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 L100
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 L20 yearly,
and you your L100; 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.
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