English Travellers of the Renaissance

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What the residents of other cities see but in the copy, or must travel half the world over to see in the original, the resident of Portland has at his very door. The city is situate on gently-sloping ground, with, on the one side, the river, and on the other a range of hills, which, within easy walking distance, rise to an elevation of a thousand feet above the river, affording a most picturesque building site.

From the very streets of the thickly settled portion of the city, the Cascade Mountains, with the snow-capped peaks of Hood, Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier, are in plain view. As the hills to the west are ascended the view broadens, until, from the extreme top of some of the higher points, there is, to the east, the valley stretching away to the Cascade Mountains, with its rivers, the Columbia and Willamette; in the foreground Portland, in the middle distance Vancouver, and, bounding the horizon, the Cascade Mountains, with their snow-clad peaks, and the gorge of the Columbia in plain sight, whilst away to the north the course of the Columbia may be followed for miles.

To the west, from the foot of the hills, the valley of the Tualatin stretches away twenty odd miles to the Coast Range, which alone shuts out the view of the Pacific Ocean and bounds the horizon on the west. To the glaciers of Mt. Hood is but little more than a day’s travel. The gorge of the Columbia, which in many respects equals, and in others surpasses the far-famed Yosemite, may be visited in the compass of a day.

The Upper Willamette, within the limits of a few hours’ trip, offers beauties equaling the Rhine, whilst thirty-six hours gives the Lower Columbia, beside which the Rhine and Hudson sink into insignificance. In short, within a few hours’ walk of the heart of this busy city are beauties surpassing the White Mountains or Adirondacks, and the grandeur of the Alps lies within the limits of a day’s picnicking.

There is no better guarantee of the advantageous position of Portland than the wealth which has accumulated here in the short period which has elapsed since the city first sprang into existence. Theory is all very well, but the actual proof is in the result. At the taking of the census of , Portland was the third wealthiest city in the world in proportion to population; since that date wealth has accumulated at an unprecedented rate, and it is probable it is to-day the wealthiest.

Among all her wealthy men, not one can be singled out who did not make his money here, who did not come here poor to grow rich. Portland enjoys superb advantages as a starting-point for tourist travel. After the traveler has enjoyed the numerous attractions of that wealthy city, traversed its beautiful avenues, viewed a strikingly noble landscape from “The Heights,” and explored those charming environs which extend for miles up and down the Willamette, there remains perhaps the most invigorating and healthful trip of all—a journey either by.

There must ever remain in the mind of the tourist a peculiarly delightful recollection of a day on the majestic Columbia River, the all too short run across that glorious sheet of water, Puget Sound, or the fifty hours’ luxurious voyage on the Pacific Ocean, from Portland to San Francisco. Beginning first with the Columbia River, the traveler will find solid comfort on any one of the boats belonging to the Union Pacific Railway fleet.

Passengers will remember that, arriving at The Dalles, on the Union Pacific Railway, they have the option of proceeding into Portland either by rail or river, and their ticket is available for either route. The river trip will be found a very pleasant diversion after the long railway ride, and a day’s sail down the majestic Columbia is a memory-picture which lasts a life-time.

It is eighty-eight miles by rail to Portland, the train skirting the river bank up to within a few miles of the city. By river, it is forty-five miles to the Upper Cascades, then a six-mile portage via narrow-gauge railway, then sixty miles by steamer again to Portland.

The boat leaves The Dalles at about 7 in the morning, and reaches Portland at 6 in the evening. The accommodations on these boats are first-class in every respect; good table, neat staterooms, and courteous attendants.

This tour is planned for those who may wish to start from Portland by the Union Pacific Railway. Take the evening train from Portland to The Dalles. Arriving at The Dalles, walk down to the boat, which lies only a few yards down stream from the station. Sleep on board, so that you may be ready early in the morning for the stately panorama of the river. Another plan is to give a day to the interesting country in the near vicinity. The Dalles proper of the Columbia begin at Celilo, fourteen miles above this point, and are simply a succession of rapids, until, nearing The Dalles Station, the stream for two and a half miles narrows down between walls of basaltic rock feet across.

In the flood-tides of the spring the water in this chasm has risen feet. The word “Dalles” is rather misleading. The word is French, “dalle,” and means, variously, “a plate,” “a flagstone,” “a slab,” alluding to the oval or square shaped stones which abound in the river bed and the valley above. But the early French hunters and trappers called a chasm or a defile or gorge, “dalles,” meaning in their vernacular “a trough”—and “Dalles” it has remained.

There is a quaint Indian legend connected with the spot which may interest the curious, and it runs something on this wise, Clark’s Fork and the Snake river, it will be remembered, unite at Ainsworth to form the Columbia. It flows furiously for a hundred miles and more westward, and when it reaches the outlying ridges of the Cascade chain it finds an immense low surface paved with enormous sheets of basaltic rock.

But here is the legend:. In the very ancient far-away times the sole and only inhabitants of the world were fiends, and very highly uncivilized fiends at that. The whole Northwest was then one of the centres of volcanic action. The craters of the Cascades were fire breathers and fountains of liquid flame. It was an extremely fiendish country, and naturally the inhabitants fought like devils.

Where the great plains of the Upper Columbia now spread was a vast inland sea, which beat against a rampart of hills to the east of The Dalles. And the great weapon of the fiends in warfare was their tails, which were of prodigious size and terrible strength.

Now, the wisest, strongest, and most subtle fiend of the entire crew was one fiend called the “Devil. The whole tribe met every summer to have a tournament after their fashion, and at one of these reunions the Devil arose and made a pacific speech. He took occasion to enlarge on the evils of constant warfare, and suggested that a general reconciliation take place and that they all live in peace.

The astonished fiends could not understand any such unwarlike procedure from him , and with one accord, suspecting treachery, made straight at the intended reformer, who, of course, took to his heels. The fiends pressed him hard as he sped over the plains of The Dalles, and as he neared the defile he struck a Titanic blow with his tail on the pavement—and a chasm opened up through the valley, and down rushed the waters of the inland sea.

But a battalion of the fiends still pursued him, and again he smote with his tail and more strongly, and a vaster cleft went up and down the valley, and a more terrific torrent swept along. The leading fiends took the leap, but many fell into the chasm—and still the Devil was sorely pursued. He had just time to rap once more and with all the vigor of a despairing tail.

And this time he was safe. A third crevice, twice the width of the second, split the rocks, riving a deeper cleft in the mountain that held back the inland sea, making a gorge through the majestic chain of the Cascades and opening a way for the torrent oceanward.

It was the crack of doom for the fiends. Essaying the leap, they fell far short of the edge, where the Devil lay panting. Down they fell and were swept away by the flood; so the whole race of fiends perished from the face of the earth. But the Devil was in sorry case. His tail was unutterably dislocated by his last blow; so, leaping across the chasm he had made, he went home to rear his family thoughtfully. There were no more antagonists; so, perhaps, after all, tails were useless.

Every year he brought his children to The Dalles and told them the terrible history of his escape. And after a time the fires of the Cascades burned away; the inland sea was drained and its bed became a fair and habitable land, and still the waters gushed through the narrow crevices roaring seaward. But the Devil had one sorrow. All his children born before the catastrophe were crabbed, unregenerate, stiff-tailed fiends. After that event every new-born imp wore a flaccid, invertebrate, despondent tail—the very last insignium of ignobility.

So runs the legend of The Dalles—a shining lesson to reformers. Leaving The Dalles in the morning, a splendid panorama begins to unfold on this lordly stream—”Achilles of rivers,” as Winthrop called it. It is difficult to describe the charm of this trip. Residents of the East pronounce it superior to the Hudson, and travelers assert there is nothing like it in the Old World.

It is simply delicious to those escaped from the heat and dust of their far-off homes to embark on this noble stream and steam smoothly down past frowning headlands and “rocks with carven imageries,” bluffs lined with pine trees, vivid green, past islands and falls, and distant views of snowy peaks.

There is no trip like it on the coast, and for a river excursion there is not its equal in the United States. Twelve miles below “The Dalles” there is a lonely, rugged island anchored amid stream. It is bare, save for a white monument which rises from its rocky breast. No living thing, no vestige of verdure, or tree, or shrub, appears. And Captain McNulty, as he stood at the wheel and steadied the “Queen,” said:.

It’s Victor Trevet’s. Of course you never heard of him, but he was a great man, all the same, here in Oregon in the old times. Queer he was, and no mistake. Member of one of the early legislatures; sort of a general peacemaker; everybody went to him with their troubles, and when he said a lawsuit didn’t go, it didn’t, and he always stuck up for the Indians, and always called his own kind ‘dirty mean whites.

It’s just full of ’em. And I says to him, ‘Now, Vic. And another thing: You know, John, the dirty, mean whites stole the Indian’s burial ground and built Portland there. Everyday the papers have an account of Mr. Bigbug’s proposed palace, and how Indian bones were turned up in the excavation. I won’t be buried alongside any such dirty, mean thieves.

