentation, or ability to
discourse, which I do rather put your Lordship in mind of, because the
most part of noblemen and gentlemen of our time have no other use nor
end of their learning but their table-talk. But God knoweth they have
gotten little that have only this discoursing gift: for, though like
empty vessels they sound loud when a man knocks upon their outsides, yet
if you pierce into them, you shall find that they are full of nothing
but wind."[66]
Lord Burghley, wasting not a breath, tersely instructs the Earl of
Rutland in things worthy of observation. Among these are frontier towns,
with what size garrison they are maintained, etc.; what noblemen live in
each province, by what trade each city is supported. At Court, what are
the natural dispositions of the king and his brothers and sisters, what
is the king's diet, etc. "Particularly for yourself, being a nobleman,
how noblemen do keep their wives, their children, their estates; how
they provide for their younger children; how they keep the household for
diet," and so on.[67]
So much for the attitude of the first "Subsidium Peregrinantibus." It
will be seen that it was something of a trial and an opportunity to be a
traveller in Elizabethan times. But biography is not lacking in evidence
that the recipients of these directions did take their travels seriously
and try to make them profitable to the commonwealth. Among the Rutland
papers[68] is a plan of fortifications and some notes made by the Edward
Manners to whom Cecil wrote the above letter of advice. Sir Thomas
Bodley tells how full he was of patriotic intent: "I waxed desirous to
travel beyond the seas, for attaining to the knowledge of some special
modern tongues, and for the increase of my experience in the managing of
affairs, being wholly then addicted to employ myself, and all my cares,
in the public service of the state."[69] Assurances of their object in
travelling are written from abroad by Sir John Harington and the third
Earl of Essex to their friend Prince Henry. Essex says: "Being now
entered into my travels, and intending the end thereof to attain to true
knowledge and to better my experience, I hope God will so bless me in my
endeavours, that I shall return an acceptable servant unto your
Highness."[70] And Harington in the same vein hopes that by his travels
and experience in foreign countries he shall sometime or other be more
fit to carry out the commands of his Highness.[71]
One of the particular ways of serving one's country was the writing of
"Observations on his Travels." This was the first exercise of a young
man who aspired to be a "politicke person." Harington promises to send
to Prince Henry whatever notes he can make of various countries. Henry
Wotton offers Lord Zouche "A View of all the present Almagne
princes."[72] The keeping of a journal is insisted upon in almost all
the "Directions." "It is good," says Lord Burghley to Edward Manners,
"that you make a booke of paper wherein you may dayly or at least weekly
insert all things occurent to you,"[73] the reason being that such
observations, when contemporary history was scarce, were of value. They
were also a guarantee that the tourist had been virtuously employed. The
Earl of Salisbury writes severely to his son abroad:
"I find every week, in the Prince's hand, a letter from Sir John
Harington, full of the news of the place where he is, and the countries
as he passeth, and all occurents: which is an argument, that he doth
read and observe such things as are remarkable."
This narrative was one of the chief burdens of a traveller. Gilbert
Talbot is no sooner landed in Padua than he must write to his impatient
parents and excuse himself for the lack of that "Relation." "We fulfil
your honour's commaundement in wrytynge the discourse of our travayle
which we would have sent with thes letres but it could not be caryed so
conveniently with them, as it may be with the next letres we wryte."[74]
Francis Davison, the Secretary's son, could not get on, somehow, with
his "Relation of Tuscany." He had been ill, he writes at first; his
tutor says that the diet of Italy--"roots, salads, cheese and such like
cheap dishes"--"Mr Francis can in no wise digest," and after that, he is
too worried by poverty. In reply to his father's complaints of his
extravagance, he declares: "My promised relation of Tuscany your last
letter hath so dashed, as I am resolved not to proceed withal."[75] The
journal of Richard Smith, Gentleman, who accompanied Sir Edward Unton
into Italy in 1563, shows how even an ordinary man, not inclined to
writing, conscientiously tried to note the fortifications and fertility
of each province, whether it was "marvellous barren" or "stood chiefly
upon vines"; the principal commodities, and the nature of the
inhabitants: "The people (on the Rhine) are very paynefull and not so
paynefull as rude and sluttyshe." "They are well faced women in most
places of this land, and as ill-bodied."[76]
Besides writing his observations, the traveller laboured earnestly at
modern languages. Many and severe were the letters Cecil wrote to his
son Thomas in Paris on the subject of settling to his French. For
Thomas's tutor had difficulties in keeping his pupil from dog-fights,
horses and worse amusements in company of the Earl of Hertford, who was
a great hindrance to Thomas's progress in the language.[77] Francis
Davison hints that his tour was by no means a pleasure trip, what with
studying Italian, reading history and policy, observing and writing his
"Relation." Indeed, as Lipsius pointed out, it was not easy to combine
the life of a traveller with that of a scholar, "the one being of
necessitie in continual motion, care and business, the other naturally
affecting ease, safety and quietness,"[78] but still, by avoiding
Englishmen, according to our "Directions," and by doggedly conversing
with the natives, one might achieve something.
To live in the household of a learned foreigner, as Robert Sidney did
with Sturm, or Henry Wotton with Hugo Blotz, was of course especially
desirable. For there were still, in the Elizabethans, remnants of that
ardent sociability among humanists which made Englishmen traverse dire
distances of sea and land to talk with some scholar on the Rhine--that
fraternizing spirit which made Cranmer fill Lambeth Palace with Martin
Bucers; and Bishop Gardiner, meanwhile, complain from the Tower not only
of "want of books to relieve my mind, but want of good company--the only
solace in this world."[79] It was still as much of a treat to see a wise
man as it was when Ascham loitered in every city through which he
passed, to hear lectures, or argue about the proper pronunciation of
Greek; until he missed his dinner, or found that his party had ridden
out of town.[80] Advice to travellers is full of this enthusiasm. Essex
tells Rutland "your Lordship should rather go an hundred miles to speake
with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town." Stradling,
translating Lipsius, urges the Earl of Bedford to "shame not or disdaine
not to intrude yourself into their familiarity." "Talk with learned men,
we unconsciously imitate them, even as they that walke in the sun only
for their recreation, are colored therewith and sunburnt; or rather and
better as they that staying a while in the Apothecarie shop, til their
confections be made, carrie away the smell of the sweet spices even in
their garments."[81]
There are signs that the learned men were not always willing to shine
upon admiring strangers who burst in upon them. The renowned Doctor
Zacharias Ursinus at Heidelberg marked on his doorway these words: "My
friend, whoever you are, if you come here, please either go away again,
or give me some help in my studies."[82] Sidney foresees the difficulty
his brother may have: "How shall I get excellent men to take paines to
speake with me? Truly, in few words: either much expense or much
humbleness."[83]
If one had not the means to live with famous scholars, it was a good
plan to take up lodgings with an eminent bookseller. For statesmen,
advocates and other sorts of great men came to the shop, from whose talk
much could be learned. By and by some occasion would arise for
insinuating oneself into familarity and acquaintance with these
personages, and perhaps, if some one of them, "non indoctus," intended
journeying to another city, he might allow you to attach yourself to
him.[84]
Of course, for observation and experience, there was no place so
advantageous as the household of an ambassador, if one was fortunate
enough to win an entry there. The English Ambassador in France generally
had a burden of young gentlemen more or less under his care. Sometimes
they were lodged independently in Paris, but many belonged to his train,
and had meat and drink for themselves, their servants and their horses,
at the ambassador's expense.
Sir Amias Paulet's _Letter-Book_ of 1577-8 testifies that an
ambassador's cares were considerably augmented by writing reports to
parents. Mr Speake is assured that "although I dwell far from Paris, yet
I am not unacquainted with your sonne's doing in Paris, and cannot
commend him enough to you as well for his diligence in study as for his
honest and quiet behaviour, and I dare assure you that you may be bold
to trust him as well for the order of his expenses, as for his
government otherwise."[85] Mr Argall, whose brother could not be taken
into Paulet's house, has to be soothed as well as may be by a
letter.[86] Mr Throckmorton, after questionable behaviour, is sent home
to his mother under excuse of being bearer of a letter to England. "His
mother prayeth that his coming over may seeme to proceed of his owne
request, because the Queen shall not be offended with it." His mother
"hath promised to gett him lycence to travil into Italie." But, says
Paulet, "He may not goe into Italie withoute the companie of some honest
and wyse man, and so I have tould him, and in manie other things have
dealt very playnely with him."[87]
Among these troublesome charges of Paulet's was Francis Bacon. But to
his father, the Lord Keeper, Paulet writes only that all is well, and
that his son's servant is particularly honest, diligent, discreet and
faithful, and that Paulet is thankful for his "good and quiet behaviour
in my house"--a fact which appears exceptional.
Sir Dudley Carleton, as Ambassador to Venice, was also pursued by
ambitious fathers.[88] Sir Rowland Lytton Chamberlain writes to
Carleton, begs only "that his son might be in your house, and that you
would a little train him and fashion him to business. For I perceive he
means to make him a statesman, and is very well persuaded of him, ...
like a very indulgent father.... If you can do it conveniently, it will
be a favour; but I know what a business it is to have the breaking of
such colts, and therefore will urge no more than may be to your
liking."[89]
Besides gaining an apprenticeship in diplomacy, another advantage of
travelling with an ambassador was the participation in ambassadorial
immunities. It might have fared ill with Sir Philip Sidney, in Paris at
the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, if he had not belonged to
the household of Sir Francis Walsingham. Many other young men not so
glorious to posterity, but quite as much so to their mothers, were saved
then by the same means. When news of the massacre had reached England,
Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham: "I am glad yet that in these
tumults and bloody proscriptions you did escape, and the young gentlemen
that be there with you.... Yet we hear say that he that was sent by my
Lord Chamberlain to be schoolmaster to young Wharton, being come the day
before, was then slain. Alas! he was acquainted with nobody, nor could
be partaker of any evil dealing. How fearful and careful the mothers and
parents be here of such young gentlemen as be there, you may easily
guess by my Lady Lane, who prayeth very earnestly that her son may be
sent home with as much speed as may be."[90]
The dangers of travel were of a nature to alarm mothers. As well as
Catholics, there were shipwrecks, pirates, and highway robbers. Moors
and Turks lay waiting "in a little port under the hill," to take
passenger vessels that went between Rome and Naples. "If we had come by
daye as we did by night, we had bin all taken slaves."[91] In dark
strait ways up the sides of mountains, or on some great heath in
Prussia, one was likely to meet a horseman "well furnyshed with daggs
(pistols), who myght well be called a Swarte Ritter--his face was as
black as a devill in a playe."[92] Inns were death-traps. A man dared
not make any display of money for fear of being murdered in the
night.[93] It was wiser to disguise himself as a humble country boy and
gall his feet by carrying all his gold in his boots. Even if by these
means he escaped common desperadoes, he might easily offend the deadly
University students, as did the eldest son of Sir Julius Cæsar, slain in
a brawl in Padua,[94] or like the Admirable Crichton, stabbed by his
noble pupil in a dark street, bleed away his life in lonely
lodgings.[95] Still more dangerous were less romantic ills, resulting
from strange diet and the uncleanliness of inns. It was a rare treat to
have a bed to oneself. More probably the traveller was obliged to share
it with a stranger of disagreeable appearance, if not of
disposition.[96] At German ordinaries "every travyler must syt at the
ordinary table both master and servant," so that often they were driven
to sit with such "slaves" that in the rush to get the best pieces from
the common dish in the middle of the table, "a man wold abhor to se such
fylthye hands in his dish."[97] Many an eager tourist lay down with
small-pox before he had seen anything of the world worth mentioning, or
if he gained home, brought a broken constitution with him. The third
Lord North was ill for life because of the immoderate quantities of hot
treacle he consumed in Italy, to avoid the plague.[98]
But it was not really the low material dangers of small-pox, quartain
ague, or robbers which troubled the Elizabethan. Such considerations
were beneath his heroical temper. Sir Edward Winsor, warned against the
piratical Gulf of Malta, writes: "And for that it should not be said an
Englishman to come so far to see Malta, and to have turned backe againe,
I determined rather making my sepulker of that Golfe."[99] It was the
sort of danger that weakened character which made people doubt the
benefits of travel. So far we have not mentioned in our description of
the books addressed to travellers any of the reminders of the trials of
Ulysses, and dark warnings against the "Siren-songs of Italy." Since
they were written at the same time with the glowing orations in praise
of travel, it might be well to consider them before we go farther.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
SOME CYNICAL ASPERSIONS UPON THE BENEFITS OF TRAVEL
The traveller newly returned from foreign lands was a great butt for the
satirists. In Elizabethan times his bows and tremendous politeness, his
close-fitting black clothes from Venice, his French accent, his finicky
refinements, such as perfumes and pick-tooths, were highly offensive to
the plain Englishman. One was always sure of an appreciative audience if
he railed at the "disguised garments and desperate hats" of the
"affectate traveller" how; his attire spoke French or Italian, and his
gait cried "behold me!" how he spoke his own language with shame and
loathing.[100] "You shall see a dapper Jacke, that hath beene but over
at Deepe,[101] wring his face round about, as a man would stir up a
mustard-pot, and talke English through the teeth, like ... Monsieur
Mingo de Moustrap."[102] Nash was one of the best at describing some who
had lived in France for half-a-dozen years, "and when they came home,
they have hyd a little wéerish leane face under a broad French hat, kept
a terrible coyle with the dust in the stréete in their long cloaks of
gray paper, and spoke English strangely. Naught else have they profited
by their travell, save learnt to distinguish of the true Burdeaux Grape,
and know a cup of neate Gascoygne wine from wine of Orleance; yea, and
peradventure this also, to esteeme of the poxe as a pimple, to weare a
velvet patch on their face, and walke melancholy with their armes
folded."[103]
The Frenchified traveller came in for a good share of satire, but darker
things were said of the Italianate Englishman. He was an atheist--a
creature hitherto unknown in England--who boldly laughed to scorn both
Protestant and Papist. He mocked the Pope, railed on Luther, and liked
none, but only himself.[104] "I care not," he said, "what you talk to me
of God, so as I may have the prince and the laws of the realm on my
side."[105] In politics he allied himself with the Papists, they being
more of his way of living than the Puritans, but he was faithless to all
parties.[106] In private life he was vicious, and practised "such
villainy as is abominable to declare," for in Italy he had served
Circes, who turns men into beasts.[107] "But I am afraid," says Ascham,
"that over many of our travellers unto Italy do not eschew the way to
Circe's Court: but go and ryde and runne and flie thether, they make
great hast to cum to her; they make great sute to serve her: yea, I
could point out some with my finger that never had gone out of England,
but onlie to serve Circes in Italie. Vanitie and vice and any licence to
ill living in England was counted stale and rude unto them."[108]
It is likely that some of these accusations were true. Italy more than
any other country charmed the Elizabethan Englishman, partly because the
climate and the people and the look of things were so unlike his own
grey home. Particularly Venice enchanted him. The sun, the sea, the
comely streets, "so clean that you can walk in a Silk Stockin and Sattin
Slippes,"[109] the tall palaces with marble balconies, and golden-haired
women, the flagellants flogging themselves, the mountebanks, the Turks,
the stately black-gowned gentlemen, were new and strange, and satisfied
his sense of romance. Besides, the University of Padua was still one of
the greatest universities in Europe. Students from all nations crowded
to it. William Thomas describes the "infinite resorte of all nacions
that continually is seen there. And I thinke verilie, that in one region
of all the worlde againe, are not halfe so many straungers as in Italie;
specially of gentilmen, whose resorte thither is principallie under
pretence of studie ... all kyndes of vertue maie there be learned: and
therfore are those places accordyngly furnisshed: not of suche students
alone, as moste commonly are brought up in our universitees (meane mens
children set to schole in hope to live upon hyred learnyng) but for the
more parte of noble mens sonnes, and of the best gentilmen: that studie
more for knowledge and pleasure than for curiositee or luker: ... This
last wynter living in Padoa, with diligent serche I learned, that the
noumbre of scholers there was little lesse than fiftene hundreth;
whereof I dare saie, a thousande at the lest were gentilmen."[110]
The life of a student at Padua was much livelier than the monastic
seclusion of an English university. He need not attend many lectures,
for, as Thomas Hoby explains, after a scholar has been elected by the
rectors, "He is by his scholarship bound to no lectures, nor nothing
elles but what he lyst himselfe to go to."[111] So being a gentleman and
not a clerk, he was more likely to apply himself to fencing or riding:
For at Padua "there passeth no shrof-tide without rennyng at the tilte,
tourneiyng, fighting at the barriers and other like feates of armes,
handled and furnisshed after the best sort: the greatest dooers wherof
are scholers."[112]
Then, too, the scholar diversified his labours by excursions to Venice,
in one of those passenger boats which plied daily from Padua, of which
was said "that the boat shall bee drowned, when it carries neither
Monke, nor Student, nor Curtesan.... the passengers being for the most
part of these kinds"[113] and, as Moryson points out, if he did not, by
giving offence, receive a dagger in his ribs from a fellow-student, he
was likely to have pleasant discourse on the way.[114] Hoby took several
trips from Padua to Venice to see such things as the "lustie yong Duke
of Ferrandin, well accompanied with noble menn and gentlemen ... running
at the ring with faire Turks and cowrsars, being in a maskerie after the
Turkishe maner, and on foote casting of eggs into the wyndowes among the
ladies full of sweete waters and damaske Poulders," or like the Latin
Quarter students who frequent "La Morgue," went to view the body of a
gentleman slain in a feud, laid out in state in his house--"to be seen
of all men."[115] In the outlandish mixture of nations swarming at
Venice, a student could spend all day watching mountebanks, and bloody
street fights, and processions. In the renowned freedom of that city
where "no man marketh anothers dooynges, or meddleth with another mans
livyng,"[116] it was no wonder if a young man fresh from an English
university and away from those who knew him, was sometimes "enticed by
lewd persons:" and, once having lost his innocence, outdid even the
students of Padua. For, as Greene says, "as our wits be as ripe as any,
so our willes are more ready than they all, to put into effect any of
their licentious abuses."[117] Thus arose the famous proverb, "An
Englishman Italianate is a devil incarnate."
