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: Autopsiaei]. 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 Reaux 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.
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