And I’ll tell you further, John, that it may be if I am laid away among the Indians, when the Great Day comes I can slip in kind of easy. They ain’t going to have any such a hard time as the dirty whites will have, and maybe I won’t be noticed, and can just slide in quiet along with their crowd.

He don’t lay among the whites, and there isn’t a day in summer when the name of Vic. Trevet ain’t mentioned, either on yon train or on a boat, just as I am telling it to you now. When he died in San Francisco five years ago, some of his old friends had him brought back to ‘The Dalles,’ and one lovely Sunday being an off day we buried him on Memaloose Isle, and then we put up the monument. His earthly immortality is safe and sure, for that stone will stand as long as the island stays.

She’s eight feet square at the base, built of the native rock right on the island, then three feet of granite, then a ten-foot column. Yes, sir, he’s there for sure till resurrection day. Queer idea? Why, blame it all, if he thought he could get in along with the Chinooks it’s all right, ain’t it? Don’t want a man to lose any chances, do you? So much has been said of this mighty river that the preconceived idea of the tourist is of a surging flood of unknown depth rushing like a mountain torrent.

The plain facts are that the Lower Columbia is rather a placid stream, with a sluggish current, and the channel shoals up to eight feet, then falling to twelve, fifteen and seventeen feet, and suddenly dropping to feet of water and over. In the spring months it will rise from twenty-five to forty feet, leaving driftwood high up among the trees on the banks. The tide ebbs and flows at Portland from eighteen inches to three feet, according to season, and this tidal influence is felt, in high water, as far up as the Cascades.

It is fifty miles of glorious beauty from “The Dalles” to the Cascades. Here we leave the steamer and take a narrow-gauge railway for six miles around the magnificent rapids. At the foot of the Cascades we board a twin boat, fitted up with equal taste and comfort. Swinging once more down stream we pass hundreds of charming spots, sixty miles of changeful beauty all the way to Portland; Multnomah Falls, a filmy veil of water falling feet into a basin on the hillside and then feet to the river; past the rocky walls of Cape Horn, towering up a thousand feet; past that curious freak of nature, Rooster Rock, and the palisades; past Fort Vancouver, where Grant and Sheridan were once stationed, and just at sunset leaving the Columbia, which by this time has broadened into noble dimensions, we ascend the Willamette twelve miles to Portland.

And the memory of that day’s journey down the lordly river will remain a gracious possession for years to come. There is a quaint Indian legend concerning the Cascades to the effect that away back in the forgotten times there was a natural bridge across the river—the water flowing under one arch.

The Great Spirit had made this bridge very beautiful for his red children; it was firm, solid earth, and covered with trees and grass. The two great giants who sat always glowering at each other from far away Mount Adams and Mount Hood quarreled terribly once on a time, and the sky grew black with their smoke and the earth trembled with their roaring.

And in their rage and fury they began to throw great stones and huge mountain boulders at one another. This great battle lasted for days, and when the smoke and the thunderings had passed away and the sun shone peacefully again, the people came back once more.

But there was no bridge there. Pieces of rock made small islands above the lost bridge, but below that the river fretted and shouted and plunged over jagged and twisted boulders for miles down the stream, throwing the spray high in air, madly spending its strength in treacherous whirlpools and deep seductive currents—ever after to be wrathful, complaining, dangerous.

The stoutest warrior could not live in that terrible torrent. So the beautiful bridge was lost, destroyed in this Titan battle, but far down in the water could be seen many of the stately trees which the Great Spirit caused to remain there as a token of the bridge.

These he turned to stone, and they are there even unto this day. The theory of the scientists, of course, runs counter to the pretty legend. Science usually does destroy poetry, and they tell us that a part of the mountain slid into the river, thus accounting for the remnant of a forest down in the deep water.

Moreover, pieces which have been recovered show the wood to be live timber, and not petrified, as the poetic fiction has it. The Columbia has not changed in the centuries, but flows in the same channel here as when in the remote ages the lava, overflowing, cut out a course and left its pathway clear for all time.

Below the lower Cascades a sea-coral formation is found, grayish in color and not very pretty, but showing conclusively its sea formation. Sandstone is also at times uncovered, showing that this was made by sea deposit before the lava flowed down upon it.

This Oregon country is said to be the largest lava district in the world. The basaltic formations in the volcanic lands of Sicily and Italy are famous for their richness, and Oregon holds out the same promise for agriculture. The lava formation runs from Portland to Spokane Falls, as far north as Tacoma, and south as far as Snake river—all basaltic formation overlaid with an incomparably rich soil.

The trip from Portland by rail to “The Dalles,” if the tourist should chance not to arrive in Portland by the Union Pacific line from the east, will be found charming. It is eighty-eight miles distant. Multnomah Falls is reached in thirty-two miles; Bonneville, forty-one miles, at the foot of the Cascades; five miles farther is the stupendous government lock now in process of building around the rapids; Hood river, sixty-six miles, where tourists leave for the ascent of Mount Hood. It is about forty miles through a picturesque region to the base of the mountain.

Then from Hood river, an ice-cold stream, twenty-two miles into “The Dalles,” where the steamer may be taken for the return trip. In this eighty-eight miles from Portland to “The Dalles” there are twelve miles of trestles and bridges. The railway follows the Columbia’s brink the entire distance to within a few miles of the city. The scenery is impressively grand; the bluffs, if they may be so called, are bold promontories attaining majestic heights. One timber shute, where the logs come whizzing into the river with the velocity of a cannon-ball, is 3, feet long, and it is claimed a log makes the trip in twenty seconds.

While the Upper Columbia abounds in scenery of wild and picturesque beauty, the tourist must by no means neglect a trip down the lower river from Portland to Astoria and Ilwaco, and return. The facilities now offered by the Union Pacific in its splendid fleet of steamers render this a delightful excursion.

On a clear day, one may enjoy at the junction of the Willamette with the Columbia a very wonderful sight—five mountain peaks are on view: St. Helens, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Helens, queen of the Cascade Range, a fair and graceful cone. Exquisite mantling snows sweep along her shoulders toward the bristling pines. Not far from her base, the Columbia crashes through the mountains in a magnificent chasm, and Mt.

Hood, the vigorous prince of the range, rises in a keen pyramid some 12, feet. Small villages and landing-places line the shores, almost too numerous to mention.

There are, of the more important, St. Johns, St. Salmon canneries there are without number. It is about 98 miles by the chart from Portland to Astoria. Across the bay is the pretty town of Ilwaco. Canby and Cape Disappointment look across to Ft. Stevens and Point Adams. From Astoria, one may drive eighteen miles to Clatsop Beach, famous for its clams, crab, and trout, and Ben Holliday’s hotel.

But the fullest enjoyment is obtained by making a round trip, including a lay-over at Ilwaco all night, and returning to Portland next day, and sleeping on board the boat. A railway runs from the town to the outside beach, a mile and a half distant. There is a drive twenty-five miles long up this long beach to Shoal Water Bay, which is beautiful beyond description.

This district is the great supply point for oysters, heavy shipments being made as far south as San Francisco. Sea bathing, both here and at Clatsop Beach, is very fine. The boats of the Union Pacific Ry. The “T. Potter,” a magnificent side-wheel steamer, made her first trip in July, She is feet long, 35 feet beam, and 10 feet hold, with a capacity of passengers.

The saloon and state-rooms are fitted with every convenience, and handsomely decorated. The “Potter” was built entirely in Portland, and the citizens naturally take great pride in the superb vessel. In August, , this steamer made the run from her berth at Portland to the landing stage at Astoria in five hours and thirty-one minutes. Then there are two night passenger boats from Portland down, the “”R. Thompson” and the “S. Reed,” both stern-wheelers of large size, spacious, roomy boats, well appointed in every particular.

The Thompson is feet long, 38 feet beam, and 1, tons measurement. In addition to these, there are two day mail passenger and freight boats; they handle the way traffic; the larger boats above mentioned make the run direct from Portland to Astoria without any landings. A mistaken idea has possessed many tourists that the Puget Sound steamers start from Portland; they leave Tacoma for all points on the Sound, and Tacoma is about miles by rail from Portland.

One steamer per month leaves Portland for Alaska, but she touches at Port Townsend before proceeding north. One steamship leaves Tacoma for Alaska during the season of , about every fifteen days, from June to September. There are semi-weekly boats between Portland and Corvallis, and tri-weekly between Portland and Salem. On the Sound there are three boats each way, daily except Sunday , between Tacoma and Seattle; one boat each way, daily except Sunday , between Tacoma and Victoria; one boat each way, daily except Sunday , between Seattle and Whatcom, and one boat, daily except Sunday , between Whatcom and Seminahmoo.

Only one class of tickets is sold on the River and Sound boats; on the Ocean steamers there are two classes: cabin and steerage.