Hence the warnings against Circes by even those authors most loud in
praise of travel. Lipsius bids his noble pupil beware of Italian women:
" ... inter fæminas, formæ conspicuæ, sed lascivæ et procaces."[118]
Turler must acknowledge "an auntient complaint made by many that our
countrymen usually bring three thinges with them out of Italye: a
naughty conscience, an empty purse, and a weak stomache: and many times
it chaunceth so indeede." For since "youth and flourishing yeeres are
most commonly employed in traveill, which of their owne course and
condicion are inclined unto vice, and much more earnestly imbrace the
same if it be enticed thereto," ... "many a time pleasures make a man
not thinke on his returne," ... but he is caught by the songs of
Mermaids, "so to returne home with shame and shame enough."[119]
It was necessary also to warn the traveller against those more harmless
sins which we have already mentioned: against an arrogant bearing on his
return to his native land, or a vanity which prompted him at all times
to show that he had been abroad, and was not like the common herd.
Perhaps it was an intellectual affectation of atheism or a cultivated
taste for Machiavelli with which he was inclined to startle his
old-fashioned countrymen. Almost the only book Sir Edward Unton seems to
have brought back with him from Venice was the _Historie of Nicolo
Machiavelli_, Venice, 1537. On the title page he has written:
"Macchavelli Maxima / Qui nescit dissimulare / nescit vivere / Vive et
vivas / Edw. Unton. /"[120] Perhaps it was only his display of Italian
clothes--"civil, because black, and comely because fitted to the
body,"[121] or daintier table manners than Englishmen used which called
down upon him the ridicule of his enemies. No doubt there was in the
returned traveller a certain degree of condescension which made him
disagreeable--especially if he happened to be a proud and insolent
courtier, who attracted the Queen's notice by his sharpened wits and
novelties of discourse, or if he were a vain boy of the sort that
cumbered the streets of London with their rufflings and struttings.
In making surmises as to whom Ascham had in his mind's eye when he said
that he knew men who came back from Italy with "less learning and worse
manners," I guessed that one might be Arthur Hall, the first translator
of Homer into English. Hall was a promising Grecian at Cambridge, and
began his translation with Ascham's encouragement.[122] Between 1563 and
1568, when Ascham was writing _The Scolemaster_, Hall, without finishing
for a degree, or completing the Homer, went to Italy. It would have
irritated Ascham to have a member of St John's throw over his task and
his degree to go gadding. Certainly Hall's after life bore out Ascham's
forebodings as to the value of foreign travel. On his return he spent a
notorious existence in London until the consequences of a tavern brawl
turned him out of Parliament. I might dwell for a moment on Hall's
curious account of this latter affair, because it is one of the few
utterances we have by an acknowledged Italianate Englishman--of a
certain sort.
Hall, apparently, was one of those gallants who ruffled about
Elizabethan London and used
"To loove to play at Dice
To sware his blood and hart
To face it with a Ruffins look
And set his Hat athwart."[123]
The humorists throw a good deal of light on such "yong Jyntelmen." So
does Fleetwood, the Recorder of London, to whom they used to run when
they were arrested for debt, or for killing a carman, making as their
only apology, "I am a Jyntelman, and being a Jyntelman, I am not thus to
be used at a slave and a colion's hands."[124] Hall, writing in the
third person, in the assumed character of a friend, describes himself as
"a man not wholly unlearned, with a smacke of the knowledge of diverse
tongues ... furious when he is contraried ... as yourselfe is witnesse
of his dealings at Rome, at Florence, in the way between that and
Bollonia ... so implacable if he conceyve an injurie, as Sylla will
rather be pleased with Marius, than he with his equals, in a maner for
offences grown of tryffles.... Also spending more tyme in sportes, and
following the same, than is any way commendable, and the lesse, bycause,
I warrant you, the summes be great are dealte for." [125]
This terrible person, on the 16th of December 1573, at Lothbury, in
London, at a table of twelve pence a meal, supped with some merchants
and a certain Melchisedech Mallerie. Dice were thrown on the board, and
in the course of play Mallerie "gave the lye with harde wordes in heate
to one of the players." "Hall sware (as he will not sticke to lende you
an othe or two), to throw Mallerie out at the window. Here Etna smoked,
daggers were a-drawing ... but the goodman lamented the case for the
slaunder, that a quarrel should be in his house, ... so ... the matter
was ended for this fitte."
But a certain Master Richard Drake, attending on my Lord of Leicester,
took pains first to warn Hall to take heed of Mallerie at play, and then
to tell Mallerie that Hall said he used "lewde practices at cards." The
next day at "Poules"[126] came Mallerie to Hall and "charged him very
hotly, that he had reported him to be a cousiner of folkes at Mawe."
Hall, far from showing that fury which he described as his
characteristic, denied the charge with meekness. He said he was patient
because he was bound to keep the peace for dark disturbances in the
past. Mallerie said it was because he was a coward.
Mallerie continued to say so for months, until before a crowd of
gentlemen at the "ordinary" of one Wormes, his taunts were so unbearable
that Hall crept up behind him and tried to stab him in the back. There
was a general scuffle, some one held down Hall, the house grew full in a
moment with Lord Zouche, gentlemen, and others, while "Mallerie with a
great shreke ranne with all speede out of the doores, up a paire of
stayres, and there aloft used most harde wordes againste Mr Hall."
Hall, who had cut himself--and nobody else--nursed his wound indoors for
some days, during which time friends brought word that Mallerie would
"shewe him an Italian tricke, intending thereby to do him some secret
and unlooked for mischief." Then, with "a mufle half over his face,"
Hall took post-horses to his home in Lincolnshire. Business called him,
he tells the reader. There was no ground whatever for Mallerie to say he
fled in disguise.
After six months, he ventured to return to London and be gay again. He
dined at "James Lumelies--the son, as it is said, of old M. Dominicke,
born at Genoa, of the losse of whose nose there goes divers tales,"--and
coming by a familiar gaming-house on his way back to his lodgings, he
"fell to with the rest."
But there is no peace for him. In comes Mallerie--and with insufferably
haughty gait and countenance, brushes by. Hall tries a pleasant saunter
around Poules with his friend Master Woodhouse: "comes Mallerie again,
passing twice or thrice by Hall, with great lookes and extraordinary
rubbing him on the elbowes, and spurning three or four times a Spaniel
of Mr Woodhouses following his master and Master Hall." Hall mutters to
his servants, "Jesus can you not knocke the boyes head and the wall
together, sith he runnes a-bragging thus?" His three servants go out of
the church by the west door: when Mallerie stalks forth they set upon
him and cut him down the cheek.
We will not follow the narrative through the subsequent lawsuit brought
by Mallerie against Hall's servants, the trial presided over by Recorder
Fleetwood, the death of Mallerie, who "departed well leanyng to the olde
Father of Rome, a dad whome I have heard some say Mr Hall doth not hate"
or Hall's subsequent expulsion from Parliament. This is enough to show
the sort of harmless, vain braggarts some of these "Italianates" were,
and how easily they acquired the reputation of being desperate fellows.
Mallerie's lawyer at the trial charged Hall with "following the revenge
with an Italian minde learned at Rome."
Among other Italianified Cambridge men whom Ascham might well have
noticed were George Acworth and William Barker. Acworth had lived abroad
during Mary's reign, studying civil law in France and Italy. When
Elizabeth came to the throne he was elected public orator of the
University of Cambridge, but through being idle, dissolute, and a
drunkard, he lost all his preferments in England.[127] Barker, or
Bercher, who was educated at St John's or Christ's, was abroad at the
same time as Ascham, who may have met him as Hoby did in Italy.[128]
Barker seems to have been an idle person--he says that after travels "my
former fancye of professenge nothinge partycularly was verye muche
encreased"[129]--and a papistical one, for on the accession of Mary he
came home to serve the Duke of Norfolk, whose Catholic plots he
betrayed, under torture, in 1571. It was then that the Duke bitterly
dubbed him an "Italianfyd Inglyschemane," equal in faithlessness to "a
schamlesse Scote";[130] _i.e._ the Bishop of Ross, another witness.
Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, famous for his rude
behaviour to Sir Philip Sidney, whom he subsequently tried to dispatch
with hired assassins after the Italian manner,[131] might well have been
one of the rising generation of courtiers whom Ascham so deplored. In
Ascham's lifetime he was already a conspicuous gallant, and by 1571, at
the age of twenty-two, he was the court favourite. The friends of the
Earl of Rutland, keeping him informed of the news while he was
fulfilling in Paris those heavy duties of observation which Cecil mapped
out for him, announce that "There is no man of life and agility in every
respect in Court, but the Earl of Oxford."[132] And a month afterwards,
"Th' Erle of Oxenforde hath gotten hym a wyffe--or at the leste a wyffe
hath caught hym--that is Mrs Anne Cycille, whearunto the Queen hath
gyven her consent, the which hathe causyd great wypping, waling, and
sorowful chere, of those that hoped to have hade that golden daye."[133]
Ascham did not live to see the development of this favorite into an
Italianate Englishman, but Harrison's invective against the going of
noblemen's sons into Italy coincides with the return of the Earl from a
foreign tour which seems to have been ill-spent.
At the very time when the Queen "delighted more in his personage and his
dancing and valiantness than any other,"[134] Oxford betook himself to
Flanders--without licence. Though his father-in-law Burghley had him
brought back to the indignant Elizabeth, the next year he set forth
again and made for Italy. From Siena, on January 3rd, 1574-5, he writes
to ask Burghley to sell some of his land so as to disburden him of his
debts, and in reply to some warning of Burghley's that his affairs in
England need attention, replies that since his troubles are so many at
home, he has resolved to continue his travels.[135] Eight months
afterwards, from Italy, he begs Burghley's influence to procure him a
licence to continue his travels a year longer, stating as his reason an
exemplary wish to see more of Germany. (In another letter also[136] he
assures Cecil that he means to acquaint himself with Sturmius--that
educator of youth so highly approved of by Ascham.) "As to Italy, he is
glad he has seen it, but cares not ever to see it again, unless to serve
his prince or country." The reason they have not heard from him this
past summer is that his letters were sent back because of the plague in
the passage. He did not know this till his late return to Venice. He has
been grieved with a fever. The letter concludes with a mention that he
has taken up of Baptista Nigrone 500 crowns, which he desires repaid
from the sale of his lands, and a curt thanks for the news of his wife's
delivery.[137]
From Paris, after an interval of six months, he declares his pleasure at
the news of his being a father, but makes no offer to return to England.
Rather he intends to go back to Venice. He "may pass two or three months
in seeing Constantinople and some part of Greece."[138]
However, Burghley says, "I wrote to Pariss to hym to hasten hym
homewards," and in April 1576, he landed at Dover in an exceedingly
sulky mood. He refused to see his wife, and told Burghley he might take
his daughter into his own house again, for he was resolved "to be rid of
the cumber."[139] He accused his father-in-law of holding back money due
to him, although Burghley states that Oxford had in one year £5700.[140]
Considering that Robert Sidney, afterwards Earl of Leicester, had only
£1OO a year for a tour abroad,[141] and that Sir Robert Dallington
declares £200 to be quite enough for a gentleman studying in France or
Italy--including pay for a servant--and that any more would be
"superfluous and to his hurte,"[142] it will be seen that the Earl of
Oxford had £5500 "to his hurte."
Certain results of his travel were pleasing to his sovereign, however.
For he was the first person to import to England "gloves, sweete bagges,
a perfumed leather Jerkin, and other pleasant things."[143] The Queen
was so proud of his present of a pair of perfumed gloves, trimmed with
"foure Tufts or Roses of coloured Silk" that she was "pictured with
those Gloves upon her hands, and for many yeeres after, it was called
the Earle of Oxford's perfume."[144] His own foreign and fashionable
apparel was ridiculed by Gabriel Harvey, in the much-quoted description
of an Italianate Englishman, beginning:
"A little apish hat couched faste to the pate, like an oyster."[145]
Arthur Hall and the Earl of Oxford will perhaps serve to show that many
young men pointed out as having returned the worse for their liberty to
see the world, were those who would have been very poor props to society
had they never left their native land. Weak and vain striplings of
entirely English growth escaped the comment attracted by a sinner with
strange garments and new oaths. For in those garments themselves lay an
offence to the commonwealth. I need only refer to the well-known
jealousy, among English haberdashers and milliners, of the superior
craft of Continental workmen, behind whom English weavers lagged: Henry
the Eighth used to have to wear hose cut out of pieces of cloth--on that
leg of which he was so proud--unless "by great chance there came a paire
of Spanish silke stockings from Spaine."[146] Knit worsted stockings
were not made in England till 1554, when an apprentice "chanced to see a
pair of knit worsted stockings in the lodging of an Italian merchant
that came from Mantua."[147] Harrison's description of England breathes
an animosity to foreign clothes, plainly founded on commercial jealousy:
"Neither was it ever merrier in England than when an Englishman was
known abroad by his own cloth, and contented himself at home with his
fine carsey hosen, and a mean slop: his coat, gown, and cloak of brown,
blue, or puke, with some pretty furniture of velvet or of fur, and a
doublet of sad tawny, or black velvet, or other comely silk, without
such cuts and garish colours, as are worn in these days, and never
brought in but by the consent of the French, who think themselves the
gayest men when they have most diversities of rags and change of colours
about them."[148]
Wrapped up with economic acrimony there was a good deal of the hearty
old English hatred of a Frenchman, or a Spaniard, or any foreigner,
which was always finding expression. Either it was the 'prentices who
rioted, or some rude fellow who pulls up beside the carriage of the
Spanish ambassador, snatches the ambassador's hat off his head and
"rides away with it up the street as fast as he could, the people going
on and laughing at it,"[149] or it was the Smithfield officers deputed
to cut swords of improper length, who pounced upon the French ambassador
because his sword was longer than the statutes allowed. "He was in a
great fury.... Her Majestie is greatly offended with the officers, in
that they wanted judgement."[150]
There was also a dislike of the whole new order of things, of which the
fashion for travel was only a phase: dislike of the new courtier who
scorned to live in the country, surrounded by a huge band of family
servants, but preferred to occupy small lodgings in London, and join in
the pleasures of metropolitan life. The theatre, the gambling resorts,
the fence-schools, the bowling alleys, and above all the glamor of the
streets and the crowd were charms only beginning to assert themselves in
Elizabethan England. But the popular voice was loud against the nobles
who preferred to spend their money on such things instead of on
improving their estates, and who squandered on fine clothes what used to
be spent on roast beef for their retainers. Greene's _Quip for an
Upstart Courtier_ parodies what the new and refined Englishman would
say:--
"The worlds are chaungde, and men are growne to more wit, and their
minds to aspire after more honourable thoughts: they were dunces in
diebus illis, they had not the true use of gentility, and therefore they
lived meanely and died obscurely: but now mennes capacities are refined.
