English Travellers of the Renaissance Part 5

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 n.o.bles 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 pa.s.sing 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 n.o.bility and others, sons of gentlemen, and should be styled the Musaeum Minervae."[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 advertis.e.m.e.nts of its attractions, addressed to "All Fathers of n.o.ble 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 manege, 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 inst.i.tution, 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 pa.s.sion for form in horsemans.h.i.+p 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 horsemans.h.i.+p 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 n.o.blest estate of mankinde, and hors.e.m.e.n, the n.o.blest 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 Reaux, "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 a.s.sured 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, b.u.t.t 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 Academie 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 Academie 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 Academie 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 academiste feminine: 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 s.p.a.ce 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 spa.r.s.e 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 Amba.s.sador complained loudly and frantically of the outrage to a person in his office.[277] So did Elizabeth's Amba.s.sador. 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 Pa.s.sengers in the Ventas--or Lodgings on the King's highway, where if pa.s.sengers 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 ma.s.sie 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 n.o.bles 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Pa.s.sengers '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 munic.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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-sh.o.r.e at Scheveningen, where on the hard sand, admirably contrived by nature for the divertis.e.m.e.nt of persons of quality, the foreign amba.s.sadors 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 Amba.s.sador 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 b.u.t.terflies, miniatures, sh.e.l.ls, 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 s.h.i.+ps brought precious curiosities from all over the world, was a heaven for the virtuoso.

Evelyn in Rotterdam hovered between his delight in the bra.s.s statue of Erasmus and a pelican, which he carefully describes. The great charm of Dutch inns for Sam Paterson was their h.o.a.rds of China and j.a.pan 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 Amba.s.sador, princ.i.p.ally 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 amba.s.sador": 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 apprentices.h.i.+p 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 enn.o.bled the evil students of Padua.[300]

CHAPTER VI

THE GRAND TOUR

After the Restoration the idea of polis.h.i.+ng 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 princ.i.p.al 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 fas.h.i.+on from Court to country not only great n.o.blemen 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...o...b..rn had not the slightest faith in its good effects, but recommended it solely because it was the fas.h.i.+on. "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 princ.i.p.al streets of a town.

The d.u.c.h.ess 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 Emba.s.sador 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 La.s.sels 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 amba.s.sadors," 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 s.e.x) 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 G.o.d 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 fas.h.i.+onable world was slight. He a.s.sumed 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 La.s.sels, Gent._, who "travelled through Italy Five times, as Tutor to several of the English n.o.bility and Gentry."[314] La.s.sels, 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 s.h.i.+rt, always next him, and should therefore be of the best material. The revelation of bad governors in La.s.sels' 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 La.s.sels. 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 n.o.bleman against creating a friends.h.i.+p 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 lords.h.i.+p'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 a.s.sault, 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 n.o.bleman, 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 n.o.bleness 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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.bleman 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g[322]--and spent two thousand pounds on a supper to the king.[323] Francis...o...b..rn 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 s.h.i.+lling, 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 s.h.i.+llings 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] La.s.sels 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 La.s.sels hints that no one with much pretension to fas.h.i.+on 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 scholars.h.i.+p himself, by being both a pa.s.sionate 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, G.o.d 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: G.o.d guide them abrod and safe back."[337]