The steerage passengers on the Ocean steamers have a dining-room separate from the first-class passengers—on the lower deck—and are given abundance of wholesome food, tea and coffee. On River and Sound boats, a ticket does not include meals and berths, but it does on the ocean voyage, or the Alaska trip.

The usual price for meals is 50 cents, and they will be found uniformly excellent. Breakfast, lunch, and a 6 o’clock dinner are served. No liquors of any kind are kept on sale on any River or Sound steamer, but a small stock of the best brands will be found on the Ocean steamers. State-rooms on the River and Sound steamers are provided with one double lower and one single upper berth. Tourists receive more than an ordinary amount of attention on these steamers, more than is possible to pay them on a railway train.

The pursers will be found polite and obliging, always ready to point out places of interest and render those little attentions which go so far toward making travel pleasant. On River and Sound boats, the forward cabin is generally the smoking-room, the cabin amidships is used for a “Social Hall,” and the “After Saloon” is always the ladies’ cabin. All Union Pacific steamers in the Ocean service are heated with steam and lighted with electricity; all have pianos and a well-selected library.

The beds on these boats are well-nigh perfect, woven-wire springs and heavy mattresses. They are kept scrupulously clean—the company is noted for that—and the steerage is as neat as the main saloon.

Boats leaving terminal points at any time between 10 p. Sea-sickness is never met with on the Sound, and very rarely on the voyage from Portland to San Francisco. On the Pacific, the ship is never out of sight of land, and the sea is as smooth as a mill-pond. The heaviest swell encountered is going over the Columbia River Bar.

The ocean is uniformly placid during the summer months. The trip, with its freedom from the dust, rush, and roar of a train, and the inexorable restraint one always feels on the cars, is a delightful one, and with larger comforts and more luxurious surroundings, one enjoys the added pleasure of courteous and thoughtful service from the various officers of the ship. Taking the “Columbia” as a sample of the class of steamships in the Union Pacific fleet, we notice that she is feet long, 2, horse-power, nearly 3, tonnage, has 65 state-rooms, and can accommodate saloon and steerage passengers.

Steam heat and electric light are used. In the first plant from Edison’s factory was put on board the “Columbia,” at that time a great curiosity, she being the first ship to use the incandescent light. Crater Lake is situate in the northwestern portion of Klamath county, Oregon, and is best reached by leaving the Southern Pacific Railroad at Medford, which is miles south of Portland, and about ninety miles from the lake, which can be reached by a very good wagon road.

The lake is about six miles wide by seven miles long, but it is not its size which is its beauty or its attraction. The surface of the water in the lake is 6, feet above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by cliffs or walls from 1, to over 2, feet in height, and which are scantily covered with timber, and which offer at but one point a way of reaching the water.

The depth of the water is very great, and it is very transparent, and of a deep blue color. Toward the southwestern portion of the lake is Wizard Island, feet high, circular in shape, and slightly covered with timber. In the top of this island is a depression, or crater—the Witches’ Caldron— feet deep, and feet in diameter, which was evidently the last smoking chimney of a once mighty volcano, and which is now covered within, as without, with volcanic rocks.

North of this island, and on the west side of the lake, is Llao Rock, reaching to a height of 2, feet above the water, and so perpendicular that a stone may be dropped from its summit to the waters at its base, nearly one-half mile below. So far below the surrounding mountains is the surface of the waters in this lake, that the mountain breezes but rarely ripple them; and looking from the surrounding wall, the sky and cliffs are seen mirrored in the glassy surface, and it is with difficulty the eye can distinguish the line where the cliffs leave off and their reflected counterfeits begin.

Townships 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31, in Ranges 5 and 6 east of the Willamette meridian, are asked to be set apart as the Oregon National Park. This area contains Crater Lake and its approaches. The citizens of Oregon unanimously petitioned the President for the reservation of this park, and a bill in conformity with the petition passed the United States Senate in February, The first actual settlement by Americans was made at Tumwater in Prior to this, the country was known only to trappers and fur traders.

Territorial government was organized in , and Washington was admitted as a State, November, The State is almost inexhaustibly rich in coal and lumber, and has frequently been called the “Pennsylvania of the Pacific Coast. The yield of wheat is prodigious. Apples, pears, apricots, plums, prunes, peaches, cherries, grapes, and all berries flourish in the greatest profusion.

Certain it is that there is no other locality where trees bear so early and surely as here, and where the fruit is of greater excellence, and where there are so few drawbacks.

At the Centennial Exposition, Washington Territory fruit-tables were the wonder of visitors and an attractive feature of the grand display. This Territory carried off seventeen prizes in a competitive contest where thirty-three States were represented. It is a pleasant journey of miles through the pine forests from Portland to Tacoma. Any one of the splendid steamers of the Union Pacific may be taken for a trip to Victoria.

Leaving Tacoma in the morning, we sail over that noble sheet of water, Puget Sound. The hills on either side are darkly green, the Sound widening slowly as we go. Seattle is reached in three hours, a busy town of 35, people, full of vim, push, and energy. Twenty million dollars’ worth of property went up in flame and smoke in Seattle’s great fire of June 6, The ashes were scarcely cold when her enthusiastic citizens began to build anew, better, stronger, and more beautiful than before.

A city of brick, stone, and iron has arisen, monumental evidence of the energy, pluck, and perseverance of the people, and of their fervent faith in the future of Seattle. Then Port Townsend, with its beautiful harbor and gently sloping bluffs, “the city of destiny,” beyond all doubt, of any of the towns on the Sound.

Favored by nature in many ways, Townsend has the finest roadstead and the best anchorage ground in these waters, and this must tell in the end, when advantages for sea trade are considered. Victoria, B.

The next day may be spent very pleasantly in driving and walking about the city, a handsome town of 14, people. A thorough system of macadamized roads radiates from Victoria, furnishing about miles of beautiful drives. Many of these drives are lined with very handsome suburban residences, surrounded with lawns and parks. Esquimalt, near Victoria, has a fine harbor. This is the British naval station where several iron-clads are usually stationed. There is also an extensive dry-dock, hewn out of the solid rock, capacious enough to receive large vessels.

In the evening after dinner, one can return to the steamer and take possession of a stateroom, for the boat leaves at four in the morning. When breakfast time comes we are well on our return trip, and moving past Port Townsend again.

The majestic straits of Fuca, through which we have passed, are well worth a visit; it is a taste of being at sea without any discomfort, for the water is without a ripple. As we steam homeward there is a vision which has been described for all time by a master hand. It is a giant mountain dome of snow in the depths of tranquil blue.

The smoky haze of an Oregon August hid all the length of its lesser ridges and left this mighty summit based upon uplifting dimness. Only its splendid snows were visible high in the unearthly regions of clear, noonday sky.

Kingly and alone stood this majesty without any visible comrade, though far to the north and south there were isolated sovereigns. This regal gem the Christians have dubbed Mount Rainier, but more melodious is its Indian name, ‘Tacoma. Theodore Winthrop, in his own brilliant way, tells a quaint legend of Tacoma, as related to him by a frowsy Siwash at Nisqually.

There is the one all-pervading Tamanous, but there are a thousand emanations, each one a tamanous with a small “t. The tamanous, or totem, types himself as a salmon, a beaver, an elk, a canoe, a fir-tree, and so on indefinitely. In some of its features this legend resembles strongly the immortal story of Rip Van Winkle; it may prove interesting as a study in folk-lore. Know you that our first circulating medium was shells, a small perforated shell not unlike a very opaque quill toothpick, tapering from the middle, and cut square at both ends.

We string it in many strands and hang it around the neck of one we love—namely, each man his own neck. And with this we buy what our hearts desire. Hiaqua, we call it, and he who has most hiaqua is wisest and best of all the dwellers on the Sound. And he worshipped hiaqua. And always this old man thought deeply and communed with his wisdom, and while he waited for elk or salmon he took advice within himself from his demon—he talked with tamanous. And always his question was, ‘How may I put hiaqua in my purse?

There loomed Tacoma, so white and glittering that it seemed to stare at him very terribly and mockingly, and to know of his shameful avarice, and how it led him to take from starving women their cherished lip and nose jewels of hiaqua, and give them in return tough scraps of dried elk-meat and salmon.

As for Italian journeys of Selling, Grocyn, Latimer, Tunstall, Colet and Lily, of that extraordinary group of scholars who transformed Oxford by the introduction of Greek ideals and gave to it the peculiar distinction which is still shining, I mention them only to suggest that they are the source of the Renaissance respect for a foreign education, and the founders of the fashion which, in its popular spreadings, we will attempt to trace.

They all studied in Italy, and brought home nothing but good. For to scholarship they joined a native force of character which gave a most felicitous introduction to England of the fine things of the mind which they brought home with them. By their example they gave an impetus to travel for education’s sake which lesser men could never have done.

