He even assures us that the young gentlemen whom
he had always pictured as highly delighted by the Grand Tour are in
reality very homesick for England. They are weary of the interminable
drives and interminable conversazioni of Italy and long for the
fox-hunting of Great Britain.[406] Fielding's account of his voyage to
Lisbon contains too much about his wife's toothache and his own
dropsy.[407] Smollett, like Fielding, was a sick man at the time of his
travels, and we can excuse his rage at the unswept floors, old rotten
tables, crazy chairs and beds so disgusting that he generally wrapped
himself in a great-coat and lay upon four chairs with a leathern
portmanteau for a pillow; but we cannot admire a man who is embittered
by the fact that he cannot get milk to put in his tea, and is
continually thrusting his head out of the window to curse at the
post-boys, or pulling out his post-book to read to an inn-yard with
savage vociferation the article which orders that the traveller who
comes first shall be first served.[408]
This is a degeneration from the undaunted mettle of the Elizabethans,
who, though acquainted with dirty inns and cheating landlords, kept
their spirits soaring above the material difficulties of travel. We
miss, in eighteenth century accounts, the gaiety of Roger Ascham's
Report of Germany and of the fair barge with goodly glass windows in
which he went up the Rhine - gaiety which does not fail even when he had
to spend the night in the barge, with his tired head on his saddle for a
bolster.[409] We miss the spirit of good fellowship with which John
Taylor, the Water Poet, shared with six strangers in the coach from
Hamburgh the ribs of roast beef brought with him from Great
Britain.[410] Vastly diverting as the eighteenth-century travel-books
sometimes are, there is nothing in them that warms the heart like the
travels of poor Tom Coryat, that infatuated tourist, chief of the tribe
of Gad, whom nothing daunted in his determination to see the world.
Often he slept in wagons and in open skiffs, and though he could not
afford to hire the guides with Sedan chairs who took men over the Alpine
passes in those days, yet he followed them on foot, panting.[411]
So, in spite of the fact that travel is never-ending, and that
"peregrinatio animi causa" of the sixteenth century is not very
different from the Wanderlust of the nineteenth, we feel we have come to
the end of the particular phase of travel which had its beginning in the
Renaissance. The passing of the courtier, the widened scope of the
university, the rise of journalism, and the ascendancy of England,
changed the attitude of the English traveller from eager acquisitiveness
to complacent amusement. With this change of attitude came an end to the
essay in praise of travel, written by scholars and gentlemen for their
kind; intended for him "Who, whithersoever he directeth his journey,
travelleth for the greater benefit of his wit, for the commodity of his
studies, and dexterity of his life, - he who moveth more in mind than in
body."[412] We hope we have done something to rescue these essays from
the oblivion into which they have fallen, to show the social background
from which they emerged, and to reproduce their enthusiasm for
self-improvement and their high-hearted contempt for an easy, indolent
life.
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ADVICE TO TRAVELLERS, 1500-1700
1561. Gratarolus, Guilhelmus. Authore Gratarolo Guilhelmo, philosopho
et medico, De Regimine Iter Agentium, vel equitum, vel peditum, vel
navi, vel curru rheda ... viatoribus et peregrinatoribus quibusque
utilissimi libri duo, nunc primum editi. Basileae, 1561.
1570-1. Cecil, William, Lord Burghley: Letter to Edward Manners, Earl
of Rutland, among State Papers, Elizabeth, 1547-80, vol. lxxvii. No. 6.
1574. Turlerus, Hieronymus. De Peregrinatione et agro neapolitano,
libri II. scripti ab Hieronymo Turlero. Omnibus peregrinantibus utiles
ac necessarii; ac in corum gratiam nunc primum editi. Argentorati, anno
1574.
1575 - - The Traveiler of Jerome Turler, divided into two bookes, the
first conteining a notable discourse of the maner and order of
traveiling oversea, or into strange and foreign countries, the second
comprehending an excellent description of the most delicious realme of
Naples in Italy; a work very pleasant for all persons to reade, and
right profitable and necessarie unto all such as are minded to
traveyll. London, 1575.
1577. Pyrckmair, Hilarius. Commentariolus de arte apodemica seu vera
peregrinandi ratione. Auctore Hilario Pyrckmair Landishutano.
Ingolstadii, 1577.
1577. Zvingerus, Theodor. Methodus apodemica in eorum gratiam qui cum
fructu in quocunq; tandem vitae genere peregrinari cupiunt, a Theod.
Zvingero. Basiliense typis delineata, et cum aliis tum quatuor praesertim
Athenarum vivis exemplis illustrata. Basileae, 1577.
1578. Bourne, William. A booke called the Treasure for traveilers,
devided into five parts, contayning very necessary matters for all
sortes of travailers, eyther by sea or by lande. London, 1578.
1578. - - A Regiment for the Sea, containing verie necessarie matters
for all sortes of men and travailers: netyly corrected and amended by
Thomas Hood. London, 1578.
1578. Lipsius, Justus. De ratione cum fructu peregrinandi, et praesertim
in Italia. (In Epistola ad Ph. Lanoyum.) Justi Lipsii Epistolae
Selectae: fol. 106. Parisiis, 1610.
1580. Sidney. Sir Philip Sidney to his brother Robert Sidney when he was
on his travels; advising him what circuit to take; how to behave, what
authors to read, etc. In Letters and Memorials of State, collected by
Arthur Collins. London, 1746.
1587. Pighius (Stephanus Vinandus). Hercules Prodicius, seu principis
juventutis vita et peregrinatio. Ex officina C. Plantini. Antverpiae,
1587.
1587. Meierus, Albertus. Methodus describendi regimes, urbes et arces,
et quid singulis locis proecipue in peregrinationibus homines nobiles ac
docti animadvertere, observare et annotare debeant.