Time hath set a new edge on gentlemen's humours and they show them as
they should be: not like gluttons as their fathers did, in chines of
beefe and almes to the poore, but in velvets, satins, cloth of gold,
pearle: yea, pearle lace, which scarce Caligula wore on his
birthday."[151]
On the whole, we may say that the objections to foreign travel rose from
a variety of motives. Ascham doubtless knew genuine cases of young men
spoiled by too much liberty, and there were surely many obnoxious boys
who bragged of their "foreign vices." Insular prejudice, jealousy and
conservatism, hating foreign influence, drew attention to these bad
examples. Lastly, there was another element in the protest against
foreign travel, which grew more and more strong towards the end of the
reign of Elizabeth and the beginning of James the First's, the hatred of
Italy as the stronghold of the Roman Catholic Church, and fear of the
Inquisition. Warnings against the Jesuits are a striking feature of the
next group of Instructions to Travellers.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
PERILS FOR PROTESTANT TRAVELLERS
The quickening of animosity between Protestants and Catholics in the
last quarter of the sixteenth century had a good deal to do with the
censure of travel which we have been describing. In their fear and
hatred of the Roman Catholic countries, Englishmen viewed with alarm any
attractions, intellectual or otherwise, which the Continent had for
their sons. They had rather have them forego the advantages of a liberal
education than run the risk of falling body and soul into the hands of
the Papists. The intense, fierce patriotism which flared up to meet the
Spanish Armada almost blighted the genial impulse of travel for study's
sake. It divided the nations again, and took away the common admiration
for Italy which had made the young men of the north all rush together
there. We can no longer imagine an Englishman like Selling coming to the
great Politian at Bologna and grappling him to his heart--"arctissima
sibi conjunxit amicum familiaritate,"[152] as the warm humanistic phrase
has it. In the seventeenth century Politian would be a "contagious
Papist," using his charm to convert men to Romanism, and Selling would
be a "true son of the Church of England," railing at Politian for his
"debauch'd and Popish principles." The Renaissance had set men
travelling to Italy as to the flower of the world. They had scarcely
started before the Reformation called it a place of abomination. Lord
Burghley, who in Elizabeth's early days had been so bent on a foreign
education for his eldest son, had drilled him in languages and pressed
him to go to Italy,[153] at the end of his long life left instructions
to his children: "Suffer not thy sonnes to pass the Alps, for they shall
learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy, and atheism. And if by travel
they get a few broken languages, that shall profit them nothing more
than to have one meat served on divers dishes."[154]
The mother of Francis Bacon affords a good example of the Puritan
distrust of going "beyond seas." She could by no means sympathize with
her son Anthony's determination to become versed in foreign affairs, for
that led him into intimacy with Roman Catholics. All through his
prolonged stay abroad she chafed and fretted, while Anthony perversely
remained in France, gaining that acquaintance with valuable
correspondents, spies, and intelligencers which later made him one of
the greatest authorities in England on continental politics. He had a
confidential servant, a Catholic named Lawson, whom he sent over to
deliver some important secret news to Lord Burghley. Lady Bacon, in her
fear lest Lawson's company should pervert her son's religion and morals,
had the man arrested and detained in England. His anxious master sent
another man to plead with his mother for Lawson's release; but in vain.
The letter of this messenger to Anthony will serve to show the vehemence
of anti-Catholic feelings in a British matron in 1589.
"Upon my arrival at Godombery my Lady used me courteously until such
time I began to move her for Mr Lawson; and, to say the truth, for
yourself; being so much transported with your abode there that she let
not to say that you are a traitor to God and your country; you have
undone her; you seek her death; and when you have that you seek for, you
shall have but a hundred pounds more than you have now.
"She is resolved to procure Her Majesty's letter to force you to return;
and when that should be, if Her Majesty give you your right or desert,
she should clap you up in prison. She cannot abide to hear of you, as
she saith, nor of the other especially, and told me plainly she should
be the worse this month for my coming without you, and axed me why you
could not have come from thence as well as myself.
"She saith you are hated of all the chiefest on that side and cursed of
God in all your actions, since Mr Lawson's being with you....
"When you have received your provision, make your repair home again,
lest you be a means to shorten her days, for she told me the grief of
mind received daily by your stay will be her end; also saith her jewels
be spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of seven several
persons.
"Thus much I must confess unto you for a conclusion, that I have never
seen nor never shall see a wise Lady, an honourable woman, a mother,
more perplexed for her son's absence than I have seen that honourable
dame for yours."[155]
It was not only a general hatred of Roman Catholics which made staunch
Protestants anxious to detain their sons from foreign travel towards the
end of Elizabeth's reign, but a very lively and well-grounded fear of
the Inquisition and the Jesuits. When England was at war with Spain, any
Englishman caught on Spanish territory was a lawful prisoner for ransom;
and since Spanish territory meant Sicily, Naples, and Milan, and Rome
was the territory of Spain's patron, the Pope, Italy was far from safe
for Englishmen and Protestants. Even when peace with Spain was declared,
on the accession of James I., the spies of the Inquisition were
everywhere on the alert to find some slight pretext for arresting
travellers and to lure them into the dilemma of renouncing their faith,
or being imprisoned and tortured. There is a letter, for instance, to
Salisbury from one of his agents on the Continent, concerning overtures
made to him by the Pope's nuncio, to decoy some Englishman of
note--young Lord Roos or Lord Cranborne--into papal dominions, where he
might be seized and detained, in hope of procuring a release for Baldwin
the Jesuit.[156] William Bedell, about to go to Italy as chaplain to Sir
Henry Wotton, the Ambassador to Venice, very anxiously asks a friend
what route is best to Italy. "For it is told me that the Inquisition is
in Millaine, and that if a man duck not low at every Cross, he may be
cast in prison.... Send me, I pray you, a note of the chief towns to be
passed through. I care not for seeing places, but to go thither the
shortest and safest way."[157]
Bedell's fears were not without reason, for the very next year occurred
the arrest of the unfortunate Mr Mole, whose case was one of the
sensations of the day. Fuller, in his _Church History_, under the year
1607, records how--
"About this time Mr Molle, Governour to the Lord Ross in his travails,
began his unhappy journey beyond the Seas.... He was appointed by
Thomas, Earl of Exeter, to be Governour in Travail to his Grandchilde,
the Lord Ross, undertaking the charge with much reluctance (as a presage
of ill successe) and with a profession, and a resolution not to passe
the Alpes.
"But a Vagari took the Lord Ross to go to Rome, though some conceive
this notion had its root in more mischievous brains. In vain doth Mr
Molle dissuade him, grown now so wilfull, he would in some sort govern
his Governour. What should this good man doe? To leave him were to
desert his trust, to goe along with him were to endanger his own life.
At last his affections to his charge so prevailed against his judgment,
that unwillingly willing he went with him. Now, at what rate soever they
rode to Rome, the fame of their coming came thither before them; so that
no sooner had they entered their Inne, but Officers asked for Mr Molle,
took and carried him to the Inquisition-House, where he remained a
prisoner whilest the Lord Ross was daily feasted, favoured, entertained:
so that some will not stick to say, That here he changed no Religion for
a bad one."[158]
No threats could persuade Mr Mole to renounce his heresy, and though
many attempts were made to exchange him for some Jesuits caught in
England, he lay for thirty years in the prison of the Inquisition, and
died there, at the age of eighty-one.
It was part of the policy of the Jesuits, according to Sir Henry Wotton,
to thus separate their tutors from young men, and then ply the pupils
with attentions and flattery, with a view to persuading them into the
Church of Rome. Not long after the capture of Mole, Wotton writes to
Salisbury of another case of the same sort.
"My Lord Wentworthe[159] on the 18th of May coming towards Venice ...
accompanied with his brother-in-law Mr Henry Crafts, one Edward
Lichefeld, their governor, and some two or three other English, through
Bologna, as they were there together at supper the very night of their
arrival, came up two Dominican Friars, with the sergeants of the town,
and carried thence the foresaid Lichefeld, with all his papers, into the
prison of the Inquisition where he yet remaineth.[160] Thus standeth
this accident in the bare circumstances thereof, not different, save
only in place, from that of Mr Mole at Rome. And doubtlessly (as we
collect now upon the matter) if Sir John Harington[161] had either gone
the Roman Journey, or taken the ordinary way in his remove thitherwards
out of Tuscany, the like would have befallen his director also, a
gentleman of singular sufficiency;[162] for it appeareth a new piece of
council (infused into the Pope by his artisans the Jesuits) to separate
by some device their guides from our young noblemen (about whom they are
busiest) and afterwards to use themselves (for aught I can yet hear)
with much kindness and security, but yet with restraint (when they come
to Rome) of departing thence without leave; which form was held both
with the Lords Rosse and St Jhons, and with this Lord Wentworthe and his
brother-in-law at their being there. And we have at the present also a
like example or two in Barons of the Almaign nation of our religion,
whose governors are imprisoned, at Rome and Ferrara; so as the matter
seemeth to pass into a rule. And albeit thitherto those before named of
our own be escaped out of that Babylon (as far as I can penetrate)
without any bad impressions, yet surely it appeareth very dangerous to
leave our travellers in this contingency; especially being dispersed in
the middle towns of Italy (whither the language doth most draw them)
certain nimble pleasant wits in quality of interceptors, who deliver
over to their correspondents at Rome the dispositions of gentlemen
before they arrive, and so subject them both to attraction by argument,
and attraction by humour."[163]
Wotton did not overrate the persuasiveness of the Jesuits. Lord Roos
became a papist.[164]
Wotton's own nephew, Pickering, had been converted in Spain, on his
death-bed, although he had been, according to the Jesuit records, "most
tenacious of the corrupt religion which from his tender youth he had
imbibed."[165] In his travels "through the greater part of France,
Italy, Spain and Germany for the purpose of learning both the languages
and the manners, an ancient custom among northern nations, ... he
conferred much upon matters of faith with many persons, led either by
inclination or curiosity, and being a clever man would omit no
opportunity of gaining information."[166] Through this curiosity he made
friends with Father Walpole of the Jesuit College at Valladolid, and
falling into a mortal sickness in that city, Walpole had come to comfort
him.
Another conversion of the same sort had been made by Father Walpole at
Valladolid, the year before. Sir Thomas Palmer came to Spain both for
the purpose of learning the language and seeing the country. "Visiting
the English College, he treated familiarly with the Fathers, and began
to entertain thoughts in his heart of the Catholic religion." While
cogitating, he was "overtaken by a sudden and mortal sickness.
Therefore, perceiving himself to be in danger of death, he set to work
to reconcile himself with the Catholic Church. Having received all the
last Sacraments he died, and was honourably interred with Catholic
rites, to the great amazement also of the English Protestants, who in
great numbers were in the city, and attended the funeral."[167]
There is nothing surprising in these death-bed conversions, when we
think of the pressure brought to bear on a traveller in a strange land.
As soon as he fell sick, the host of his inn sent for a priest, and if
the invalid refused to see a ghostly comforter that fact discovered his
Protestantism. Whereupon the physician and apothecary, the very kitchen
servants, were forbidden by the priest to help him, unless he renounced
his odious Reformed Religion and accepted Confession, the Sacrament, and
Extreme Unction. If he died without these his body was not allowed in
consecrated ground, but was buried in the highway like a very dog. It is
no wonder if sometimes there was a conversion of an Englishman, lonely
and dying, with no one to cling to.[168]
We must remember, also, how many reputed Protestants had only outwardly
conformed to the Church of England for worldly reasons. They could not
enter any profession or hold any public office unless they did. But
their hearts were still in the old faith, and they counted on returning
to it at the very end.[169] Sometimes the most sincere of Protestants in
sickness "relapsed into papistry." For the Protestant religion was new,
but the Roman Church was the Church of their fathers. In the hour of
death men turn to old affections. And so in several ways one can account
for Sir Francis Cottington, Ambassador to Spain, who fell ill, confessed
himself a Catholic; and when he recovered, once more became a
Protestant.[170]
The mere force of environment, according to Sir Charles Cornwallis,
Ambassador to Spain from 1605-9, was enough to change the religion of
impressionable spirits. His reports to England show a constant struggle
to keep his train of young gentlemen true to their national Church.[171]
The Spanish Court was then at Valladolid, in which city flourished an
especially strong College of Jesuits. Thence Walpole, and other
dangerous persuaders, made sallies upon Cornwallis's fold. At first the
Ambassador was hopeful:--
"Much hath that Creswell and others of that Societie" (the Jesuits)
"bestir'd themselves here in Conference and Persuasion with the
Gentlemen that came to attend his Excellencie[172] and do secretly bragg
of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found
corrupted, the one in such sorte as he refused to come to Prayers, whom
I presently discharged; the other being an honest and sober young
Gentleman, and one that denieth not to be present both at Prayers and
Preachinge, I continue still, having good hope that I shall in time
reduce him."[173]
But within a month he has to report the conversion of Sir Thomas Palmer,
and within another month, the loss of even his own chaplain. "Were God
pleased that onlie young and weak ones did waver, it were more
tollerable," he laments, "but I am put in some doubte of my Chaplaine
himself." He had given the chaplain--one Wadesworth, a good Cambridge
Protestant--leave of absence to visit the University of Salamanca. In a
week the chaplain wrote for a prolongation of his stay, making discourse
of "a strange Tempest that came upon him in the way, of visible Fire
that fell both before and behind him, of an Expectation of present
Death, and of a Vowe he made in that time of Danger." This manner of
writing, and reports from others that he has been a secret visitor to
the College of the Jesuits, make Cornwallis fear the worst. "I should
think him borne in a most unfortunate hower," he wails, "to become the
occasion of such a Scandall."[174] But his fears were realized. The
chaplain never came back. He had turned Romanist.
The reasons for the headway of Catholicism in the reign of James I. do
not concern us here. To explain the agitated mood of our Precepts for
Travellers, it is necessary only to call attention to the fact that
Protestantism was just then losing ground, through the devoted energy of
the Jesuits. Even in England, they were able to strike admiration into
the mind of youth, and to turn its ardour to their own purposes. But in
Spain and in Italy, backed by their impressive environment and
surrounded by the visible power of the Roman Church, they were much more
potent. The English Jesuits in Rome--Oxford scholars, many of
them--engaged the attentions of such of their university friends or
their countrymen who came to see Italy, offering to show them the
antiquities, to be guides and interpreters.[175] By some such means the
traveller was lured into the company of these winning companions, till
their spiritual and intellectual power made an indelible impression on
him.[176]
How much the English Government feared the influence of the Jesuits upon
young men abroad may be seen by the increasing strictness of licences
for travellers. The ordinary licence which everyone but a known merchant
was obliged to obtain from a magistrate before he could leave England,
in 1595 gave permission with the condition that the traveller "do not
haunte or resorte unto the territories or dominions of any foreine
prince or potentate not being with us in league or amitie, nor yet
wittinglie kepe companie with any parson or parsons evell affected to
our State."[177] But the attempt to keep Englishmen out of Italy was
generally fruitless, and the proviso was too frequently disregarded.