Rich churchmen, patrons of letters, launched promising students on to the Continent to give them a complete education; as Richard Fox, Founder of Corpus Christi, sent Edward Wotton to Padua, “to improve his learning and chiefly to learn Greek,” [16] or Thomas Langton, Bishop of Winchester, supported Richard Pace at the same university.

Shunning all implication in the tumult of the political world, he slipped back to Padua, and there surrounded himself with friends,–“singular fellows, such as ever absented themselves from the court, desiring to live holily.

There were other elements that contributed to the growth of travel besides the desire to become exquisitely learned. It was soon found that a special combination of qualities was needed in the ambassadors to carry out his aspirations. Churchmen, like the ungrateful Pole, for whose education he had generously subscribed, were often unpliable to his views of the Pope; a good old English gentleman, though devoted, might be like Sir Robert Wingfield, simple, unsophisticated, and the laughingstock of foreigners.

On one of his visits to Oxford he was impressed with the comely presence and flowing expression of John Mason, who, though the son of a cowherd, was notable at the university for his “polite and majestick speaking. King Henry disposed of him in foreign parts, to add practical experience to his speculative studies, and paid for his education out of the king’s Privy Purse, as we see by the royal expenses for September Another educational investment of the King’s was Thomas Smith, afterwards as excellent an ambassador as Mason, whom he supported at Cambridge, and according to Camden, at riper years made choice of to be sent into Italy.

This again merged into the pursuit of a still more informal education–the sort which comes from “seeing the world. With any ambassador went a bevy of young gentlemen, who on their return diffused a certain mysterious sophistication which was the envy of home-keeping youth.

According to Hall, when they came back to England they were “all French in eating and drinking and apparel, yea, and in the French vices and brags: so that all the estates of England were by them laughed at, the ladies and gentlewomen were dispraised, and nothing by them was praised, but if it were after the French turn. There was still another contributory element to the growth of travel, one which touched diplomats, scholars, and courtiers–the necessity of learning modern languages. By the middle of the sixteenth century Latin was no longer sufficient for intercourse between educated people.

In the most civilized countries the vernacular had been elevated to the dignity of the classical tongues by being made the literary vehicle of such poets as Politian and Bembo, Ronsard and Du Bellay. A vernacular literature of great beauty, too important to be overlooked, began to spring up on all sides. One could no longer keep abreast of the best thought without a knowledge of modern languages. More powerful than any academic leanings was the Renaissance curiosity about man, which could not be satisfied through the knowledge of Latin only.

Hardly anyone but churchmen talked Latin in familiar conversation with one. When a man visited foreign courts and wished to enter into social intercourse with ladies and fashionables, or move freely among soldiers, or settle a bill with an innkeeper, he found that he sorely needed the language of the country. So by the time we reach the reign of Edward VI.

Brown after G. This favourite of Queen Elizabeth introduced many Italian fashions to her Court. We have noted how Italy came to be the lode-stone of scholars, and how courtiers sought the grace which France bestowed, but we have not yet accounted for the attraction of Germany. Germany, as a centre of travel, was especially popular in the reign of Edward the Sixth.

France went temporarily out of fashion with those men of whom we have most record. For in Edward’s reign the temper of the leading spirits in England was notably at variance with the court of France. It was to Germany that Edward’s circle of Protestant politicians, schoolmasters, and chaplains felt most drawn–to the country where the tides of the Reformation were running high, and men were in a ferment over things of the spirit; to the country of Sturm and Bucer, and Fagius and Ursinus–the doctrinalists and educators so revered by Cambridge.

Cranmer, who gathered under his roof as many German savants as could survive in the climate of England, [35] kept the current of understanding and sympathy flowing between Cambridge and Germany, and since Cambridge, not Oxford, dominated the scholarly and political world of Edward the Sixth, from that time on Germany, in the minds of the St John’s men, such as Burleigh, Ascham and Hoby, was the place where one might meet the best learned of the day.

We have perhaps said enough to indicate roughly the sources of the Renaissance fashion for travel which gave rise to the essays we are about to discuss. The scholar’s desire to specialize at a foreign university, in Greek, in medicine, or in law; the courtier’s ambition to acquire modern languages, study foreign governments, and generally fit himself for the service of the State, were dignified aims which in men of character produced very happy results.

It was natural that others should follow their example. In Elizabethan times the vogue of travelling to become a “compleat person” was fully established. And though in mean and trivial men the ideal took on such odd shapes and produced such dubious results that in every generation there were critics who questioned the benefits of travel, the ideal persisted.

There was always something, certainly, to be learned abroad, for men of every calibre. Those who did not profit by the study of international law learned new tricks of the rapier. And because experience of foreign countries was expensive and hard to come at, the acquirement of it gave prestige to a young man.

Besides, underneath worldly ambition was the old curiosity to see the world and know all sorts of men–to be tried and tested. More powerful than any theory of education was the yearning for far-off, foreign things, and the magic of the sea.

The love of travel, we all know, flourished exceedingly in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. All classes felt the desire to go beyond seas upon.

The explorer and the poet, the adventurer, the prodigal and the earl’s son, longed alike for foreign shores. What Ben Jonson said of Coryat might be stretched to describe the average Elizabethan: “The mere superscription of a letter from Zurich sets him up like a top: Basil or Heidelberg makes him spinne.

And at seeing the word Frankford, or Venice, though but in the title of a Booke, he is readie to breake doublet, cracke elbowes, and overflowe the roome with his murmure. Sad it was to be a court favourite like Fulke Greville, who four times, thirsting for strange lands, was plucked back to England by Elizabeth. At about the time when some of the most prominent courtiers–Edward Dyer, Gilbert Talbot, the Earl of Hertford, and more especially Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Philip Sidney–had just returned from abroad, book-publishers thought it worth while to print books addressed to travellers.

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. 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.

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, is the first book to be devoted to precepts of travel.

It was translated into English and published in London in , 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 , 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 His writings, other than De Peregrinatione , are three translations from Machiavelli.

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. 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.

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.

From Plantin’s shop in Antwerp came in 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. Even more distinguished in the academic world was the next to carry on the discussion of travel–Justus Lipsius.

His elegant letter on the subject, [49] written a year after Zwinger’s book was published, was translated into English by Sir John Stradling in Philip Jones took no such liberties with the “Method” of Albert Meier, which he translated two years after it was published in The Pervigilium Mercurii of Georgius Loysius, a friend of Scaliger, was never translated into English, but the important virtues of a traveller therein described had their influence on English readers.

Loysius compiled two hundred short petty maxims, illustrated by apt classical quotations, bearing on the correct behaviour and duties of a traveller. For instance, he must avoid luxury, as says Seneca; and laziness, as say Horace and Ovid; he must be reticent about his wealth and learning and keep his counsel, like Ulysses. He must observe the morals and religion of others, but not criticise them, for different nations have different religions, and think that their fathers’ gods ought to be served diligently.

He that disregards these things acts with pious zeal but without consideration for other people’s feelings “nulla ratione cujusque vocationis”. Loysius reflects the sentiment of his country in his conviction that “Nature herself desires that women should stay at home.

Adding to these earliest essays the Oration in Praise of Travel , by Hermann Kirchner, [54] we have a group of instructions sprung from German soil all characterized by an exalted mood and soaring style. They have in common the tendency to rationalize the activities of man, which was so marked a feature of the Renaissance. The simple errant impulse that Chaucer noted as belonging with the songs of birds and coming of spring, is dignified into a philosophy of travel. It had the negative value of providing artificial trials for young gentlemen with patrimony and no occupation who might otherwise be living idly on their country estates, or dissolutely in London.

Knight-errantry, in chivalric society, had provided the hardships and discipline agreeable to youth; travel “for vertues sake, to apply the study of good artes,” [55] was in the Renaissance an excellent way to keep a young man profitably busy. For besides the academic advantages of foreign universities, travel corrected the character.

The rude and arrogant young nobleman who had never before left his own country, met salutary opposition and contempt from strangers, and thereby gained modesty. By observing the refinements of the older nations, his uncouthness was softened: the rough barbarian cub was gradually mollified into the civil courtier. And as for giving one prudence and patience, never was such a mentor as travel.

The tender, the effeminate, the cowardly, were hardened by contention with unwonted cold or rain or sun, with hard seats, stony pillows, thieves, and highwaymen.

Any simple, improvident, and foolish youth would be stirred up to vigilancy by a few experiences with “the subtelty of spies, the wonderful cunning of Inn-keepers and baudes and the great danger of his life. Only experience could teach him how to be cunning, wary, and bold; how he might hold his own, at court or at sea, among Elizabeth’s adventurers.

However, this development of the individual was only part of the benefit of travel. Far more to be extolled was his increased usefulness to the State. That was the stoutest reason for leaving one’s “owne sweete country dwellings” to endure hardships and dangers beyond seas. For a traveller may be of the greatest benefit to his own country by being able to compare its social, economic, and military arrangements with those of other commonwealths.

