At Least, There Grew Up A Demand For
Advice To Young Men Which Became A Feature Of Elizabethan Literature,
Printed And Unprinted.
It was the convention for a young man about to
travel to apply to some experienced or elderly friend,
And for that
friend to disburden a torrent of maxims after the manner of Polonius.
John Florio, who knew the humours of his day, represents this in a
dialogue in Second Frutes.[38] So does Robert Greene in Greene's
Mourning Garment.[39] What were at first the personal warnings of a
wise man to his young friend, such as Cecil's letter to Rutland, grew
into a generalized oration for the use of any traveller. Hence arose
manuals of instruction - marvellous little books, full of incitements to
travel as the duty of man, summaries of the leading characteristics of
foreigners, directions for the care of sore feet - and a strange medley
of matters.
Among the first essays of this sort are translations from Germanic
writers, with whom, if Turler is right, the book of precepts for travel
originated. For the Germans, with the English, were the most
indefatigable travellers of all nations. Like the English, they suddenly
woke up with a start to the idea that they were barbarians on the
outskirts of civilization, and like Chicago of the present day, sent
their young men "hustling for culture." They took up assiduously not
only the Renaissance ideal of travel as a highly educating experience,
by which one was made a complete man intellectually, but also the
Renaissance conviction that travel was a duty to the State. Since both
Germany and England were somewhat removed from the older and more
civilized nations, it was necessary for them to make an effort to learn
what was going on at the centre of the world. It was therefore the duty
of gentlemen, especially of noblemen, to whom the State would look to be
directed, to search out the marts of learning, frequent foreign courts,
and by knowing men and languages be able to advise their prince at home,
after the manner set forth in Il Cortegiano. It must be remembered
that in the sixteenth century there were no schools of political
economy, of modern history or modern languages at the universities. A
sound knowledge of these things had to be obtained by first-hand
observation. From this fact arose the importance of improving one's
opportunities, and the necessity for methodical, thorough inquiry, which
we shall find so insisted upon in these manuals of advice.
Hieronymus Turlerus claims that his De Peregrinatione (Argentorati,
1574) is the first book to be devoted to precepts of travel. It was
translated into English and published in London in 1575, under the title
of The Traveiler of Jerome Turler, and is, as far as I know, the first
book of the sort in England. Not much is known of Turler, save that he
was born at Leissnig, in Saxony, in 1550, studied at Padua, became a
Doctor of Law, made such extensive travels that he included even
England - a rare thing in those days - and after serving as Burgomaster in
his native place, died in 1602. His writings, other than De
Peregrinatione, are three translations from Machiavelli.[40]
Turler addresses to two young German noblemen his book "written on
behalf of such as are desirous to travell, and to see foreine cuntries,
and specially of students.... Mee thinkes they do a good deede, and well
deserve of al men, that give precepts for traveyl. Which thing,
althoughe I perceive that some have done, yet have they done it here and
there in sundrie Bookes and not in any one certeine place." A discussion
of the advantages of travel had appeared in Thomas Wilson's Arte of
Rhetorique (1553),[41] and certain practical directions for avoiding
ailments to which travellers were susceptible had been printed in Basel
in 1561,[42] but Turler's would seem to be the first book devoted to the
praise of peregrination. Not only does Turler say so himself, but
Theodor Zwinger, who three years later wrote Methodus Apodemica,
declares that Turler and Pyrckmair were his only predecessors in this
sort of composition.[43]
Pyrckmair was apparently one of those governors, or Hofmeister,[44] who
accompanied young German noblemen on their tours through Europe. He drew
up a few directions, he declares, as guidance for himself and the Count
von Sultz, whom he expected shortly to guide into Italy. He had made a
previous journey to Rome, which he enjoyed with the twofold enthusiasm
of the humanist and the Roman Catholic, beholding "in a stupor of
admiration" the magnificent remnants of classic civilization and the
institutions of a benevolent Pope.[45]
From Plantin's shop in Antwerp came in 1587 a narrative by another
Hofmeister - Stephen Vinandus Pighius - concerning the life and travels of
his princely charge, Charles Frederick, Duke of Cleves, who on his grand
tour died in Rome. Pighius discusses at considerable length,[46] in
describing the hesitancy of the Duke's guardians about sending him on a
tour, the advantages and disadvantages of travel. The expense of it and
the diseases you catch, were great deterrents; yet the widening of the
mind which judicious travelling insures, so greatly outweighed these and
other disadvantages, that it was arranged after much discussion, "not
only in the Council but also in the market-place and at the
dinner-table," to send young Charles for two years to Austria to the
court of his uncle the Emperor Maximilian, and then to Italy, France,
and Lower Germany to visit the princess, his relations, and friends, and
to see life.
Theodor Zwinger, who was reputed to be the first to reduce the art of
travel into a form and give it the appearance of a science,[47] died a
Doctor of Medicine at Basel. He had no liking for his father's trade of
furrier, but apprenticed himself for three years to a printer at Lyons.
Somehow he managed to learn some philosophy from Peter Ramus at Paris,
and then studied medicine at Padua, where he met Jerome Turler.[48] As
Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine he occupied several successive
professorships at Basel.
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