Lord Zouche grumbled exceedingly at the limitations of his licence. "I
cannot tell," he writes to Burghley in 1591, "whether I shall do well or
no to touch that part of the licence which prohibiteth me in general to
travel in some countries, and companioning divers persons.... This
restraint is truly as an imprisonment, for I know not how to carry
myself; I know not whether I may pass upon the Lords of Venis, and the
Duke of Florens' territories, because I know not if they have league
with her Majesty or no."[178] Doubtless Bishop Hall was right when he
declared that travellers commonly neglected the cautions about the
king's enemies, and that a limited licence was only a verbal
formality.[179] King James had occasion to remark that "many of the
Gentry, and others of Our Kingdom, under pretence of travel for their
experience, do pass the Alps, and not contenting themselves to remain in
Lombardy or Tuscany, to gain the language there, do daily flock to Rome,
out of vanity and curiosity to see the Antiquities of that City; where
falling into the company of Priests and Jesuits ... return again into
their countries, both averse to Religion and ill-affected to Our State
and Government."[180]
To come to our Instructions for Travellers, as given in the reign of
James I., they abound, as we would expect, in warnings against the
Inquisition and the Jesuits. Sir Robert Dallington, in his _Method for
Travell_,[181] gives first place to the question of remaining steadfast
in one's religion:
"Concerning the Traveliers religion, I teach not what it should be,
(being out of my element;) only my hopes are, he be of the religion here
established: and my advice is he be therein well settled, and that
howsoever his imagination shall be carried in the voluble Sphere of
divers men's discourses; yet his inmost thoughts like lines in a circle
shall alwaies concenter in this immoveable point, not to alter his first
faith: for that I knowe, that as all innovation is dangerous in a state;
so is this change in the little commonwealth of a man. And it is to be
feared, that he which is of one religion in his youth, and of another in
his manhood, will in his age be of neither....
"I will instance in a Gentleman I knew abroade, of an overt and free
nature Zealously forward in the religion hee carried from home, while he
was in France, who had not bene twentie dayes in Italy, but he was as
farre gone on the contrary Byas, and since his returne is turned againe.
Now what should one say of such men but as the Philosopher saith of a
friend, 'Amicus omnium, Amicus nullorum,' A professor of both, a
believer in neither.[182]
"The next Caveat is, to beware how he heare anything repugnant to his
religion: for as I have tyed his tongue; so must I stop his eares, least
they be open to the smooth incantations of an insinuating seducer, or
the suttle arguments of a sophisticall adversarie. To this effect I must
precisely forbid him the fellowship or companie of one sort of people in
generall: these are the Jesuites, underminders and inveiglers of greene
wits, seducers of men in matter of faith, and subverters of men in
matters of State, making of both a bad christian, and worse subject.
These men I would have my Travueller never heare, except in the Pulpit;
for[183] being eloquent, they speake excellent language; and being wise,
and therefore best knowing how to speake to best purpose, they seldome
or never handle matter of controversie."
Our best authority in this period of travelling is Fynes Moryson, whose
_Precepts for Travellers_[184] are particularly full. Moryson is well
known as one of the most experienced travellers of the late Elizabethan
era. On a travelling Fellowship from Peterhouse College, Cambridge, in
1591-1595 he made a tour of Europe, when the Continent was bristling
with dangers for Englishmen. Spain and the Inquisition infected Italy
and the Low Countries; France was full of desperate marauding soldiers;
Germany nourished robbers and free-booters in every forest. It was the
particular delight of Fynes Moryson to run into all these dangers and
then devise means of escaping them. He never swerved from seeing
whatever his curiosity prompted him to, no matter how forbidden and
perilous was the venture. Disguised as a German he successfully viewed
the inside of a Spanish fort;[185] in the character of a Frenchman he
entered the jaws of the Jesuit College at Rome.[186] He made his way
through German robbers by dressing as a poor Bohemian, without cloak or
sword, with his hands in his hose, and his countenance servile.[187] His
triumphs were due not so much to a dashing and magnificent bravery, as
to a nice ingenuity. For instance, when he was plucked bare by the
French soldiers of even his inner doublet, in which he had quilted his
money, he was by no means left penniless, for he had concealed some gold
crowns in a box of "stinking ointment" which the soldiers threw down in
disgust.[188]
His _Precepts for Travellers_ are characteristically canny. Never tell
anyone you can swim, he advises, because in case of shipwreck "others
trusting therein take hold of you, and make you perish with them."[189]
Upon duels and resentment of injury in strange lands he throws cold
common sense. "I advise young men to moderate their aptnesse to
quarrell, lest they perish with it. We are not all like Amadis or
Rinalldo, to incounter an hoste of men."[190] Very thoughtful is this
paragraph on the night's lodging:
"In all Innes, but especially in suspected places, let him bolt or locke
the doore of his chamber: let him take heed of his chamber fellows, and
always have his Sword by his side, or by his bed-side; let him lay his
purse under his pillow, but always foulded with his garters, or some
thing hee first useth in the morning, lest hee forget to put it up
before hee goe out of his chamber. And to the end he may leave nothing
behind him in his Innes, let the visiting of his chamber, and gathering
his things together, be the last thing he doth, before hee put his foote
into the stirrup."[191]
The whole of the Precepts is marked by this extensive caution. Since, as
Moryson truly remarks, travellers meet with more dangers than pleasures,
it is better to travel alone than with a friend. "In places of danger,
for difference of Religion or proclaimed warre, whosoever hath his
Country-man or friend for his companion doth much increase his danger,
as well for the confession of his companion, if they chance to be
apprehended, as for other accidents, since he shall be accomptable and
drawne into danger, as well as by his companion's words or deeds, as by
his owne. And surely there happening many dangers and crosses by the
way, many are of such intemperate affections, as they not only diminish
the comfort they should have from this consort, but even as Dogs, hurt
by a stone, bite him that is next, not him that cast the stone, so they
may perhaps out of these crosses grow to bitterness of words betweene
themselves."[192] Instead of a companion, therefore, let the traveller
have a good book under his pillow, to beguile the irksome solitude of
Inns--"alwaies bewaring that it treat not of the Commonwealth, the
Religion thereof, or any Subject that may be dangerous to him."[193]
Chance companions of the road should not be trusted. Lest the traveller
should become too well known to them, let him always declare that he is
going no further than the next city. Arrived there, he may give them the
slip and start with fresh consorts.
Moryson himself, when forced to travel in company, chose Germans, kindly
honest gentlemen, of his own religion. He could speak German well enough
to pass as one of them, but in fear lest even a syllable might betray
his nationality to the sharp spies at the city gates, he made an
agreement with his companions that when he was forced to answer
questions they should interrupt him as soon as possible, and take the
words out of his mouth, as though in rudeness. If he were discovered
they were to say they knew him not, and flee away.[194]
Moryson advised the traveller to see Rome and Naples first, because
those cities were the most dangerous. Men who stay in Padua some months,
and afterwards try Rome, may be sure that the Jesuits and priests there
are informed, not only of their coming, but of their condition and
appearance by spies in Padua. It were advisable to change one's
dwelling-place often, so to avoid the inquiries of priests. At Easter,
in Rome, Moryson found the fullest scope for his genius. A few days
before Easter a priest came to his lodgings and took the inmates' names
in writing, to the end that they might receive the Sacrament with the
host's family. Moryson went from Rome on the Tuesday before Easter, came
to Siena on Good Friday, and upon Easter eve "(pretending great
business)" darted to Florence for the day. On Monday morning he dodged
to Pisa, and on the folowing, back to Siena. "Thus by often changing
places I avoyded the Priests inquiring after mee, which is most
dangerous about Easter time, when all men receive the Sacrament."[195]
The conception of travel one gathers from Fynes Moryson is that of a
very exciting form of sport, a sort of chase across Europe, in which the
tourist was the fox, doubling and turning and diving into cover, while
his friends in England laid three to one on his death. So dangerous was
travel at this time, that wagers on the return of venturous gentlemen
became a fashionable form of gambling.[196] The custom emanated from
Germany, Moryson explains, and was in England first used at Court and
among "very Noble men." Moryson himself put out £100 to receive £300 on
his return; but by 1595, when he contemplated a second journey, he would
not repeat the wager, because ridiculous voyages were by that time
undertaken for insurance money by bankrupts and by men of base
conditions.
Sir Henry Wotton was a celebrated product of foreign education in these
perilous times. As a student of political economy in 1592 he led a
precarious existence, visiting Rome with the greatest secrecy, and in
elaborate disguise. For years abroad he drank in tales of subtlety and
craft from old Italian courtiers, till he was well able to hold his own
in intrigue. By nature imaginative and ingenious, plots and counterplots
appealed to his artistic ability, and as English Ambassador to Venice,
he was never tired of inventing them himself or attributing them to
others. It was this characteristic of Jacobean politicians which Ben
Jonson satirized in Sir Politick-Would-be, who divulged his knowledge of
secret service to Peregrine in Venice. Greatly excited by the mention of
a certain priest in England, Sir Politick explains:
"He has received weekly intelligence
Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,
For all parts of the world, in cabbages;
And these dispensed again to ambassadors,
In oranges, musk-melons, apricocks--,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like: sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles."[197]
Later on Sir Politick gives instructions for travellers:
"Some few particulars I have set down,
Only for this meridian, fit to be known
Of your crude traveller....
First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious,
Very reserv'd and lock'd; not tell a secret
On any terms; not to your father: scarce
A fable, but with caution: make sure choice
Both of your company, and discourse; beware
You never speak a truth--
PEREGRINE. How!
SIR P. Not to strangers,
For those be they you must converse with most;
Others I would not know, sir, but at distance,
So as I still might be a saver in them:
You shall have tricks eke passed upon you hourly.
And then, for your religion, profess none,
But wonder at the diversity of all."[198]
Sir Henry Wotton's letter to Milton must not be left out of account of
Jacobean advice to travellers. It is brief, but very characteristic, for
it breathes the atmosphere of plots and caution. Admired for his great
experience and long sojourn abroad, in his old age, as Provost of Eton,
Sir Henry's advice was much sought after by fathers about to send their
sons on the Grand Tour. Forty-eight years after he himself set forth
beyond seas, he passed on to young John Milton "in procinct of his
travels," his favourite bit of wisdom, learned from a Roman courtier
well versed in the ways of Italy: "I pensieri stretti e il viso
sciolto."[199] Milton did not follow this Machiavellian precept to keep
his "thoughts close and his countenance loose," as Wotton translates
it,[200] and was soon marked by the Inquisition; but he was proud of
being advised by Sir Henry Wotton, and boasted of the "elegant letter"
and "exceedingly useful precepts" which the Provost bestowed on him at
his departure for Italy.[201]
So much for the admonitory side of instructions for travellers at the
opening of the seventeenth century. Italy, we see, was still feared as a
training-ground for "green wits." Bishop Hall succeeded Ascham in
denouncing the travel of young men who professed "to seek the glory of a
perfect breeding, and the perfection of that which we call civility."
Allowed to visit the Continent at an early age, "these lapwings, that go
from under the wing of their dam with the shell on their heads, run
wild." They hasten southwards, where in Italy they view the "proud
majesty of pompous ceremonies, wherewith the hearts of children and
fools are easily taken."[202] To the persuasive power of the Jesuits
Hall devotes several pages, and makes an impassioned plea to the
authorities to prevent Englishmen from travelling.
Parents could be easily alarmed by any possibility of their sons'
conversion to Romanism. For the penalties of being a Roman Catholic in
England were enough to make an ambitious father dread recusancy in his
son. Though a gentleman or a nobleman ran no risk of being hanged,
quartered, disembowelled and subjected to such punishments as were dealt
out to active and dangerous priests, he was regarded as a traitor if he
acknowledged himself to be a Romanist. At any moment of anti-Catholic
excitement he might be arrested and clapped into prison. Drearier than
prison must have been his social isolation. For he was cut off from his
generation and had no real part in the life of England. Under the laws
of James he was denied any share in the Government, could hold no public
office, practise no profession. Neither law nor medicine, nor parliament
nor the army, nor the university, was open to him. Banished from London
and the Court, shunned by his contemporaries, he lurked in some country
house, now miserably lonely, now plagued by officers in search of
priests. At last, generally, he went abroad, and wandered out his life,
an exile, despised by his countrymen, who met him hanging on at foreign
Courts; or else he sought a monastery and was buried there. To be sure,
the laws against recusants were not uniformly enforced; papistry in
favourites and friends of the king was winked at, and the rich noblemen,
who were able to pay fines, did not suffer much. But the fact remains
that for the average gentleman to turn Romanist generally meant to drop
out of the world. "Mr Lewknor," writes Father Gerard to Father
Owen,[203] "growing of late to a full resolution of entering the Society
(of Jesus), and being so much known in England and in the Court as he
is, so that he could not be concealed in the English College at Rome;
and his father, as he considered, being morally sure to lose his
place,[204] which is worth unto him £1000 a year, he therefore will come
privately to Liege, where I doubt not but to keep him wholly unknown."
* * * * *
CHAPTER V
THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH ACADEMIES
The admonitions of their elders did not keep young men from going to
Italy, but as the seventeenth century advanced the conditions they found
there made that country less attractive than France. The fact that the
average Englishman was a Protestant divided him from his compeers in
Italy and damped social intercourse. He was received courteously and
formally by the Italian princes, perhaps, for the sake of his political
uncle or cousin in England, but inner distrust and suspicion blighted
any real friendship. Unless the Englishman was one of those who had a
secret, half-acknowledged allegiance to Romanism, there could not, in
the age of the Puritans, be much comfortable affection between him and
the Italians. The beautiful youth, John Milton, as the author of
excellent Latin verse, was welcomed into the literary life of Florence,
to be sure, and there were other unusual cases, but the typical
traveller of Stuart times was the young gentleman who was sent to France
to learn the graces, with a view to making his fortune at Court, even as
his widowed mother sent George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham.
The Englishmen who travelled for "the complete polishing of their parts"
continued to visit Italy, to satisfy their curiosity, but it was rather
in the mood of the sight-seer. Only malcontents, at odds with their
native land, like Bothwell, or the Earl of Arundel, or Leicester's
disinherited son, made prolonged residence in Italy. Aspiring youth,
seeking a social education, for the most part hurried to France.
For it was not only a sense of being surrounded by enemies which during
the seventeenth century somewhat weakened the Englishman's allegiance to
Italy, but the increasing attractiveness of another country. By 1616 it
was said of France that "Unto no other countrie, so much as unto this,
doth swarme and flow yearly from all Christian nations, such a
multitude, and concourse of young Gentlemen, Marchants, and other sorts
of men: some, drawen from their Parentes bosoms by desire of learning;
some, rare Science, or new conceites; some by pleasure; and others
allured by lucre and gain.... But among all other Nations, there cometh
not such a great multitude to Fraunce from any Country, as doth yearely
from this Isle (England), both of Gentlemen, Students, Marchants, and
others."[205]
Held in peace by Henry of Navarre, France began to be a happier place
than Italy for the Englishman abroad. Germany was impossible, because of
the Thirty Years' War; and Spain, for reasons which we shall see later
on, was not inviting. Though nominally Roman Catholic, France was in
fact half Protestant. Besides, the French Court was great and gay, far
outshining those of the impoverished Italian princes. It suited the
gallants of the Stuart period, who found the grave courtesy of the
Italians rather slow. Learning, for which men once had travelled into
Italy, was no longer confined there. Nor did the Cavaliers desire exact
classical learning. A knowledge of mythology, culled from French
translations, was sufficient. Accomplishments, such as riding, fencing,
and dancing, were what chiefly helped them, it appeared, to make their
way at Court or at camp. And the best instruction in these
accomplishments had shifted from Italy to France.