He is wisely warned, therefore, against that fond preference for his own country which leads him to close his eyes to any improvement–“without just cause preferring his native country,” [57] but to use choice and discretion, to see, learn, and diligently mark what in every place is worthy of praise and what ought to be amended, in magistrates, regal courts, schools, churches, armies–all the ways and means pertaining to civil life and the governing of a humane society.

For all improvement in society, say our authors, came by travellers bringing home fresh ideas. Examples from the ancients, to complete a Renaissance argument, are cited to prove this. What is the greatest vice in both nacions? After what manner the subjects in both countries shewe their obedience to their prince, or oppose themselves against him?

An ambassador to Paris must know what was especially pleasing to a Frenchman. Even a captain in war must know the special virtues and vices of the enemy: which nation is ablest to make a sudden sally, which is stouter to entertain the shock in open field, which is subtlest of the contriving of an ambush.

Evidently, since there is so varied a need for acquaintance with foreign countries, travel is a positive duty. This summary, of course, cannot reproduce the style of each of our authors, and only roughly indicates their method of persuasion.

Especially it cannot represent the mode of Zwinger, whose contribution is a treatise of four hundred pages, arranged in outline form, by means of which any single idea is made to wend its tortuous way through folios. Every aspect of the subject is divided and subdivided with meticulous care. He cannot speak of the time for travel without discriminating between natural time, such as years and days, and artificial time, such as festivals and holidays; nor of the means of locomotion without specifying the possibility of being carried through the air by: I Mechanical means, such as the wings of Icarus; or 2 Angels, as the Apostle Philip was snatched from Samaria.

That the idea of travel as a duty to the State had permeated the Elizabethans from the courtier to the common sailor is borne out by contemporary letters of all sorts. Even William Bourne, an innkeeper at Gravesend, who wrote a hand-book of applied mathematics, called it The Treasure for Travellers [63] and prefaced it with an exhortation in the style of Turler. Here are the same reminders to have the welfare of the commonwealth constantly in mind, to waste no time, to use order and method in observation, and to bring home, if possible, valuable information.

Sidney bewails how much he has missed for “want of having directed my course to the right end, and by the right means. Your purpose is, being a gentleman born, to furnish yourself with the knowledge of such things as may be serviceable to your country.

Davison urges the value of experience, scorning the man who thinks to fit himself by books: “Our sedentary traveller may pass for a wise man as long as he converseth either with dead men by reading, or by writing, with men absent.

But let him once enter on the stage of public employment, and he will soon find, if he can but be sensible of contempt, that he is unfit for action.

For ability to treat with men of several humours, factions and countries; duly to comply with them, or stand off, as occasion shall require, is not gotten only by reading of books, but rather by studying of men: yet this is ever held true.

The best scholar is fittest for a traveller, as being able to make the most useful observations: experience added to learning makes a perfect man.

Both Essex and Fulke Greville are full of warnings against superficial and showy knowledge of foreign countries: “The true end of knowledge is clearness and strength of judgment, and not ostentation, or ability to discourse, which I do rather put your Lordship in mind of, because the most part of noblemen and gentlemen of our time have no other use nor end of their learning but their table-talk.

But God knoweth they have gotten little that have only this discoursing gift: for, though like empty vessels they sound loud when a man knocks upon their outsides, yet if you pierce into them, you shall find that they are full of nothing but wind. Lord Burghley, wasting not a breath, tersely instructs the Earl of Rutland in things worthy of observation. Among these are frontier towns, with what size garrison they are maintained, etc.

At Court, what are the natural dispositions of the king and his brothers and sisters, what is the king’s diet, etc. So much for the attitude of the first “Subsidium Peregrinantibus. But biography is not lacking in evidence that the recipients of these directions did take their travels seriously and try to make them profitable to the commonwealth.

Among the Rutland papers [68] is a plan of fortifications and some notes made by the Edward Manners to whom Cecil wrote the above letter of advice. Sir Thomas Bodley tells how full he was of patriotic intent: “I waxed desirous to travel beyond the seas, for attaining to the knowledge of some special modern tongues, and for the increase of my experience in the managing of affairs, being wholly then addicted to employ myself, and all my cares, in the public service of the state.

Essex says: “Being now entered into my travels, and intending the end thereof to attain to true knowledge and to better my experience, I hope God will so bless me in my endeavours, that I shall return an acceptable servant unto your Highness. One of the particular ways of serving one’s country was the writing of “Observations on his Travels. They were also a guarantee that the tourist had been virtuously employed. The Earl of Salisbury writes severely to his son abroad:.

One of a family of Elizabethan travellers. Edward, third Earl of Rutland, received a letter of instruction from Lord Burleigh concerning what to observe in France in Roger, fifth Earl of Rutland, was directed by Bacon as to his travels in This narrative was one of the chief burdens of a traveller.

Gilbert Talbot is no sooner landed in Padua than he must write to his impatient parents and excuse himself for the lack of that “Relation. In reply to his father’s complaints of his extravagance, he declares: “My promised relation of Tuscany your last letter hath so dashed, as I am resolved not to proceed withal.

Besides writing his observations, the traveller laboured earnestly at modern languages. Many and severe were the letters Cecil wrote to his son Thomas in Paris on the subject of settling to his French. For Thomas’s tutor had difficulties in keeping his pupil from dog-fights, horses and worse amusements in company of the Earl of Hertford, who was a great hindrance to Thomas’s progress in the language. To live in the household of a learned foreigner, as Robert Sidney did with Sturm, or Henry Wotton with Hugo Blotz, was of course especially desirable.

For there were still, in the Elizabethans, remnants of that ardent sociability among humanists which made Englishmen traverse dire distances of sea and land to talk with some scholar on the Rhine–that fraternizing spirit which made Cranmer fill Lambeth Palace with Martin Bucers; and Bishop Gardiner, meanwhile, complain from the Tower not only of “want of books to relieve my mind, but want of good company–the only solace in this world.

Essex tells Rutland “your Lordship should rather go an hundred miles to speake with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town.

There are signs that the learned men were not always willing to shine upon admiring strangers who burst in upon them. The renowned Doctor Zacharias Ursinus at Heidelberg marked on his doorway these words: “My friend, whoever you are, if you come here, please either go away again, or give me some help in my studies. Truly, in few words: either much expense or much humbleness.

If one had not the means to live with famous scholars, it was a good plan to take up lodgings with an eminent bookseller. For statesmen, advocates and other sorts of great men came to the shop, from whose talk much could be learned. By and by some occasion would arise for insinuating oneself into familarity and acquaintance with these personages, and perhaps, if some one of them, “non indoctus,” intended journeying to another city, he might allow you to attach yourself to him.

Of course, for observation and experience, there was no place so advantageous as the household of an ambassador, if one was fortunate enough to win an entry there. The English Ambassador in France generally had a burden of young gentlemen more or less under his care.

Sometimes they were lodged independently in Paris, but many belonged to his train, and had meat and drink for themselves, their servants and their horses, at the ambassador’s expense. Sir Amias Paulet’s Letter-Book of testifies that an ambassador’s cares were considerably augmented by writing reports to parents. Mr Speake is assured that “although I dwell far from Paris, yet I am not unacquainted with your sonne’s doing in Paris, and cannot commend him enough to you as well for his diligence in study as for his honest and quiet behaviour, and I dare assure you that you may be bold to trust him as well for the order of his expenses, as for his government otherwise.

Among these troublesome charges of Paulet’s was Francis Bacon. But to his father, the Lord Keeper, Paulet writes only that all is well, and that his son’s servant is particularly honest, diligent, discreet and faithful, and that Paulet is thankful for his “good and quiet behaviour in my house”–a fact which appears exceptional. Sir Dudley Carleton, as Ambassador to Venice, was also pursued by ambitious fathers.

For I perceive he means to make him a statesman, and is very well persuaded of him, If you can do it conveniently, it will be a favour; but I know what a business it is to have the breaking of such colts, and therefore will urge no more than may be to your liking. Besides gaining an apprenticeship in diplomacy, another advantage of travelling with an ambassador was the participation in ambassadorial immunities.

It might have fared ill with Sir Philip Sidney, in Paris at the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, if he had not belonged to the household of Sir Francis Walsingham. Many other young men not so glorious to posterity, but quite as much so to their mothers, were saved then by the same means. When news of the massacre had reached England, Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham: “I am glad yet that in these tumults and bloody proscriptions you did escape, and the young gentlemen that be there with you Yet we hear say that he that was sent by my Lord Chamberlain to be schoolmaster to young Wharton, being come the day before, was then slain.

How fearful and careful the mothers and parents be here of such young gentlemen as be there, you may easily guess by my Lady Lane, who prayeth very earnestly that her son may be sent home with as much speed as may be. The dangers of travel were of a nature to alarm mothers. As well as Catholics, there were shipwrecks, pirates, and highway robbers. Moors and Turks lay waiting “in a little port under the hill,” to take passenger vessels that went between Rome and Naples.

