Foote
declared residence in Paris a necessary part of every man of fashion's
education, because it "Gives 'em a relish for their own domestic
happiness and a proper veneration for their own national
liberties."[379] His Epilogue to The Englishman in Paris commends the
prudence of British forefathers who
"Scorned to truck for base unmanly arts,
Their native plainness and their honest hearts."[380]
It was not the populace alone, or those who appealed directly to the
populace, who sneered at Popish countries, and pitied them for not being
British.[381] As time went on Whigs of all classes boasted of the
superiority of England, especially when they travelled in Europe.
"We envy not the warmer clime that lies
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies ...
'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's Isle
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile."[382]
Addison's travels are full of reflections of this sort. The destitution
of the Campagna of Rome demonstrates triumphantly what an aversion
mankind has to arbitrary government, while the well-populated mountain
of St Marino shows what a natural love they have for liberty. Whigs
abroad were well caricatured by Smollett in Peregrine Pickle in the
figures of the Painter and the Doctor.