A change had come over the ideal of a gentleman--a reaction from the
Tudor enthusiasm for letters. A long time had gone by since Henry VIII.
tried to make his children as learned as Erasmus, and had the most
erudite scholars fetched from Oxford and Cambridge to direct the royal
nursery. The somewhat moderated esteem in which book-learning was held
in the household of Charles I. may be seen in a letter of the Earl of
Newcastle, governor to Prince Charles,[206] who writes to his pupil:
"I would not have you too studious, for too much contemplation spoils
action, and Virtue consists in that." The Prince's model is to be the
Bishop of Chichester, his tutor, who "hath no pedantry in him: his
learning he makes right use of, neither to trouble himself with it or
his friends: ... reades men as well as books: ... is travell'd, which
you shall perceive by his wisdome and fashion more than by his
relations; and in a word strives as much discreetly to hide the scholler
in him, as other men's follies studies to shew it: and is a right
gentleman."[207]
Of pedantry, however, there never seems to have been any danger in Court
circles, either in Tudor or Stuart days. It took constant exhortations
to make the majority of noblemen's sons learn anything at all out of
books. For centuries the marks of a gentleman had been bravery, courtesy
and a good seat in the saddle, and it was not to be supposed that a
sudden fashionable enthusiasm for literature could change all that.
Ascham had declared that the Elizabethan young bloods thought it
shameful to be learned because the "Jentlemen of France" were not
so.[208] When with the general relaxation of high effort which appeared
in so many ways at the Court of James I., the mastery of Greek authors
was no longer an ideal of the courtier, the Jacobean gallant was hardly
more intellectual than the mediæval page. Henry Peacham, in 1623,
described noblemen's flagging faith in a university education. They sent
their sons to Oxford or Cambridge at an early age, and if the striplings
did not immediately lay hold on philosophy, declared that they had no
aptitude for learning, and removed them to a dancing school. "These
young things," as he calls the Oxford students "of twelve, thirteene, or
foureteene, that have no more care than to expect the next Carrier, and
where to sup on Fridayes and Fasting nights" find "such a disproportion
betweene Aristotles Categories, and their childish capacities, that what
together with the sweetnesse of libertie, varietie of companie, and so
many kinds of recreation in towne and fields abroad," they give over any
attempt to understand "the crabbed grounds of Arts." Whereupon, the
parents, "if they perceive any wildnesse or unstayednesse in their
children, are presently in despaire, and out of all hope of them for
ever prooving Schollers, or fit for anything else; neither consider the
nature of youth, nor the effect of time, the Physitian of all. But to
mend the matter, send them either to the Court to serve as Pages, or
into France and Italy to see fashions, and mend their manners, where
they become ten times worse."[209]
The influence of France would not be towards books, certainly. Brave,
gallant, and magnificent were the Gallic gentlemen; but not learned.
Reading made them positively ill: "la tête leur tourne de lire," as
Brézé confessed.[210] Scorning an indoor sedentary life, they left all
civil offices to the bourgeoisie, and devoted themselves exclusively to
war. As the Vicomte D'Avenel has crisply put it:
"It would have seemed as strange to see a person of high rank the
Treasurer of France, the Controller of Finance, or the Rector of a
University, as it would be to see him a cloth-merchant or maker of
crockery.... The poorest younger son of an ancient family, who would not
disdain to engage himself as a page to a nobleman, or as a common
soldier, would have thought himself debased by accepting the post of
secretary to an ambassador."[211]
Brute force was still considered the greatest power in the world, even
when Sully was Conseiller d'Etat, though divining spirits like Eustache
Deschamps had declared that the day would come when serving-men would
rule France by their wits, all because the noblesse would not learn
letters.[212] In vain the wise Bras-de-Fer warned his generation that
glory and strength of limb were of short duration, while knowledge was
the only immortal quality.[213] As long as parents saw that the honours
at Court went to handsome horsemen, they thought it mistaken policy to
waste money on book-learning for their sons. When a boy came from the
university to Court, he found himself eclipsed by young pages, who
scarcely knew how to read, but had killed their man in a duel, and
danced to perfection.[214] A martial training, with physical
accomplishments, was the most effective, apparently.
The martial type which France evolved dazzled other nations, and it is
not surprising that under the Stuarts, who had inherited French ways,
the English Court was particularly open to French ideals. Our directions
for travellers reflect the change from the typical Elizabethan courtier,
"somewhat solemn, coy, big and dangerous of look," to the easy manners
of the cavalier. _A Method for Travell_, written while Elizabeth was
still on the throne, extols Italian conduct. "I would rather," it says
of the traveller, "he should come home Italianate than Frenchified: I
speake of both in the better sense: for the French is stirring, bold,
respectless, inconstant, suddaine: the Italian stayed, demure,
respective, grave, advised."[215] But _Instructions for Forreine
Travell_ in 1642 urges one to imitate the French. "For the Gentry of
France have a kind of loose, becoming boldness, and forward vivacity in
their manners."[216]
The first writer of advice to travellers who assumes that French
accomplishments are to be a large part of the traveller's education, is
Sir Robert Dallington, whom we have already quoted. His _View of
France_[217] to which the _Method for Travel_ is prefixed, deserves a
reprint, for both that and his _Survey of Tuscany_,[218] though built on
the regular model of the Elizabethan traveller's "Relation," being a
conscientious account of the chief geographical, economic,
architectural, and social features of the country traversed, are more
artistic than the usual formal reports. Dallington wrote these Views in
1598, a little before the generation which modelled itself on the French
gallants, and his remarks on Frenchmen may well have served as a warning
to courtiers not to imitate the foibles, along with the admirable
qualities, of their compeers across the Channel. For instance, he is
outraged by the effusiveness of the "violent, busy-headed and impatient
Frenchman," who "showeth his lightness and inconstancie ... in nothing
more than in his familiaritie, with whom a stranger cannot so soone be
off his horse, but he will be acquainted: nor so soone in his Chamber,
but the other like an Ape will bee on his shoulder: and as suddenly and
without cause ye shall love him also. A childish humour, to be wonne
with as little as an Apple and lost with lesse than a Nut."[219] The
King of France himself is censured for his geniality. Dallington deems
Henry of Navarre "more affable and familiar than fits the Majesty of a
great King." He might have found in current gossip worse lapses than the
two he quotes to show Henry's lack of formality, but it is part of
Dallington's worth that he writes of things at first-hand, and gives us
only what he himself saw; how at Orleans, when the Italian commedians
were to play before him, the king himself, "came whiffling with a small
wand to scowre the coast, and make place for the rascall Players,... a
thing, me thought, most derogatory to the Majesty of a King of France."
"And lately at Paris (as they tell us) when the Spanish Hostages were to
be entertayned, he did Usher it in the great Chamber, as he had done
here before; and espying the Chayre not to stand well under the State,
mended it handsomely himselfe, and then set him downe to give them
audience."[220]
Nor can Dallington conceal his disapproval of foreign food. The sorrows
of the beef-eating Englishman among the continentals were always
poignant. Dallington is only one of the many travellers who, unable to
grasp the fact that warmer climes called for light diet, reproached the
Italians especially for their "parsimony and thin feeding." In Henry the
Eighth's time there was already a saying among the Italians, "Give the
Englishman his beef and mustard,"[221] while the English in turn jibed at
the Italians for being "like Nebuchadnezzar,--always picking of
sallets." "Herbage," says Dallington scornfully "is the most generall
food of the Tuscan ... for every horse-load of flesh eaten, there is ten
cart loades of hearbes and rootes, which also their open Markets and
private tables doe witnesse, and whereof if one talke with them fasting,
he shall have sencible feeling."[222] The whole subject of diet he
dismisses in his advice to a traveller as follows: "As for his viands I
feare not his surfetting; his provision is never so great, but ye may
let him loose to his allowance.... I shall not need to tell him before
what his dyet shall be, his appetite will make it better than it is: for
he shall be still kept sharpe: only of the difference of dyets, he shall
observe thus much: that of Germanie is full or rather fulsome; that of
France allowable; that of Italie tolerable; with the Dutch he shall have
much meat ill-dressed: with the French lesse, but well handled; with the
Italian neither the one nor the other."[223]
Though there is much in Dallington's description of Italy and France to
repay attention, our concern is with his _Method for Travell_,[224]
which, though more practical than the earlier Elizabethan essays of the
same sort, opens in the usual style of exhortation:
"Plato, one of the day-starres of that knowledge, which then but dawning
hath since shone out in clearer brightness, thought nothing better for
the bettering our understanding then _Travell_: as well by having a
conference with the wiser sort in all sorts of learning, as by the
[Greek: Autopsiaêi]. The eye-sight of those things, which otherwise a
man cannot have but by Tradition; A Sandy foundation either in matter of
Science, or Conscience. So that a purpose to Travell, if it be not ad
voluptatem Solum, sed ad utilitatem, argueth an industrious and generous
minde. Base and vulgar spirits hover still about home: those are more
noble and divine, that imitate the Heavens, and joy in motion."
After a warning against Jesuits, which we have quoted, he comes at once
to definite directions for studying modern languages[225]--advice which
though sound is hardly novel. Continual speaking with all sorts of
people, insisting that his teacher shall not do all the talking, and
avoiding his countrymen are unchangeable rules for him who shall travel
for language.[226] But this is the first treatise for travellers which
makes note of dancing as an important accomplishment. "There's another
exercise to be learned in France, because there are better teachers, and
the French fashion is in most request with us, that is, of dancing. This
I meane to my Traveller that is young and meanes to follow the Court:
otherwise I hold it needelesse, and in some ridiculous."[227] This art
was indeed essential to courtiers, and a matter of great earnestness.
Chamberlain reports that Sir Henry Bowyer died of the violent exercise
he underwent while practising dancing.[228] Henri III. fell into a
tearful passion and called the Grand Prieur a liar, a poltroon, and a
villain, at a ball, because the Grand Prieur was heard to mutter "Unless
you dance better, I would you had your money again that your dancing has
cost you." [229] James I. was particularly anxious to have his "Babies"
excel in complicated boundings. His copy of _Nuove Inventioni di
Balli_[230] may be seen in the British Museum, with large plates
illustrating how to "gettare la gamba," that is, in the words of
Chaucer, "with his legges casten to and fro."[231] Prince Henry was
skilful in these matters. The Spanish Ambassador reports how "The Prince
of Wales was desired by his royal parents to open the ball with a
Spanish gallarda: he acquitted himself with much grace and delicacy,
introducing some occasional leaps."[232] Prince Charles and Buckingham,
during their stay in Spain, are earnestly implored by their "deare Dad
and Gossip" not to forget their dancing. "I praye you, my babie, take
heade of being hurt if ye runne at tilte, ... I praye you in the
meantyme keep your selfis in use of dawncing privatlie, thogh ye showlde
quhissell and sing one to another like Jakke and Tom for faulte of
better musike." [233]
However, Dallington is very much against the saltations of elderly
persons. "I remember a countriman of ours, well seene in artes and
language, well stricken in yeares, a mourner for his second wife, a
father of mariageable children, who with his other booke studies
abroade, joyned also the exercise of dancing: it was his hap in an
honourable _Bal_ (as they call it) to take a fall, which in mine opinion
was not so disgracefull as the dancing it selfe, to a man of his
stuffe."[234]
Dallington would have criticized Frenchmen more severely than ever had
he known that even Sully gave way in private to a passion for dancing.
At least Tallemant des Réaux says that "every evening a valet de chambre
of the King played on the lute the dances of the day, and M. de Sully
danced all alone, in some sort of extraordinary hat--such as he always
wore in his cabinet--while his cronies applauded him, although he was
the most awkward man in the world."[235]
Tennis is another courtly exercise in which Dallington urges moderation.
"This is dangerous, (if used with too much violence) for the body; and
(if followed with too much diligence,) for the purse. A maine point of
the Travellers care." He reached France when the rage for tennis was at
its height,--when there were two hundred and fifty tennis courts in
Paris,[236]--and "two tennis courts for every one Church through
France," according to his computation.[237] Everyone was at it;--nobles,
artizans, women, and children. The monks had had to be requested not to
play--especially, the edict said, "not in public in their shirts."[238]
Our Englishman, of course, thought this enthusiasm was beyond bounds.
"Ye have seene them play Sets at Tennise in the heat of Summer and
height of the day, when others were scarcely able to stirre out of
doors." Betting on the game was the ruin of the working-man, who
"spendeth that on the Holyday, at Tennis, which hee got the whole weeke,
for the keeping of his poore family. A thing more hurtfull then our
Ale-houses in England."[239]
"There remains two other exercises," says the _Method for Travell_, "of
use and necessitie, to him that will returne ably quallified for his
countries service in warre, and his owne defence in private quarrell.
These are Riding and Fencing. His best place for the first (excepting
Naples) is in Florence under il Signor Rustico, the great Dukes
Cavallerizzo, and for the second (excepting Rome) is in Padua, under il
Sordo."[240] Italy, it may be observed, was still the best school for
these accomplishments. Pluvinel was soon to make a world-renowned riding
academy in Paris, but the art of fencing was more slowly disseminated.
One was still obliged, like Captain Bobadil, to make "long travel for
knowledge, in that mystery only."[241] Brantome says the fencing masters
of Italy kept their secrets in their own hands, giving their services
only on the condition that you should never reveal what you had learnt
even to your dearest friends. Some instructors would never allow a
living soul in the room where they were giving lessons to a pupil. And
even then they used to keek everywhere, under the beds, and examine the
wall to see if it had any crack or hole through which a person could
peer.[242] Dallington makes no further remark on the subject, however,
than the above, and after some advice about money matters, which we will
mention in another connection, and a warning to the traveller that his
apparel must be in fashion--for the fashions change with trying
rapidity, and the French were very scornful of anyone who appeared in a
last year's suit[243]--he brings to a close one of the pithiest essays
in our collection.
When the influence of France over the ideals of a gentleman was well
established, James Howell wrote his _Instructions for Forreine
Travell_,[244] and in this book for the first time the traveller is
advised to stay at one of the French academies--or riding schools, as
they really were.
His is the best known, probably, of all our treatises, partly because it
was reprinted a little while ago by Mr Gosse, and partly because of its
own merits. Howell had an easier, more indulgent outlook upon the world
than Dallington, and could see all nations with equal humour--his own
included. Take his comparison of the Frenchman and the Spaniard.
The Frenchman "will dispatch the weightiest affairs as hee walke along
in the streets, or at meales, the other upon the least occasion of
businesse will retire solemnly to a room, and if a fly chance to hum
about him, it will discompose his thoughts and puzzle him: It is a kind
of sicknesse for a Frenchman to keep a secret long, and all the drugs of
Egypt cannot get it out of a Spaniard.... The Frenchman walks fast, (as
if he had a Sergeant always at his heels,) the Spaniard slowly, as if
hee were newly come out of some quartan Ague; the French go up and down
the streets confusedly in clusters, the Spaniards if they be above
three, they go two by two, as if they were going a Procession; etc.
etc."[245]
With the same humorous eye he observes the Englishmen returned to London
from Paris, "whom their gate and strouting, their bending in the hammes,
and shoulders, and looking upon their legs, with frisking and singing do
speake them Travellers.... Some make their return in huge monstrous
Periwigs, which is the Golden Fleece _they_ bring over with them. Such,
I say, are a shame to their Country abroad, and their kinred at home,
and to their parents, Benonies, the sons of sorrow: and as Jonas in the
Whales belly, travelled much, but saw little."[246]
These are some of the advantages an Englishman will reap from foreign
travel:
"One shall learne besides there not to interrupt one in the relation of
his tale, or to feed it with odde interlocutions: One shall learne also
not to laugh at his own jest, as too many used to do, like a Hen, which
cannot lay an egge but she must cackle.
