When A Boy Came From The
University To Court, He Found Himself Eclipsed By Young Pages, Who
Scarcely Knew How To Read, But Had Killed Their Man In A Duel, And
Danced To Perfection.[214] A Martial Training, With Physical
Accomplishments, Was The Most Effective, Apparently.
The martial type which France evolved dazzled other nations, and it is
not surprising that under the Stuarts, who had inherited French ways,
the English Court was particularly open to French ideals.
Our directions
for travellers reflect the change from the typical Elizabethan courtier,
"somewhat solemn, coy, big and dangerous of look," to the easy manners
of the cavalier. A Method for Travell, written while Elizabeth was
still on the throne, extols Italian conduct. "I would rather," it says
of the traveller, "he should come home Italianate than Frenchified: I
speake of both in the better sense: for the French is stirring, bold,
respectless, inconstant, suddaine: the Italian stayed, demure,
respective, grave, advised."[215] But Instructions for Forreine
Travell in 1642 urges one to imitate the French. "For the Gentry of
France have a kind of loose, becoming boldness, and forward vivacity in
their manners."[216]
The first writer of advice to travellers who assumes that French
accomplishments are to be a large part of the traveller's education, is
Sir Robert Dallington, whom we have already quoted. His View of
France[217] to which the Method for Travel is prefixed, deserves a
reprint, for both that and his Survey of Tuscany,[218] though built on
the regular model of the Elizabethan traveller's "Relation," being a
conscientious account of the chief geographical, economic,
architectural, and social features of the country traversed, are more
artistic than the usual formal reports.
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