"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 Abbe 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.
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