"Moreover, one shall learne not to ride so furiously as they do
ordinarily in England, when there is no necessity at all for it; for the
Italians have a Proverb, that a galloping horse is an open sepulcher.
And the English generally are observed by all other Nations, to ride
commonly with that speed as if they rid for a midwife, or a Physitian,
or to get a pardon to save one's life as he goeth to execution, when
there is no such thing, or any other occasion at all, which makes them
call England the Hell of Horses.
"In these hot Countreyes also, one shall learne to give over the habit
of an odde custome, peculiar to the English alone, and whereby they are
distinguished from other Nations, which is, to make still towards the
chimney, though it bee in the Dog-dayes."[247]
We need not comment in detail upon Howell's book since it is so
accessible. The passage which chiefly marks the progress of travel for
study's sake is this:
"For private Gentlemen and Cadets, there be divers Academies in Paris,
Colledge-like, where for 150 pistols a Yeare, which come to about £150
sterling per annum of our money, one may be very well accomodated, with
lodging and diet for himself and man, and be taught to Ride, to Fence,
to manage Armes, to Dance, Vault, and ply the Mathematiques."[248]
These academies were one of the chief attractions which France had for
the gentry of England in the seventeenth century. The first one was
founded by Pluvinel, the _grand écuyer_ of Henri IV. Pluvinel, returning
from a long apprenticeship to Pignatelli in Naples, made his own
riding-school the best in the world, so that the French no longer had to
journey to Italian masters. He obtained from the king the basement of
the great gallery of the Louvre, and there taught Louis XIII. and other
young nobles of the Court--amongst them the Marquis du Chillon,
afterwards Cardinal Richelieu--to ride the great horse.[249] Such was
the success of his manège that he annexed masters to teach his pupils
dancing, vaulting, and swordsmanship, as well as drawing and
mathematics, till he had rounded out what was considered a complete
education for a chevalier. In imitation of his establishment, many other
riding-masters, such as Benjamin, Potrincourt, and Nesmond, set up
others of the same sort, which drew pupils from other nations during all
the seventeenth century.[250] In the suburb of Pré-aux-clercs, says
Malingre in 1640, "are several academies where the nobility learn to
ride. The most frequented is that of M. de Mesmon, where there is a
prince of Denmark and one of the princes palatine of the Rhine, and a
quantity of other foreign gentlemen."[251]
Englishmen found the academies very useful retreats where a boy could
learn French accomplishments without incurring the dangers of foreign
travel and make the acquaintance of young nobles of his own age. Mr
Thomas Lorkin writing from Paris in 1610, outlines to the tutor of the
Prince of Wales the routine of his pupil Mr Puckering[252] at such an
establishment. The morning began with two hours on horseback, followed
by two hours at the French tongue, and one hour in "learning to handle
his weapon." Dinner was at twelve o'clock, where the company continued
together till two, "either passing the time in discourse or in some
honest recreation perteyning to armes." At two the bell rang for
dancing, and at three another gong sent the pupil to his own room with
his tutor, to study Latin and French for two hours. "After supper a
brief survey of all."[253]
It will be seen that there was an exact balance between physical and
mental exercise--four hours of each. All in all, academies seemed to be
the solution of preparing for life those who were destined to shine at
Court. The problem had been felt in England, as well as in France. In
1561, Sir Nicholas Bacon had devised "Articles for the bringing up in
virtue and learning of the Queens Majesties Wardes."[254] Lord Burghley
is said to have propounded the creation of a school of arms and
exercises.[255] In 1570, Sir Humphrey Gilbert drew up an elaborate
proposal for an "Academy of philosophy and chivalry,"[256] but none of
these plans was carried out. Nor was that of Prince Henry, who had also
wanted to establish a Royal Academy or School of Arms, in which all the
king's wards and others should be educated and exercised.[257] A certain
Sir Francis Kinaston, esquire of the body to Charles I., "more addicted
to the superficiall parts of learning--poetry and oratory (wherein he
excell'd)--than to logic and philosophy," Wood says, did get a licence
to erect an academy in his house in Covent Garden, "which should be for
ever a college for the education of the young nobility and others, sons
of gentlemen, and should be styled the Musæum Minervæ."[258] But
whatever start was made in that direction ended with the Civil War.
However, the idea of setting up in England the sort of academy which was
successful in France was such an obvious one that it kept constantly
recurring. In 1649 a courtly parasite, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, who used
to be a miniature painter, an art-critic, and Master of Ceremonies to
Charles I., being sadly thrown out of occupation by the Civil War,
opened an academy at Bethnal Green. There are still in existence his
elaborate advertisements of its attractions, addressed to "All Fathers
of Noble Families and Lovers of Vertue," and proposing his school as "a
meanes, whereby to free them of such charges as they are at, when they
send their children to foreign academies, and to render them more
knowing in those languages, without exposing them to the dangers
incident to travellers, and to that of evill companies, or of giving to
forrain parts the glory of their education."[259] But Gerbier was a
flimsy character, and without a Court to support him, or money, his
academy dissolved after a gaseous lecture or two. Faubert, however,
another French Protestant refugee, was more successful with an academy
he managed to set up in London in 1682, "to lessen the vast expense the
nation is at yearly by sending children into France to be taught
military exercises."[260] Evelyn, who was a patron of this enterprise,
describes how he "went with Lord Cornwallis to see the young gallants do
their exercise, Mr Faubert having newly railed in a manège, and fitted
it for the academy. There were the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland,
Lord Newburgh, and a nephew of (Duras) Earl of Feversham.... But the
Duke of Norfolk told me he had not been at this exercise these twelve
years before."[261] However, Faubert's could not have been an important
institution, since in 1700, a certain Dr Maidwell tried to get the
Government to convert a great house of his near Westminster into a
public academy of the French sort, as a greatly needed means of rearing
gentlemen.[262]
But all these efforts to educate English boys on the lines of French
ones came to nothing, because at the close of the seventeenth century
Englishmen began to realize that it was not wise for a gentleman to
confine himself to a military life. As to riding as a fine art, his
practical mind felt that it was all very well to amuse oneself in Paris
by learning to make a war-horse caracole, but there was no use in taking
such things too seriously; that in war "a ruder way of riding was more
in use, without observing the precise rules of riding the great
horse."[263] He could not feel that artistic passion for form in
horsemanship which breathes from the pages of Pluvinel's book _Le
Maneige Royal_[264] in which magnificent engravings show Louis XIII.
making courbettes, voltes, and "caprioles" around the Louvre, while a
circle of grandees gravely discuss the deportment of his charger. Even
Sir Philip Sidney made gentle fun of the hippocentric universe of his
Italian riding master:
"When the right vertuous Edward Wotton, and I, were at the Emperors
Court together, wee gave ourselves to learne horsemanship of John Pietro
Pugliano: one that with great commendation had the place of an esquire
in his stable. And hee, according to the fertilnes of the Italian wit,
did not onely afoord us the demonstration of his practise, but sought to
enrich our mindes with the contemplations therein, which hee thought
most precious. But with none I remember mine eares were at any time more
loden, then when (ether angred with slowe paiment, or mooved with our
learner-like admiration,) he exercised his speech in the prayse of his
facultie. Hee sayd, Souldiers were the noblest estate of mankinde, and
horsemen, the noblest of Souldiours. He sayde, they were the Maistres of
warre, and ornaments of peace: speedy goers, and strong abiders,
triumphers both in Camps and Courts. Nay, to so unbeleeved a poynt hee
proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a Prince, as to
be a good horseman. Skill of government, was but a Pedanteria in
comparison: then woulde he adde certaine prayses, by telling what a
peerlesse beast a horse was. The only serviceable Courtier without
flattery, the beast of the most beutie, faithfulness, courage, and such
more, that if I had not beene a peece of a Logician before I came to
him, I think he would have perswaded mee to have wished my selfe a
Horse."[265]
That this was somewhat the spirit of the French academies there seems no
doubt. Though they claimed to give an equal amount of physical and
mental exercise, they tended to the muscular side of the programme.
Pluvinel, says Tallemant des Réaux, "was hardly more intelligent than
his horses,"[266] and the academies are supposed to have declined after
his death.[267] "All that is to be learned in these Academies," says
Clarendon, "is Riding, Dancing, and Fencing, besides some Wickednesses
they do not profess to teach. It is true they have men there who teach
Arithmetick, which they call Philosophy, and the Art of Fortification,
which they call the Mathematicks; but what Learning they had there, I
might easily imagine, when he assured me, that in Three years which he
had spent in the Academy, he never saw a Latin book nor any Master that
taught anything there, who would not have taken it very ill to be
suspected to speake or understand Latin."[268] This sort of aspersion
was continued by Dr Wallis, the Savilian Professor of Mathematics at
Oxford in 1700, who was roused to a fine pitch of indignation by
Maidwell's efforts to start an academy in London:[269]
"Of teachers in the academie, scarce any of a higher character than a
valet-de-chambre. And, if such an one, who (for instance) hath waited on
his master in one or two campagnes, and is able perhaps to copy the
draught of a fortification from another paper; this is called
mathematicks; and, beyond this (if so much) you are not to expect."
A certain Mr P. Chester finishes the English condemnation of a school,
such as Benjamin's, by declaring that its pretensions to fit men for
life was "like the shearing of Hoggs, much Noyse and little Wooll,
nothing considerable taught that I know, butt only to fitt a man to be a
French chevalier, that is in plain English a Trooper."[270]
These comments are what one expects from Oxford, to be sure, but even M.
Jusserand acknowledges that the academies were not centres of
intellectual light, and quotes to prove it certain questions asked of a
pupil put into the Bastille, at the demand of his father:
"Was it not true that the Sieur Varin, his father, seeing that he had no
inclination to study, had put him into the Académie Royale to there
learn all sorts of exercises, and had there supported him with much
expense?
"He admitted that his father, while his mother was living, had put him
into the Académie Royale and had given him for that the necessary means,
and paid the ordinary pension, 1600 livres a year.
"Was it not true that after having been some time at the Académie
Royale, he was expelled, having disguised girls in boys' clothes to
bring them there?
"He denied it. He had never introduced into the school any académiste
féminine: he had departed at the summons of his father, having taken
proper leave of M. and Mme. de Poix."[271]
However, something of an education had to be provided for Royalist boys
at the time of the Civil War, when Oxford was demoralized. Parents
wandering homeless on the Continent were glad enough of the academies.
Even the Stuarts tried them, though the Duke of Gloucester had to be
weaned from the company of some young French gallants, "who, being
educated in the same academy, were more familiar with him than was
thought convenient."[272] It was a choice between academies or such an
education as Edmund Verney endured in a dull provincial city as the sole
pupil of an exiled Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. But the
effects of being reared in France, and too early thrown into the
dissolute Courts of Europe, were evident at the Restoration, when
Charles the Second and his friends returned to startle England with
their "exceeding wildness." What else could be the effect of a youth
spent as the Earl of Chesterfield records:[273] at thirteen years old a
courtier at St Germaine: at fourteen, rid of any governor or tutor: at
sixteen, at the academy of M. de Veau, he "chanced to have a quarrel
with M. Morvay, since Captaine of the French King's Guards, who I hurt
and disarmed in a duel." Thereupon he left the academy and took up his
abode at the Court of Turin. It was from Italy, De Gramont said, that
Chesterfield brought those elaborate manners, and that jealousy about
women, for which he was so notorious among the rakes of the
Restoration.[274]
Henry Peacham's chapter "Of Travaile"[275] is for the most part built
out of Dallington's advice, but it is worthy of note that in _The
Compleat Gentleman_, Spain is pressed upon the traveller's attention for
the first time. This is, of course, the natural reflection of an
interest in Spain due to the romantic adventures of Prince Charles and
Buckingham in that country. James Howell, who was of their train, gives
even more space to it in his _Instructions for Forreine Travell_.
Notwithstanding, and though Spain was, after 1605, fairly safe for
Englishmen, as a pleasure ground it was not popular. It was a
particularly uncomfortable and expensive country; hardly improved from
the time--(1537)--when Clenardus, weary with traversing deserts on his
way to the University of Salamanca, after a sparse meal of rabbit, sans
wine, sans water, composed himself to sleep on the floor of a little
hut, with nothing to pillow his head on except his three negro grooms,
and exclaimed, "O misera Lusitania, beati qui non viderunt."[276] All
civilization was confined to the few large cities, to reach which one
was obliged to traverse tedious, hot, barren, and unprofitable wastes,
in imminent danger of robbers, and in certainty of the customs officers,
who taxed people for everything, even the clothes they had on. None
escaped. Henry the Eighth's Ambassador complained loudly and frantically
of the outrage to a person in his office.[277] So did Elizabeth's
Ambassador. But the officers said grimly "that if Christ or Sanct
Fraunces came with all their flock they should not escape."[278] If the
preliminary discomforts from customs-officers put travellers into an ill
mood at once against Spain, the inns confirmed them in it. "In some
places there is but the cask of a House, with a little napery, but
sometimes no beds at all for Passengers in the Ventas--or Lodgings on
the King's highway, where if passengers meet, they must carry their
Knapsacks well provided of what is necessary: otherwise they may go to
bed supperless."[279] The Comtesse d'Aunoy grumbles that it was
impossible to warm oneself at the kitchen-fire without being choked, for
there was no chimney. Besides the room was full of men and women,
"blacker than Devils and clad like Beggars ... always some of 'em
impudently grating on a sorry Guitar."[280] Even the large cities were
not diverting, for though they were handsome enough and could show
"certain massie and solid Braveries," yet they had few of the
attractions of urban life. The streets were so ill-paved that the horses
splashed water into one's carriage at every step.[281] A friend warned
Tobie Matthew that "In the Cities you shall find so little of the
Italian delicacie for the manner of their buildings, the cleannesse and
sweetnesse of their streets, their way of living, their entertainments
for recreations by Villas, Gardens, Walks, Fountains, Academies, Arts of
Painting, Architecture and the like, that you would rather suspect that
they did but live together for fear of wolves."[282]
How little the solemnity of the Spanish nobles pleased English courtiers
used to the boisterous ways of James I. and his "Steenie," may be
gathered from _The Perambulation of Spain._[283] "You must know," says
the first character in that dialogue, "that there is a great deal of
gravity and state in the Catholic Court, but little noise, and few
people; so that it may be call'd a Monastery, rather than a Royal
Court." The economy in such a place was a great source of grievance. "By
this means the King of Spain spends not much," says the second
character. "So little," is the reply, "that I dare wager the French King
spends more in Pages and Laquays, than he of Spain among all his Court
Attendants." Buckingham's train jeered at the abstemious fare they
received.[284] It was in such irritating contrast to the lofty airs of
those who provided it. "We are still extream poor," writes the English
Ambassador about the Court of Madrid, "yet as proud as Divells, yea even
as rich Divells."[285] Not only at Court, but everywhere, Spaniards were
indifferent to strangers, and not at all interested in pleasing them.
