"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 sex) 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 God 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 fashionable world was
slight. He assumed 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 Lassels, Gent., who
"travelled through Italy Five times, as Tutor to several of the English
Nobility and Gentry."[314] Lassels, 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 shirt, always
next him, and should therefore be of the best material. The revelation
of bad governors in Lassels' 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 Lassels. 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 nobleman against
creating a friendship 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 lordship'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 assault, but, at
the instigation of some young French rakes, had consented to his
governor's being tossed in a blanket.
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