"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. In the travels of George
Sandys[361] (edition 1615), may be seen a woodcut of travellers, in the
costume of Henry of Navarre, sketching at the side of Lake Avernus. To
take out one's memorandum-book and make a sketch of a charming prospect,
was the usual thing before the camera was invented. "Before I went to
bed I took a landscape of this pleasant terrace," says Evelyn in
Roane.[362] At Tournon, where he saw a very strong castle under a high
precipice, "The prospect was so tempting that I could not forbear
designing it with my crayon."[363] Consequently, we find instructions
for travellers reflecting the tastes of the time: Gerbier's Subsidium
Peregrinantibus, for instance, insisting on a knowledge of
"Perspective, Sculpture, Architecture and Pictures," as among the
requisites of a polite education, lays great stress on the
identification and survey of works of art as one of the main duties of a
traveller.[364]
Significant as are the instructions of Gerbier, Lassels, and others of
this period, there are some directions for an education abroad which
are more interesting than these products of professional
tutors - instructions written by one who was himself the perfect
gentleman of his day.
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