Lord Clarendon remarks that in Madrid travellers "will find less delight
to reside than in any other Place to which we have before commended
them: for that Nation having less Reverence for meer Travellers, who go
Abroad, without Business, are not at all solicitous to provide for their
Accomodation: and when they complain of the want of many Conveniences,
as they have reason to do, they wonder men will come from Home, who will
be troubled for those Incommodities."[286]
It is no wonder, therefore, that Spain was considered a rather tedious
country for strangers, and that Howell "met more Passengers 'twixt Paris
and Orleans, than I found well neer in all the Journey through
Spain."[287] Curiosity and a desire to learn the language might carry a
man to Madrid for a time, but Englishmen could find little to commend
there. Holland, on the other hand, provoked their admiration more and
more. Travellers were never done exclaiming at its municipal
governments, its reformatories and workhouses, its industry, frugality,
and social economy. The neat buildings, elegant streets, and quiet inns,
were the subject of many encomiums.[288]
Descartes, who chose Amsterdam as the place in which to think out his
philosophy, praised it as the ideal retreat for students, contending
that it was far better for them than Italy, with its plagues, heat,
unwholesome evenings, murder and robbery.[289] Locke, when he went into
voluntary exile in 1684, enjoyed himself with the doctors and men of
letters in Amsterdam, attending by special invitation of the principal
physician of the city the dissection of a lioness, or discussing knotty
problems of theology with the wealthy Quaker merchants.[290] Courtiers
were charmed with the sea-shore at Scheveningen, where on the hard sand,
admirably contrived by nature for the divertisement of persons of
quality, the foreign ambassadors and their ladies, and the society of
the Hague, drove in their coaches and six horses.[291] However, Sir
William Temple, after some years spent as Ambassador to the Netherlands,
decided that Holland was a place where a man would choose rather to
travel than to live, because it was a country where there was more sense
than wit, more wealth than pleasure, and where one would find more
persons to esteem than to love.[292]
Holland was of peculiar delight to the traveller of the seventeenth
century because it contained so many curiosities and rareties. To ferret
out objects of vertu the Jacobean gentleman would take any journey.
People with cabinets of butterflies, miniatures, shells, ivory, or
Indian beads, were pestered by tourists asking to see their
treasures.[293] No garden was so entrancing to them as one that had "a
rupellary nidary"[294] or an aviary with eagles, cranes, storks,
bustards, ducks with four wings, or with rabbits of an almost perfect
yellow colour.[295] Holland, therefore, where ships brought precious
curiosities from all over the world, was a heaven for the virtuoso.
Evelyn in Rotterdam hovered between his delight in the brass statue of
Erasmus and a pelican, which he carefully describes. The great charm of
Dutch inns for Sam Paterson was their hoards of China and Japan ware and
the probability you had of meeting a purring marmot, a squeaking
guinea-pig, or a tame rabbit with a collar of bells, hopping through the
house.[296]
But we have dwelt too long, perhaps, on those who voyaged to see
knick-knacks, and to gain accomplishments at French academies. Though
the academies were characteristic of the seventeenth century, there were
other centres of education sought by Englishmen abroad. The study of
medicine, particularly, took many students to Padua or Paris, for the
Continent was far ahead of England in scientific work.[297] Sir Thomas
Browne's son studied anatomy at Padua with Sir John Finch, who had
settled there and was afterwards chosen syndic of the university.[298]
At Paris Martin Lister, though in the train of the English Ambassador,
principally enjoyed "Mr Bennis in the dissecting-room working by himself
upon a dead body," and "took more pleasure to see Monsieur Breman in his
white waistcoat digging in the royal physic-garden and sowing his
couches, than Mounsieur de Saintot making room for an ambassador": and
found himself better disposed and more apt to learn the names and
physiognomy of a hundred plants, than of five or six princes.[299]
It was medicine that chiefly interested Nicholas Ferrar, than whom no
traveller for study's sake was ever more devoted to the task of
self-improvement. At about the same time that the second Earl of
Chesterfield was fighting duels at the academy of Monsieur de Veau,
Nicholas Ferrar, a grave boy, came from Cambridge to Leipsic and "set
himself laboriously to study the originals of the city, the nature of
the government, the humors and inclinations of the people." Finding the
university too distracting, he retired to a neighbouring village to read
the choicest writers on German affairs. He served an apprenticeship of a
fortnight at every German trade. He could maintain a dialogue with an
architect in his own phrases; he could talk with mariners in their sea
terms. Removing to Padua, he attained in a very short time a marvellous
proficiency in physic, while his conversation and his charm ennobled the
evil students of Padua.[300]
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI
THE GRAND TOUR
After the Restoration the idea of polishing one's parts by foreign
travel received fresh impetus. The friends of Charles the Second, having
spent so much of their time abroad, naturally brought back to England a
renewed infusion of continental ideals. France was more than ever the
arbiter for the "gentry and civiller sort of mankind." Travellers such
as Evelyn, who deplored the English gentry's "solitary and unactive
lives in the country," the "haughty and boorish Englishman," and the
"constrained address of our sullen Nation,"[301] made an impression. It
was generally acknowledged that comity and affability had to be fetched
from beyond the Seas, for the "meer Englishman" was defective in those
qualities. He was "rough in address, not easily acquainted, and blunt
even when he obliged."[302]
Even wise and honest Englishmen began to be ashamed of their manners and
felt they must try to be not quite so English. "Put on a decent
boldness," writes Sir Thomas Browne constantly to his son in France.
"Shun pudor rusticus." "Practise an handsome garb and civil boldness
which he that learneth not in France, travaileth in vain."[303]
But there was this difference in travel to complete the gentleman during
the reign of Charles the Second: that Italy and Germany were again safe
and thrown open to travellers, so that Holland, Germany, Italy, and
France made a magnificent round of sights; namely, the Grand Tour. It
was still usual to spend some time in Paris learning exercises and
accomplishments at an academy, but a large proportion of effort went to
driving by post-chaise through the principal towns of Europe. Since it
was a great deal easier to go sight-seeing than to study governments,
write "relations," or even to manage "The Great Horse," the Grand Tour,
as a form of education, gained upon society, especially at the end of
the century, when even the academies were too much of an exertion for
the beaux to attend. To dress well and to be witty superseded martial
ambitions. Gentlemen could no longer endure the violence of the Great
Horse, but were carried about in sedan chairs. To drive through Europe
in a coach suited them very well. It was a form of travel which likewise
suited country squires' sons; for with the spread of the fashion from
Court to country not only great noblemen and "utter gallants" but plain
country gentlemen aspired to send their sons on a quest for the "bel
air." Their idea of how this was to be done being rather vague, the
services of a governor were hired, who found that the easiest way of
dealing with Tony Lumpkin was to convey him over an impressive number of
miles and keep him interested with staring at buildings. The whole aim
of travel was sadly degenerated from Elizabethan times. Cynical parents
like Francis Osborn had not the slightest faith in its good effects, but
recommended it solely because it was the fashion. "Some to starch a more
serious face upon wanton, impertinent, and dear bought Vanity, cry up
'Travel' as 'the best Accomplisher of Youth and Gentry,' tho' detected
by Experience in the generality, for 'the greatest Debaucher' ... yet
since it advanceth Opinion in the World, without which Desert is useful
to none but itself (Scholars and Travellers being cried up for the
highest Graduates in the most universal Judgments) I am not much
unwilling to give way to Peregrine motion for a time."[304]
In short, the object of the Grand Tour was to see and be seen. The very
term seems to be an extension of usage from the word employed to
describe driving in one's coach about the principal streets of a town.
The Duchess of Newcastle, in 1656, wrote from Antwerp: "I go sometimes
abroad, seldom to visit, but only in my coach about the town, or about
some of the streets, which we call here a tour, where all the chief of
the town go to see and be seen, likewise all strangers of what quality
soever."[305] Evelyn, in 1652, contrasted "making the Tour" with the
proper sort of industrious travel; "But he that (instead of making the
Tour, as they call it) or, as a late Embassador of ours facetiously, but
sharply reproached, (like a Goose swimms down the River) having mastered
the Tongue, frequented the Court, looked into their customes, been
present at their pleadings, observed their Military Discipline,
contracted acquaintance with their Learned men, studied their Arts, and
is familiar with their dispositions, makes this accompt of his
time."[306] And in another place he says: "It is written of Ulysses,
that hee saw many Cities indeed, but withall his Remarks of mens Manners
and Customs, was ever preferred to his counting Steeples, and making
Tours: It is this Ethicall and Morall part of Travel, which embellisheth
a Gentleman."[307] In 1670, Richard Lassels uses the term "Grand Tour"
for the first time in an English book for travellers: "The Grand Tour of
France and the Giro of Italy."[308] Of course this is only specialized
usage of the idea "round" which had long been current, and which still
survives in our phrase, "make the round trip." "The Spanish
ambassadors," writes Dudley Carleton in 1610, "are at the next Spring to
make a perfect round."[309]
In the age of the Grand Tour the governor becomes an important figure.
There had always been governors, to be sure, from the very beginnings of
travel to become a complete person. Their arguments with fathers as to
the expenses of the tour, and their laments at the disagreeable conduct
of their charges echo from generation to generation. Now it is Mr
Windebanke complaining to Cecil that his son "has utterly no mind nor
disposition in him to apply any learning, according to the end you sent
him for hither," being carried away by an "inordinate affection towards
a young gentlewoman abiding near Paris."[310] Now it is Mr Smythe
desiring to be called home unless the allowance for himself and Francis
Davison can be increased. "For Mr Francis is now a man, and your son,
and not so easily ruled touching expenses, about which we have had more
brabblements than I will speak of."[311] Bacon's essay "Of Travel" in
1625 is the first to advise the use of a governor;[312] but governors
rose to their full authority only in the middle of the century, when it
was the custom to send boys abroad very young, at fourteen or fifteen,
because at that age they were more malleable for instruction in foreign
languages. At that age they could not generally be trusted by
themselves, especially after the protests of a century against the moral
and religious dangers of foreign travel. How fearful parents were of the
hazards of travel, and what a responsibility it was for a governor to
undertake one of these precious charges, may be gathered from this
letter by Lady Lowther to Joseph Williamson, he who afterwards rose to
be Secretary of State: "I doubt not but you have received my son,"
writes the mother, "with our letters entreating your care for improving
all good in him and restraining all irregularities, as he is the hope
and only stem of his father. I implore the Almighty, and labour for all
means conducible thereto; I conceive your discreet government and
admonition may much promote it. Tell me whether you find him tractable
or disorderly: his disposition is good, and his natural parts
reasonable, but his acquirements meaner than I desire: however he is
young enough yet to learn, and by study may recover, if not recall, his
lost time.
"In the first place, endeavour to settle him in his religion, as the
basis of all our other hopes, and the more to be considered in regard of
the looseness of the place where you are. I doubt not but you have well
considered of the resolve to travel to Italy, yet I have this to say for
my fond fears (besides the imbecility of my sex) my affections are all
contracted into one head: also I know the hotness of his temper, apt to
feverishness. Yet I submit him to your total management, only praying
the God of Heaven to direct you for the best, and to make him tractable
to you, and laborious for his own advancement."[313]
A governor became increasingly necessary as the arbiter of what was
modish for families whose connection with the fashionable world was
slight. He assumed airs of authority, and took to writing books on how
the Grand Tour should be made. Such is _The Voyage of Italy_, with
_Instructions concerning Travel_, by _Richard Lassels, Gent._, who
"travelled through Italy Five times, as Tutor to several of the English
Nobility and Gentry."[314] Lassels, in reciting the benefits of travel,
plays upon that growing sensitiveness of the country gentleman about his
innocent peculiarities: "The Country Lord that never saw anybody but his
Father's Tenants and M. Parson, and never read anything but John Stow,
and Speed; thinks the Land's-end to be the World's-end; and that all
solid greatness, next unto a great Pasty, consists in a great Fire, and
a great estate;" or, "My Country gentleman that never travelled, can
scarce go to London without making his Will, at least without wetting
his hand-kerchief."[315]
The Grand Tour, of course, is the remedy for these
weaknesses--especially under the direction of a wise governor. More care
should go to choosing that governor than to any other retainer. For
lacqueys and footmen "are like his Galoshooes, which he leaves at the
doors of those he visits," but his governor is like his shirt, always
next him, and should therefore be of the best material. The revelation
of bad governors in Lassels' instructions are enough to make one recoil
from the Grand Tour altogether. These "needy bold men" led pupils to
Geneva, where the pupils lost all their true English allegiance and
respect for monarchy; they kept them in dull provincial cities where the
governor's wife or mistress happened to live. "Others have been observed
to sell their pupils to Masters of exercises, and to have made them
believe that the worst Academies were the best, because they were the
best to the cunning Governour, who had ten pound a man for every one he
could draw thither: Others I have known who would have married their
Pupils in France without their Parents' knowledge";[316] ... and so
forth, with other more lurid examples.
The difficulties of procuring the right sort of governor were hardly
exaggerated by Lassels. The Duke of Ormond's grandson had just such a
dishonest tutor as described--one who instead of showing the Earl of
Ossory the world, carried him among his own relations, and "buried" him
at Orange.[317] It seems odd, at first sight, that the Earl of
Salisbury's son should be entrusted to Sir John Finet, who endeared
himself to James the First by his remarkable skill in composing "bawdy
songs."[318] It astonishes us to read that Lord Clifford's governor, Mr
Beecher, lost his temper at play, and called Sir Walter Chute into the
field,[319] or that Sir Walter Raleigh's son was able to exhibit his
governor, Ben Jonson, dead-drunk upon a car, "which he made to be drawn
by pioneers through the streets, at every corner showing his governor
stretched out, and telling them that was a more lively image of a
crucifix than any they had."[320] But it took a manly man to be a
governor at all. It was not safe to select a merely intelligent and
virtuous tutor; witness the case of the Earl of Derby sent abroad in
1673, with Mr James Forbes, "a gentleman of parts, virtue and prudence,
but of too mild a nature to manage his pupil." The adventures of these
two, as narrated by Carte in his life of Ormond, are doubtless typical.
"They had not been three months at Paris, before a misunderstanding
happened between them that could not be made up, so that both wrote over
to the duke (of Ormond) complaining of one another. His grace
immediately dispatched over Mr Muleys to inquire into the ground of the
quarrel, in order to reconcile them.... The earl had forgot the advice
which the duke had given him, to make himself acquainted with the people
of quality in France, and to keep as little correspondence with his own
countrymen, whilst he was abroad, as was consistent with good manners;
and had formed an intimate acquaintance with a lewd, debauched young
fellow whom he found at Paris, and who was the son of Dr Merrit, a
physician. The governor had cautioned his young nobleman against
creating a friendship with so worthless a person, who would draw him
into all manner of vice and expense, and lead him into numberless
inconveniences. Merrit, being told of this, took Mr Forbes one day at an
advantage in an house, and wounded him dangerously. The earl, instead of
manifesting his resentment as he ought in such a case, seemed rather
pleased with the affair, and still kept on his intimacy with Merrit. The
duke finding that Merrit had as ill a character from all that knew him
in London, as Mr Forbes had given him, easily suspected the earl was in
the wrong, and charged Muleys to represent to him the ill fame of the
man, and how unworthy he was of his lordship's acquaintance and
conversation....
"When Muleys came to Paris, he found the matters very bad on Lord
Derby's side, who had not only countenanced Merrit's assault, but, at
the instigation of some young French rakes, had consented to his
governor's being tossed in a blanket. The earl was wild, full of
spirits, and impatient of restraint: Forbes was a grave, sober, mild
man, and his sage remonstrances had no manner of effect on his pupil.
The duke, seeing what the young gentleman would be at, resolved to send
over one that should govern him. For this purpose he pitched upon
Colonel Thomas Fairfax, a younger son of the first lord Fairfax, a
gallant and brave man (as all the Fairfaxes were), and roughly honest.