A man dared not make any display of money for fear of being murdered in the night. It was a rare treat to have a bed to oneself. More probably the traveller was obliged to share it with a stranger of disagreeable appearance, if not of disposition. The third Lord North was ill for life because of the immoderate quantities of hot treacle he consumed in Italy, to avoid the plague. But it was not really the low material dangers of small-pox, quartain ague, or robbers which troubled the Elizabethan.

Such considerations were beneath his heroical temper. Sir Edward Winsor, warned against the piratical Gulf of Malta, writes: “And for that it should not be said an Englishman to come so far to see Malta, and to have turned backe againe, I determined rather making my sepulker of that Golfe. So far we have not mentioned in our description of the books addressed to travellers any of the reminders of the trials of Ulysses, and dark warnings against the “Siren-songs of Italy.

The traveller newly returned from foreign lands was a great butt for the satirists. In Elizabethan times his bows and tremendous politeness, his close-fitting black clothes from Venice, his French accent, his finicky refinements, such as perfumes and pick-tooths, were highly offensive to the plain Englishman.

One was always sure of an appreciative audience if he railed at the “disguised garments and desperate hats” of the “affectate traveller” how; his attire spoke French or Italian, and his gait cried “behold me! Monsieur Mingo de Moustrap. Naught else have they profited by their travell, save learnt to distinguish of the true Burdeaux Grape, and know a cup of neate Gascoygne wine from wine of Orleance; yea, and peradventure this also, to esteeme of the poxe as a pimple, to weare a velvet patch on their face, and walke melancholy with their armes folded.

The Frenchified traveller came in for a good share of satire, but darker things were said of the Italianate Englishman. He was an atheist–a creature hitherto unknown in England–who boldly laughed to scorn both Protestant and Papist. He mocked the Pope, railed on Luther, and liked none, but only himself.

Vanitie and vice and any licence to ill living in England was counted stale and rude unto them. It is likely that some of these accusations were true. Italy more than any other country charmed the Elizabethan Englishman, partly because the climate and the people and the look of things were so unlike his own grey home.

Particularly Venice enchanted him. The sun, the sea, the comely streets, “so clean that you can walk in a Silk Stockin and Sattin Slippes,” [] the tall palaces with marble balconies, and golden-haired women, the flagellants flogging themselves, the mountebanks, the Turks, the stately black-gowned gentlemen, were new and strange, and satisfied his sense of romance.

Besides, the University of Padua was still one of the greatest universities in Europe. Students from all nations crowded to it. William Thomas describes the “infinite resorte of all nacions that continually is seen there. And I thinke verilie, that in one region of all the worlde againe, are not halfe so many straungers as in Italie; specially of gentilmen, whose resorte thither is principallie under pretence of studie This last wynter living in Padoa, with diligent serche I learned, that the noumbre of scholers there was little lesse than fiftene hundreth; whereof I dare saie, a thousande at the lest were gentilmen.

The life of a student at Padua was much livelier than the monastic seclusion of an English university. He need not attend many lectures, for, as Thomas Hoby explains, after a scholar has been elected by the rectors, “He is by his scholarship bound to no lectures, nor nothing elles but what he lyst himselfe to go to.

Then, too, the scholar diversified his labours by excursions to Venice, in one of those passenger boats which plied daily from Padua, of which was said “that the boat shall bee drowned, when it carries neither Monke, nor Student, nor Curtesan In the renowned freedom of that city where “no man marketh anothers dooynges, or meddleth with another mans livyng,” [] it was no wonder if a young man fresh from an English university and away from those who knew him, was sometimes “enticed by lewd persons:” and, once having lost his innocence, outdid even the students of Padua.

For, as Greene says, “as our wits be as ripe as any, so our willes are more ready than they all, to put into effect any of their licentious abuses.

Hence the warnings against Circes by even those authors most loud in praise of travel. Lipsius bids his noble pupil beware of Italian women: ” It was necessary also to warn the traveller against those more harmless sins which we have already mentioned: against an arrogant bearing on his return to his native land, or a vanity which prompted him at all times to show that he had been abroad, and was not like the common herd. Perhaps it was an intellectual affectation of atheism or a cultivated taste for Machiavelli with which he was inclined to startle his old-fashioned countrymen.

No doubt there was in the returned traveller a certain degree of condescension which made him disagreeable–especially if he happened to be a proud and insolent courtier, who attracted the Queen’s notice by his sharpened wits and novelties of discourse, or if he were a vain boy of the sort that cumbered the streets of London with their rufflings and struttings. So by the time we reach the reign of Edward VI.

Brown after G. This favourite of Queen Elizabeth introduced many Italian fashions to her Court. We have noted how Italy came to be the lode-stone of scholars, and how courtiers sought the grace which France bestowed, but we have not yet accounted for the attraction of Germany. Germany, as a centre of travel, was especially popular in the reign of Edward the Sixth.

France went temporarily out of fashion with those men of whom we have most record. For in Edward’s reign the temper of the leading spirits in England was notably at variance with the court of France.

It was to Germany that Edward’s circle of Protestant politicians, schoolmasters, and chaplains felt most drawn–to the country where the tides of the Reformation were running high, and men were in a ferment over things of the spirit; to the country of Sturm and Bucer, and Fagius and Ursinus–the doctrinalists and educators so revered by Cambridge. Cranmer, who gathered under his roof as many German savants as could survive in the climate of England, [35] kept the current of understanding and sympathy flowing between Cambridge and Germany, and since Cambridge, not Oxford, dominated the scholarly and political world of Edward the Sixth, from that time on Germany, in the minds of the St John’s men, such as Burleigh, Ascham and Hoby, was the place where one might meet the best learned of the day.

We have perhaps said enough to indicate roughly the sources of the Renaissance fashion for travel which gave rise to the essays we are about to discuss. The scholar’s desire to specialize at a foreign university, in Greek, in medicine, or in law; the courtier’s ambition to acquire modern languages, study foreign governments, and generally fit himself for the service of the State, were dignified aims which in men of character produced very happy results.

It was natural that others should follow their example. In Elizabethan times the vogue of travelling to become a “compleat person” was fully established. And though in mean and trivial men the ideal took on such odd shapes and produced such dubious results that in every generation there were critics who questioned the benefits of travel, the ideal persisted.

There was always something, certainly, to be learned abroad, for men of every calibre. Those who did not profit by the study of international law learned new tricks of the rapier. And because experience of foreign countries was expensive and hard to come at, the acquirement of it gave prestige to a young man.

Besides, underneath worldly ambition was the old curiosity to see the world and know all sorts of men–to be tried and tested. More powerful than any theory of education was the yearning for far-off, foreign things, and the magic of the sea. The love of travel, we all know, flourished exceedingly in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. All classes felt the desire to go beyond seas upon. The explorer and the poet, the adventurer, the prodigal and the earl’s son, longed alike for foreign shores.

What Ben Jonson said of Coryat might be stretched to describe the average Elizabethan: “The mere superscription of a letter from Zurich sets him up like a top: Basil or Heidelberg makes him spinne.

And at seeing the word Frankford, or Venice, though but in the title of a Booke, he is readie to breake doublet, cracke elbowes, and overflowe the roome with his murmure. Sad it was to be a court favourite like Fulke Greville, who four times, thirsting for strange lands, was plucked back to England by Elizabeth.

At about the time when some of the most prominent courtiers–Edward Dyer, Gilbert Talbot, the Earl of Hertford, and more especially Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Philip Sidney–had just returned from abroad, book-publishers thought it worth while to print books addressed to travellers.

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. 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.

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, is the first book to be devoted to precepts of travel. It was translated into English and published in London in , 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 , 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 His writings, other than De Peregrinatione , are three translations from Machiavelli.

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.

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. 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.

From Plantin’s shop in Antwerp came in 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. Even more distinguished in the academic world was the next to carry on the discussion of travel–Justus Lipsius.

His elegant letter on the subject, [49] written a year after Zwinger’s book was published, was translated into English by Sir John Stradling in Philip Jones took no such liberties with the “Method” of Albert Meier, which he translated two years after it was published in The Pervigilium Mercurii of Georgius Loysius, a friend of Scaliger, was never translated into English, but the important virtues of a traveller therein described had their influence on English readers.

Loysius compiled two hundred short petty maxims, illustrated by apt classical quotations, bearing on the correct behaviour and duties of a traveller. For instance, he must avoid luxury, as says Seneca; and laziness, as say Horace and Ovid; he must be reticent about his wealth and learning and keep his counsel, like Ulysses. He must observe the morals and religion of others, but not criticise them, for different nations have different religions, and think that their fathers’ gods ought to be served diligently.

He that disregards these things acts with pious zeal but without consideration for other people’s feelings “nulla ratione cujusque vocationis”. Loysius reflects the sentiment of his country in his conviction that “Nature herself desires that women should stay at home.