Lord Derby was restless at first: but the colonel told him sharply, that
he was sent to govern him, and would govern him: that his lordship must
submit, and should do it; so that the best method he had to take, was to
do it with decorum and good humour. He soon discharged the vicious and
scandalous part of the earl's acquaintance, and signified to the rest,
that he had the charge of the young nobleman, who was under his
government: and therefore if any of them should ever have a quarrel with
his pupil, who was young and inexperienced, he himself was their man,
and would give them satisfaction. His courage was too well known to
tempt anybody make a trial of it; the nobleness of his family, and his
own personal merit, procured him respect from all the world, as well as
from his pupil. No quarrel happened: the earl was reclaimed, being
always very observant of his governor. He left Paris, and passing down
the Loire went to the south of France, received in all places by the
governors of towns and provinces with great respect and uncommon marks
of honour and distinction. From thence he went into Italy, making a
handsome figure in all places, and travelling with as much dignity as
any nobleman whatever at little more than one thousand two hundred
pounds a year expense; so easy is it to make a figure in those countries
with virtue, decorum, and good management."[321]
This concluding remark of Carte's gives us the point of view of certain
families; that it was more economical to live abroad. It certainly
was--for courtiers who had to pay eighty pounds for a suit of
clothes--without trimming[322]--and spent two thousand pounds on a
supper to the king.[323] Francis Osborn considered one of the chief
benefits of travel to be the training in economy which it afforded:
"Frugality being of none so perfectly learned as of the Italian and the
Scot; Natural to the first, and as necessary to the latter."[324]
Notwithstanding, the cost of travel had in the extravagant days of the
Stuarts much increased. The Grand Tour cost more than travel in
Elizabethan days, when young men quietly settled down for hard study in
some German or Italian town. Robert Sidney, for instance, had only £100
a year when he was living with Sturm. "Tearm yt as you wyll, it ys all I
owe you," said his father. "Harry Whyte ... shall have his £20 yearly,
and you your £100; and so be as mery as you may."[325] Secretary Davison
expected his son, his tutor, and their servant to live on this amount at
Venice. "Mr. Wo." had said this would suffice.[326] If "Mr Wo." means Mr
Wotton, as it probably does, since Wotton had just returned from abroad
in 1594, and Francis Davison set out in 1595, he was an authority on
economical travel, for he used to live in Germany at the rate of one
shilling, four pence halfpenny a day for board and lodging.[327] But he
did not carry with him a governor and an English servant. Moryson,
Howell, and Dallington all say that expenses for a servant amounted to
£50 yearly. Therefore Davison's tutor quite rightly protested that £200
would not suffice for three people. Although they spent "not near so
much as other gentlemen of their nation at Venice, and though he went to
market himself and was as frugal as could be, the expenses would mount
up to forty shillings a week, not counting apparel and books." "I
protest I never endured so much slavery in my life to save money," he
laments.[328] When learning accomplishments in France took the place of
student-life in Italy, expenses naturally rose. Moryson, who travelled
as a humanist, for "knowledge of State affaires, Histories, Cosmography,
and the like," found that fifty or sixty pounds were enough to "beare
the charge of a Traveller's diet, necessary apparrell, and two Journies
yeerely, in the Spring and Autumne, and also to serve him for moderate
expences of pleasure."[329] But Dallington found that an education of
the French sort would come to just twice as much. "If he Travell without
a servant fourscore pounds sterling is a competent proportion, except he
learne to ride: if he maintaine both these charges, he can be allowed no
lesse than one hundred and fiftie poundes: and to allowe above two
hundred, were superfluous, and to his hurte. And thus rateably,
according to the number he keepeth.
"The ordinarie rate of his expence, is this: ten gold crownes a moneth
his owne dyet, eight for his man, (at the most) two crownes a moneth his
fencing, as much dancing, no lesse his reading, and fiftene crownes
monethly his ridings: but this exercise he shall discontinue all the
heate of the yeare. The remainder of his 150 pound I allow him for
apparell, bookes, Travelling charges, tennis play, and other
extraordinaire expences."[330] A few years later Howell fixes annual
expense at £300--(£50 extra for every servant.) These three hundred
pounds are to pay for riding, dancing, fencing, tennis, clothes, and
coach hire--a new item of necessity. An academy would seem to have been
a cheaper means of learning accomplishments. For about £110 one might
have lodging and diet for himselfe and a man and be taught to ride,
fence, ply mathematics, and so forth.[331] Lassels very wisely refrains
from telling those not already persuaded, what the cost will be for the
magnificent Grand Tour he outlines. We calculate that it would be over
£500, for the Earl of Cork paid £1000 a year for his two sons, their
governor, only two servants and only saddle-horses:[332] whereas Lassels
hints that no one with much pretension to fashion could go through Paris
without a coach followed by three lacqueys and a page.[333] Evelyn, at
any rate, thought the expenses of a traveller were "vast": "And believe
it Sir, if he reap some contentment extraordinary, from what he hath
observed abroad, the pains, sollicitations, watchings, perills,
journeys, ill entertainment, absence from friends, and innumerable like
inconveniences, joyned to his vast expences, do very dearly, and by a
strange kind of extortion, purchase that smal experience and reputation
which he can vaunt to have acquired from abroad."[334]
Perhaps some details from the education of Robert Boyle will serve to
illustrate the manner of taking the Grand Tour. His father, the great
Earl of Cork, was a devoted adherent to this form of education and
launched his numerous sons, two by two, upon the Continent. He was, as
Boyle says, the sort of person "who supplied what he wanted in
scholarship himself, by being both a passionate affecter, and eminent
patron of it."[335] His journal for 1638 records first the return of "My
sones Lewis and Roger from their travailes into foreign kingdomes,...
ffor which their safe retorn, god be ever humbly and heartely thancked
and praised both by me and them."[336] In the same year he recovered the
Lord Viscount of Kynalmeaky and the Lord of Broghill, with Mr Marcombes,
their governor, from their foreign travels into France and Italy. Then
it was the turn of Francis and Robert, just removed from Eton College.
With the governor Marcombes, a French servant, and a French boy, they
departed from London in October 1639, "having his Majestie's license
under his hand and privy signett for to continew abrode 3 yeares: god
guide them abrod and safe back."[337]
Robert, according to his autobiography, was well satisfied to go, but
Francis, aged fifteen, had just been married to one of the Queen's Maids
of Honour, aged fourteen, and after four days of revelry was in no mood
to be thrust back into the estate of childhood.[338] High words passed
between him and his father on the occasion of his enforced departure for
Paris. He was so agitated that he mislaid his sword and pistols--at
least so we hear by the first letter Marcombes writes from Paris. "Mr
Francis att his departure from London was so much troubled because of
your Lordship's anger against him that he could never tell us where he
put his sword and ye kaise of pistoles that your Lordship gave them, so
that I have been forced to buy them here a kaise of pistolles a peece,
because of the danger that is now everywhere in France, and because it
is so much ye mode now for every gentleman of fashion to ride with a
kase of Pistoles, that they Laugh att those that have them not. I bought
also a Sword for mr francis and when Mr Robert saw it he did so
earnestly desire me to buy him one, because his was out of fashion, that
I could not refuse him that small request."[339]
Marcombes did not expose the boys long to the excitement of Paris, but
at once hurried them to Geneva, and settled them to work, where Francis
showed a great deal of resignation and good-humour in accepting his
fate. He was not so sulky as Lord Cranborne, who in a similar situation
fell ill, could not eat, and had to be taken back to England.[340] "And
as for Mr francis," writes Marcombes to Cork, "I protest unto your
Lordship that I did not thinke yt he could frame himselfe to every kind
of good Learning with so great a facilitie and passion as he doth,
having tasted already a little drope of ye Libertinage of ye Court, but
I find him soe disciplinable, and soe desirous to repare ye time Lost,
yt I make no question but your Lordship shall receive a great
ioye."[341] He had not had much of an education at Eton, as his governor
takes pleasure in pointing out: "For Mr Francis I doe assure your
Lordship he had need to aplay himselfe to other things till now, for
except reeding and writting Inglish he was grounded in nothing of ye
wordle (world); and beleeve me, for before God I spake true, when I say
that never any gentleman hath donne lesse profit of his time then he had
done when he went out of England: and besides yt if he had been Longer
at Eatton he had Learned there to drinke with other deboice scholers, as
I have beene in formed by Mr Robert."[342]
Won over by the study of "Fortifications," a branch of mathematics very
pleasing to the seventeenth century boy, the future Viscount Shannon
applied himself to work with energy;[343] and for a time peace reigned
over the process of education. "Every morning," writes their tutor, "I
teach them ye Rhetoricke in Latin, and I expound unto them Justin from
Latin into french, and presently after dinner I doe reade unto them two
chapters of ye old Testament with a brief exposition of those points
that I think that they doe not understand; and before supper I teach
them ye history of ye Romans in french out of florus and of Titus
Livius, and two sections of ye Cateshisme of Caluin with ye most
orthodox exposition of the points that they doe not understand; and
after supper I doe reade unto them two chapters of ye new Testament, and
both morning and evening we say our prayers together, and twice a weeke
we goe to Church."[344]
The boys spoke French always, and had some dancing lessons, but no
riding lessons, for "their lyms are not knitt and strong enough, nor
their bodys hable to endure rough exercises; and besides, although wee
have here as good and skillfull teachers as in many other places, yet
when they shall come to paris or some other place, their teachers will
make them beleeve that they have Lost their time and shall make them
beginn againe: for it is their custome so to doe to all."[345] At
tennis, however, Francis enjoyed himself, and grew apace. "I may assure
your Lordship that both his Leggs and armes are by a third part bigger
now then they were in England." Robert, even at fourteen a studious
person, "doth not Love tennisse play so much, but delights himselfe more
to be in private with some booke of history or other, but I perswade him
often both to play att tennisse and goe about. I never saw him
handsomer, for although he growes much, yet he is very fatt and his
cheeks are as red as vermilian. This Leter end of ye winter is mighty
cold and a great quantity of snow is fallen upon ye ground, but that
brings them to such a stomacke that your Lordship should take a great
pleasure to see them feed. I do not give them daintys, but I assure your
Lordship that they have allwayes good bred and Good wine, good beef and
mouton, thrice a week good capons and good fish, constantly two dishes
of fruit and a Good piece of cheese; all kind of cleane linnen twice and
thrice a week and a constant fire in their chamber wherein they have a
good bed for them, and another for their men."[346]
Indeed, Marcombes was a very good governor, as Robert several times
assured the Earl of Cork, and allowed them to lack for nothing. In the
spring he bought them saddle-horses so that after their studies they
might take the air and see their friends. Since a governor had charge of
all the funds, it was a great test of his honesty whether he resisted
the temptation to economize on the clothes and spending-money of his
pupils, and to pocket the part of their allowance so saved. This is why
Marcombes often lets fall into his letters to the Earl of Cork items
such as these: "I have made a compleat black satin sute for Mr Robert:
ye cloake Lined with plush, and I allow them every moneth a peese ye
value of very neare two pounds sterlings for their passe time."[347]
The only disturbing elements in the satisfactory state of Marcombes and
his pupils were the Killigrews. Thomas Killigrew, he who afterwards
became one of the dramatists of the Restoration, had then only just
outgrown the estate of page to Charles I., and in strolling about the
Continent he paid the Boyles a visit.[348] As the brother of the wife
whom Mr Francis had left at home, and on his own account as a
fascinating courtier, he cast a powerful but baleful influence upon the
household in Geneva. Marcombes was at first very guarded in his remarks,
writing only that "Mr Kyligry is here since Saturday Last ... but I
think he will not Stay long: which perhaps will be ye better for yr
sons: for although his conversation is very sweet and delectable yet
they have no need of interruption, specially Mr francis, which was much
abused in his Learning by his former teachers: and although he hath a
great desire to redime ye time, yet he cannot follow his younger
brother, and therefore he must have time, and avoid ye company of those
yt care not for their bookes."[349] But when it appeared that Killigrew
had told the Earl of Cork that Marcombes kept the brothers shabbily
dressed, the governor unfolded his opinion of the rising dramatist as
"one that speakes ill of his own mother and of all his friends and that
plays ye foole allwayes through ye streets like a Schoole Boy, having
Allwayes his mouth full of whoores and such discourses, and braging
often of his getting mony from this or ye other merchant without any
good intention to pay."[350] His company fomented in Mr Francis a
boastful spirit, "never speaking of any thing but what he should doe
when he should once more command his state, how many dogs he shoulde
keepe; how many horses; how many fine bands, sutes and rubans, and how
freely he would play and keepe Company with good fellowes, etc."[351]
Thomas Killigrew's sister, the wife of Mr Francis, was also a very
disturbing person. She would correspond with her husband and urge him to
run away from his tutor, and suggested coming to the Continent herself
and meeting him.[352] These plots she made with the assistance of her
brother, whom she much resembled in disposition.[353] There is no
knowing what havoc she would have made with the carefully planned
education of the Boyles, for Francis at the end of two years became
dangerously restive, had not their tour been decisively ended by the
first rumblings of the Civil War at home.
After a winter in Italy, they were about to start for Paris to perfect
themselves in dancing and to begin riding the great horse, when they
received news that the Earl of Cork was ruined by the rebellion in
Ireland. He could send them no more money, he told them, than the two
hundred and fifty pounds he had just dispatched. By economizing, and
dismissing their servants, they might reach Holland, and enlist under
the Prince of Orange. They must now work out their fortune for
themselves.[354]
The two hundred and fifty pounds never came. They were embezzled by the
agent; and the Boyles were left penniless in a strange country.
Marcombes did not desert them, however. Robert, who was too frail for
soldiering, he kept with him in Geneva for two years. Francis, free at
last, took horse, was off to Ireland, and joined in the fighting beside
his brothers Dungarvan, Kynalmeaky, and Broghill, who rallied around
their father.[355]
There are several other seventeenth-century books on the theory of
travel besides Lassels', which would repay reading. But we have come to
the period when essays of this sort contain so many repetitions of one
another, that detailed comment would be tedious. Edward Leigh's _Three
Diatribes_[356] appeared in 1671, a year after Lassels' book, and in
1678 Gailhard, another professional governor, in his "Directions for the
Education of youth as to their Breeding at Home and Travelling
Abroad,"[357] imitated Lassels' attention to the particular needs of the
country gentleman. "The honest country gentleman" is a synonym for one
apt to be fooled, one who has neither wit nor experience. He, above all
others, needs to go abroad to study the tempers of men and learn their
several fashions. "As to Country breeding, which is opposed to the
Courts, to the Cities, or to Travelling: when it is merely such, it is a
clownish one. Before a Gentleman comes to a settlement, Hawking,
Coursing and Hunting, are the dainties of it; then taking Tobacco, and
going to the Alehouse and Tavern, where matches are made for Races,
Cock-fighting, and the like." As opposed to this life, Gailhard holds up
the pattern of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, who did "strive after being
bettered with an Outlandish Breeding" by means of close application to
the French and Italian languages, to fencing, dancing, riding The Great
Horse, drawing landscapes, and learning the guitar. "His Moneys he did
not trifle away, but bestowed them upon good Books, Medals and other
useful Rareties worth the Curiosity of a Compleat Gentleman."[358]
On comparing these instructions with those of the sixteenth century, one
is struck with the emphasis they lay upon drawing and "limning." This is
what we would expect in the seventeenth century, when an interest in
pictures, statues, and architecture was a distinguishing feature of a
gentleman. The Marquis de Seignelay, sent on a tour in 1617 by his
father Colbert, was accompanied by a painter and an architect charged to
make him understand the beauties of Italian art.[359] Antoine Delahaute,
making the Grand Tour with an Abbé for a governor, carried with him an
artist as well, so that when he came upon a fine site, he ordered the
chaise to be stopped, and the view to be drawn by the obedient
draughtsman.[360] Not only did gentlemen study to appreciate pictures,
but they strove themselves to draw and paint. In the travels of George
Sandys[361] (edition 1615), may be seen a woodcut of travellers, in the
costume of Henry of Navarre, sketching at the side of Lake Avernus. To
take out one's memorandum-book and make a sketch of a charming prospect,
was the usual thing before the camera was invented. "Before I went to
bed I took a landscape of this pleasant terrace," says Evelyn in
Roane.[362] At Tou
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