Adding to these earliest essays the Oration in Praise of Travel , by Hermann Kirchner, [54] we have a group of instructions sprung from German soil all characterized by an exalted mood and soaring style. They have in common the tendency to rationalize the activities of man, which was so marked a feature of the Renaissance. The simple errant impulse that Chaucer noted as belonging with the songs of birds and coming of spring, is dignified into a philosophy of travel. It had the negative value of providing artificial trials for young gentlemen with patrimony and no occupation who might otherwise be living idly on their country estates, or dissolutely in London.

Knight-errantry, in chivalric society, had provided the hardships and discipline agreeable to youth; travel “for vertues sake, to apply the study of good artes,” [55] was in the Renaissance an excellent way to keep a young man profitably busy. For besides the academic advantages of foreign universities, travel corrected the character. The rude and arrogant young nobleman who had never before left his own country, met salutary opposition and contempt from strangers, and thereby gained modesty.

By observing the refinements of the older nations, his uncouthness was softened: the rough barbarian cub was gradually mollified into the civil courtier. And as for giving one prudence and patience, never was such a mentor as travel. The tender, the effeminate, the cowardly, were hardened by contention with unwonted cold or rain or sun, with hard seats, stony pillows, thieves, and highwaymen.

Any simple, improvident, and foolish youth would be stirred up to vigilancy by a few experiences with “the subtelty of spies, the wonderful cunning of Inn-keepers and baudes and the great danger of his life. Only experience could teach him how to be cunning, wary, and bold; how he might hold his own, at court or at sea, among Elizabeth’s adventurers. However, this development of the individual was only part of the benefit of travel. Far more to be extolled was his increased usefulness to the State.

That was the stoutest reason for leaving one’s “owne sweete country dwellings” to endure hardships and dangers beyond seas. For a traveller may be of the greatest benefit to his own country by being able to compare its social, economic, and military arrangements with those of other commonwealths.

He is wisely warned, therefore, against that fond preference for his own country which leads him to close his eyes to any improvement–“without just cause preferring his native country,” [57] but to use choice and discretion, to see, learn, and diligently mark what in every place is worthy of praise and what ought to be amended, in magistrates, regal courts, schools, churches, armies–all the ways and means pertaining to civil life and the governing of a humane society.

For all improvement in society, say our authors, came by travellers bringing home fresh ideas. Examples from the ancients, to complete a Renaissance argument, are cited to prove this. What is the greatest vice in both nacions? After what manner the subjects in both countries shewe their obedience to their prince, or oppose themselves against him? An ambassador to Paris must know what was especially pleasing to a Frenchman. Even a captain in war must know the special virtues and vices of the enemy: which nation is ablest to make a sudden sally, which is stouter to entertain the shock in open field, which is subtlest of the contriving of an ambush.

Evidently, since there is so varied a need for acquaintance with foreign countries, travel is a positive duty. This summary, of course, cannot reproduce the style of each of our authors, and only roughly indicates their method of persuasion.

Especially it cannot represent the mode of Zwinger, whose contribution is a treatise of four hundred pages, arranged in outline form, by means of which any single idea is made to wend its tortuous way through folios.

Every aspect of the subject is divided and subdivided with meticulous care. He cannot speak of the time for travel without discriminating between natural time, such as years and days, and artificial time, such as festivals and holidays; nor of the means of locomotion without specifying the possibility of being carried through the air by: I Mechanical means, such as the wings of Icarus; or 2 Angels, as the Apostle Philip was snatched from Samaria.

That the idea of travel as a duty to the State had permeated the Elizabethans from the courtier to the common sailor is borne out by contemporary letters of all sorts. Even William Bourne, an innkeeper at Gravesend, who wrote a hand-book of applied mathematics, called it The Treasure for Travellers [63] and prefaced it with an exhortation in the style of Turler.

Here are the same reminders to have the welfare of the commonwealth constantly in mind, to waste no time, to use order and method in observation, and to bring home, if possible, valuable information.

Sidney bewails how much he has missed for “want of having directed my course to the right end, and by the right means. Your purpose is, being a gentleman born, to furnish yourself with the knowledge of such things as may be serviceable to your country. Davison urges the value of experience, scorning the man who thinks to fit himself by books: “Our sedentary traveller may pass for a wise man as long as he converseth either with dead men by reading, or by writing, with men absent.

But let him once enter on the stage of public employment, and he will soon find, if he can but be sensible of contempt, that he is unfit for action. For ability to treat with men of several humours, factions and countries; duly to comply with them, or stand off, as occasion shall require, is not gotten only by reading of books, but rather by studying of men: yet this is ever held true.

The best scholar is fittest for a traveller, as being able to make the most useful observations: experience added to learning makes a perfect man.

Both Essex and Fulke Greville are full of warnings against superficial and showy knowledge of foreign countries: “The true end of knowledge is clearness and strength of judgment, and not ostentation, or ability to discourse, which I do rather put your Lordship in mind of, because the most part of noblemen and gentlemen of our time have no other use nor end of their learning but their table-talk.

But God knoweth they have gotten little that have only this discoursing gift: for, though like empty vessels they sound loud when a man knocks upon their outsides, yet if you pierce into them, you shall find that they are full of nothing but wind. Lord Burghley, wasting not a breath, tersely instructs the Earl of Rutland in things worthy of observation.

Among these are frontier towns, with what size garrison they are maintained, etc. At Court, what are the natural dispositions of the king and his brothers and sisters, what is the king’s diet, etc. So much for the attitude of the first “Subsidium Peregrinantibus. But biography is not lacking in evidence that the recipients of these directions did take their travels seriously and try to make them profitable to the commonwealth.

Among the Rutland papers [68] is a plan of fortifications and some notes made by the Edward Manners to whom Cecil wrote the above letter of advice.

Sir Thomas Bodley tells how full he was of patriotic intent: “I waxed desirous to travel beyond the seas, for attaining to the knowledge of some special modern tongues, and for the increase of my experience in the managing of affairs, being wholly then addicted to employ myself, and all my cares, in the public service of the state. Essex says: “Being now entered into my travels, and intending the end thereof to attain to true knowledge and to better my experience, I hope God will so bless me in my endeavours, that I shall return an acceptable servant unto your Highness.

One of the particular ways of serving one’s country was the writing of “Observations on his Travels. They were also a guarantee that the tourist had been virtuously employed. The Earl of Salisbury writes severely to his son abroad:. One of a family of Elizabethan travellers. Edward, third Earl of Rutland, received a letter of instruction from Lord Burleigh concerning what to observe in France in Roger, fifth Earl of Rutland, was directed by Bacon as to his travels in This narrative was one of the chief burdens of a traveller.

Gilbert Talbot is no sooner landed in Padua than he must write to his impatient parents and excuse himself for the lack of that “Relation. In reply to his father’s complaints of his extravagance, he declares: “My promised relation of Tuscany your last letter hath so dashed, as I am resolved not to proceed withal. Besides writing his observations, the traveller laboured earnestly at modern languages. Many and severe were the letters Cecil wrote to his son Thomas in Paris on the subject of settling to his French.

For Thomas’s tutor had difficulties in keeping his pupil from dog-fights, horses and worse amusements in company of the Earl of Hertford, who was a great hindrance to Thomas’s progress in the language. To live in the household of a learned foreigner, as Robert Sidney did with Sturm, or Henry Wotton with Hugo Blotz, was of course especially desirable. For there were still, in the Elizabethans, remnants of that ardent sociability among humanists which made Englishmen traverse dire distances of sea and land to talk with some scholar on the Rhine–that fraternizing spirit which made Cranmer fill Lambeth Palace with Martin Bucers; and Bishop Gardiner, meanwhile, complain from the Tower not only of “want of books to relieve my mind, but want of good company–the only solace in this world.

Essex tells Rutland “your Lordship should rather go an hundred miles to speake with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town. There are signs that the learned men were not always willing to shine upon admiring strangers who burst in upon them. The renowned Doctor Zacharias Ursinus at Heidelberg marked on his doorway these words: “My friend, whoever you are, if you come here, please either go away again, or give me some help in my studies.

Truly, in few words: either much expense or much humbleness. If one had not the means to live with famous scholars, it was a good plan to take up lodgings with an eminent bookseller. For statesmen, advocates and other sorts of great men came to the shop, from whose talk much could be learned. By and by some occasion would arise for insinuating oneself into familarity and acquaintance with these personages, and perhaps, if some one of them, “non indoctus,” intended journeying to another city, he might allow you to attach yourself to him.

Of course, for observation and experience, there was no place so advantageous as the household of an ambassador, if one was fortunate enough to win an entry there. The English Ambassador in France generally had a burden of young gentlemen more or less under his care. Sometimes they were lodged independently in Paris, but many belonged to his train, and had meat and drink for themselves, their servants and their horses, at the ambassador’s expense.

Sir Amias Paulet’s Letter-Book of testifies that an ambassador’s cares were considerably augmented by writing reports to parents. Mr Speake is assured that “although I dwell far from Paris, yet I am not unacquainted with your sonne’s doing in Paris, and cannot commend him enough to you as well for his diligence in study as for his honest and quiet behaviour, and I dare assure you that you may be bold to trust him as well for the order of his expenses, as for his government otherwise.

Among these troublesome charges of Paulet’s was Francis Bacon. But to his father, the Lord Keeper, Paulet writes only that all is well, and that his son’s servant is particularly honest, diligent, discreet and faithful, and that Paulet is thankful for his “good and quiet behaviour in my house”–a fact which appears exceptional. Sir Dudley Carleton, as Ambassador to Venice, was also pursued by ambitious fathers.

For I perceive he means to make him a statesman, and is very well persuaded of him, If you can do it conveniently, it will be a favour; but I know what a business it is to have the breaking of such colts, and therefore will urge no more than may be to your liking.

Besides gaining an apprenticeship in diplomacy, another advantage of travelling with an ambassador was the participation in ambassadorial immunities. It might have fared ill with Sir Philip Sidney, in Paris at the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, if he had not belonged to the household of Sir Francis Walsingham.

Many other young men not so glorious to posterity, but quite as much so to their mothers, were saved then by the same means. When news of the massacre had reached England, Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham: “I am glad yet that in these tumults and bloody proscriptions you did escape, and the young gentlemen that be there with you Yet we hear say that he that was sent by my Lord Chamberlain to be schoolmaster to young Wharton, being come the day before, was then slain.

How fearful and careful the mothers and parents be here of such young gentlemen as be there, you may easily guess by my Lady Lane, who prayeth very earnestly that her son may be sent home with as much speed as may be. The dangers of travel were of a nature to alarm mothers. As well as Catholics, there were shipwrecks, pirates, and highway robbers. Moors and Turks lay waiting “in a little port under the hill,” to take passenger vessels that went between Rome and Naples.

A man dared not make any display of money for fear of being murdered in the night. It was a rare treat to have a bed to oneself. More probably the traveller was obliged to share it with a stranger of disagreeable appearance, if not of disposition. The third Lord North was ill for life because of the immoderate quantities of hot treacle he consumed in Italy, to avoid the plague.

But it was not really the low material dangers of small-pox, quartain ague, or robbers which troubled the Elizabethan. Such considerations were beneath his heroical temper.

Sir Edward Winsor, warned against the piratical Gulf of Malta, writes: “And for that it should not be said an Englishman to come so far to see Malta, and to have turned backe againe, I determined rather making my sepulker of that Golfe. So far we have not mentioned in our description of the books addressed to travellers any of the reminders of the trials of Ulysses, and dark warnings against the “Siren-songs of Italy.

The traveller newly returned from foreign lands was a great butt for the satirists. In Elizabethan times his bows and tremendous politeness, his close-fitting black clothes from Venice, his French accent, his finicky refinements, such as perfumes and pick-tooths, were highly offensive to the plain Englishman.

One was always sure of an appreciative audience if he railed at the “disguised garments and desperate hats” of the “affectate traveller” how; his attire spoke French or Italian, and his gait cried “behold me! Monsieur Mingo de Moustrap. Naught else have they profited by their travell, save learnt to distinguish of the true Burdeaux Grape, and know a cup of neate Gascoygne wine from wine of Orleance; yea, and peradventure this also, to esteeme of the poxe as a pimple, to weare a velvet patch on their face, and walke melancholy with their armes folded.

The Frenchified traveller came in for a good share of satire, but darker things were said of the Italianate Englishman. He was an atheist–a creature hitherto unknown in England–who boldly laughed to scorn both Protestant and Papist. He mocked the Pope, railed on Luther, and liked none, but only himself.

Vanitie and vice and any licence to ill living in England was counted stale and rude unto them. It is likely that some of these accusations were true. Italy more than any other country charmed the Elizabethan Englishman, partly because the climate and the people and the look of things were so unlike his own grey home. Particularly Venice enchanted him. The sun, the sea, the comely streets, “so clean that you can walk in a Silk Stockin and Sattin Slippes,” [] the tall palaces with marble balconies, and golden-haired women, the flagellants flogging themselves, the mountebanks, the Turks, the stately black-gowned gentlemen, were new and strange, and satisfied his sense of romance.

Besides, the University of Padua was still one of the greatest universities in Europe. Students from all nations crowded to it. William Thomas describes the “infinite resorte of all nacions that continually is seen there.

And I thinke verilie, that in one region of all the worlde againe, are not halfe so many straungers as in Italie; specially of gentilmen, whose resorte thither is principallie under pretence of studie This last wynter living in Padoa, with diligent serche I learned, that the noumbre of scholers there was little lesse than fiftene hundreth; whereof I dare saie, a thousande at the lest were gentilmen. The life of a student at Padua was much livelier than the monastic seclusion of an English university.

He need not attend many lectures, for, as Thomas Hoby explains, after a scholar has been elected by the rectors, “He is by his scholarship bound to no lectures, nor nothing elles but what he lyst himselfe to go to. Then, too, the scholar diversified his labours by excursions to Venice, in one of those passenger boats which plied daily from Padua, of which was said “that the boat shall bee drowned, when it carries neither Monke, nor Student, nor Curtesan In the renowned freedom of that city where “no man marketh anothers dooynges, or meddleth with another mans livyng,” [] it was no wonder if a young man fresh from an English university and away from those who knew him, was sometimes “enticed by lewd persons:” and, once having lost his innocence, outdid even the students of Padua.

For, as Greene says, “as our wits be as ripe as any, so our willes are more ready than they all, to put into effect any of their licentious abuses. Hence the warnings against Circes by even those authors most loud in praise of travel. Lipsius bids his noble pupil beware of Italian women: ” It was necessary also to warn the traveller against those more harmless sins which we have already mentioned: against an arrogant bearing on his return to his native land, or a vanity which prompted him at all times to show that he had been abroad, and was not like the common herd.

Perhaps it was an intellectual affectation of atheism or a cultivated taste for Machiavelli with which he was inclined to startle his old-fashioned countrymen. No doubt there was in the returned traveller a certain degree of condescension which made him disagreeable–especially if he happened to be a proud and insolent courtier, who attracted the Queen’s notice by his sharpened wits and novelties of discourse, or if he were a vain boy of the sort that cumbered the streets of London with their rufflings and struttings.

In making surmises as to whom Ascham had in his mind’s eye when he said that he knew men who came back from Italy with “less learning and worse manners,” I guessed that one might be Arthur Hall, the first translator of Homer into English. Hall was a promising Grecian at Cambridge, and began his translation with Ascham’s encouragement.

It would have irritated Ascham to have a member of St John’s throw over his task and his degree to go gadding. Certainly Hall’s after life bore out Ascham’s forebodings as to the value of foreign travel. On his return he spent a notorious existence in London until the consequences of a tavern brawl turned him out of Parliament.

I might dwell for a moment on Hall’s curious account of this latter affair, because it is one of the few utterances we have by an acknowledged Italianate Englishman–of a certain sort. The humorists throw a good deal of light on such “yong Jyntelmen. Also spending more tyme in sportes, and following the same, than is any way commendable, and the lesse, bycause, I warrant you, the summes be great are dealte for. This terrible person, on the 16th of December , at Lothbury, in London, at a table of twelve pence a meal, supped with some merchants and a certain Melchisedech Mallerie.

Dice were thrown on the board, and in the course of play Mallerie “gave the lye with harde wordes in heate to one of the players. Here Etna smoked, daggers were a-drawing But a certain Master Richard Drake, attending on my Lord of Leicester, took pains first to warn Hall to take heed of Mallerie at play, and then to tell Mallerie that Hall said he used “lewde practices at cards.

He said he was patient because he was bound to keep the peace for dark disturbances in the past. Mallerie said it was because he was a coward. Mallerie continued to say so for months, until before a crowd of gentlemen at the “ordinary” of one Wormes, his taunts were so unbearable that Hall crept up behind him and tried to stab him in the back.

There was a general scuffle, some one held down Hall, the house grew full in a moment with Lord Zouche, gentlemen, and others, while “Mallerie with a great shreke ranne with all speede out of the doores, up a paire of stayres, and there aloft used most harde wordes againste Mr Hall. Hall, who had cut himself–and nobody else–nursed his wound indoors for some days, during which time friends brought word that Mallerie would “shewe him an Italian tricke, intending thereby to do him some secret and unlooked for mischief.

Business called him, he tells the reader. There was no ground whatever for Mallerie to say he fled in disguise. After six months, he ventured to return to London and be gay again. He dined at “James Lumelies–the son, as it is said, of old M. Dominicke, born at Genoa, of the losse of whose nose there goes divers tales,”–and coming by a familiar gaming-house on his way back to his lodgings, he “fell to with the rest.

But there is no peace for him.

 
 

 

English Travellers of the Renaissance

 
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