William Edward Mead

“ A man in such a circle who had not seen Paris, to say nothing of The Hague, the Rhine, and, above all, Venice and Florence and Rome, could not aspire to be a leader of fashionable society. Something provincial, some lack of savoir-faire, would inevitably betray him. Sooner or later the spell of Italy or France would be upon him, and would lead him to the places that he must himself see if he would be in a real sense a man of the world and in keeping with the society in which he moved. ”

“ Even in the middle of the nineteenth century a brilliant historian points out in enumerating the reforms that were urgently needed: "In no country of Europe was this triple revolution more lamentably overdue than in Naples, where the tyranny, uncontrolled through long centuries, of priest, of noble, and latterly of king, had left marks of devastation not only on the welfare of a few passing generations, but deep in the national character itself. ”

“ What Englishmen commonly thought of themselves and what foreigners thought of them were two very different things, though nothing is more surprising than the popularity on the Continent of almost everything English in the last third of the century. The self-satisfaction of the English is admirably illustrated in the reflections of the genial Earl of Cork and Orrery, which might add to an Englishman's peace of mind but would hardly be equally pleasing to strangers: "The English are a happy people, if they were truly conscious, or could in any degree convince themselves, of their own felicity. ”

“ In general an English traveler presented his least attractive side to strangers. He felt it hardly worth while to exert himself for people he might never meet again, and with whom he would not concern himself if he were to meet them. It is not surprising, therefore, that foreigners who saw only the most unlovely sides of English character should have been rather repelled than attracted. But not infrequently the very man who is chilly toward strangers is the truest of friends. ”

“ In any case, from a young man in society no great learning was expected. If he had gone through Oxford or Cambridge, he could not avoid picking up the rudiments of Latin and Greek and some bits of information about ancient Rome and a few other cities, but of the topography, the history, the government, the art, the architecture, the social conditions of the countries he intended to visit, he was strangely, and, to our thinking, often disgracefully, ignorant. ”

“ In our day many English travelers speak French and German, and sometimes Italian and Spanish, with fluency and tolerable accuracy, but even yet the average Englishman's lack of facility in any foreign tongue is proverbial. He can with difficulty forget himself, and he unwillingly submits to the humiliation attendant upon learning a new language. In the eighteenth century many young English tourists intended to learn no language but their own — and they succeeded admirably. ”

“ Polite society throughout Europe a century and a half ago was in a sense a great international social club. Any one of recognized rank in one country had no difficulty in being admitted to society in another. France set the standard of manners for all Europe, and Versailles served as a model for scores of little German and Italian courts. To a crowded French salon he could find entrance, along with everybody else of unquestioned social standing, and also to a Roman conversazione. ”

“ To most tourists before the French Revolution the Middle Ages were a sealed book, and to the average man the great cathedrals and castles, though surpassing almost anything of a later day, made slight appeal. Prepossessed with the notion that medieval art and architecture could be naught but barbarous, tourists in France and Italy bestowed only a passing glance upon delightful medieval cities and hastened on to Rome. ”

“ Very different from France, and yet in all ranks of polite society the persistent imitator of everything French, was Germany. The well-informed man of to-day naturally thinks of Germany as the greatest military power in the world, as the home of the most advanced scholarship, and as the formidable commercial rival of England. Far lower in the eighteenth century was the international reputation of Germany. ”

“ In most cases the tutors of English birth were of respectable families, though rarely, if ever, of the social standing of their protégés. As already pointed out, the tourists of the first half of the century belonged mainly to the ranks of the gentry or the nobility. As the century progressed there was an increasing proportion of sons of wealthy tradesmen who made the grand tour, eagerly copying the follies and the vices of young noblemen and striving by their insolent ostentation of riches to pass for gentlemen to the manner born. ”

“ For many travelers, however, the advantages of a system of transportation that was inexpensive and relieved them of all responsibility outweighed the discomfort.
More than one tourist has left us a striking picture of this mountainous and unwieldy vehicle, — "a huge, rickety, shabby, yellow argosy, all over dried, dirty mud splashes." [17] Edward Wright, who traveled in France toward the end of the first quarter of the century, says of it: "The diligence, a great coach that holds eight persons, is a machine that has not its name for nothing; what it wants in quickness it makes up in assiduity ”

“ But the eighteenth century, notwithstanding its nearness in time, and the immense mass of information that we have about it, appears strangely remote, separated from us as it is by the great gulf of the French Revolution. The century of which men still vigorous have known many living representatives impresses us as markedly different in temper and point of view from our own. ”

“ Of Italian beds the English tourist James Edward Smith is one of the few defenders: "In justice to the poor traduced inns of Italy, I think it right to mention here that for the first time," in a little village twenty-two miles from Viterbo, "we met with damp sheets, and were obliged to have them dried. I do not think I ever discovered dirty sheets in Italy, though always very scrupulous in my examinations on that head. England is certainly the most indelicate of all civilized nations with respect to bed and table linen. Our great inns are less to be trusted about sheets than any abroad." ”

“ Of all travellers, the young English nobility and gentry have the least right to find fault with their entertainment, while on their tours abroad; for such of them as show a desire of forming a connexion with the inhabitants, by even a moderate degree of attention, are received upon easier terms than the travellers from any other country. But a very considerable number of our countrymen have not the smallest desire of that nature: They seem rather to avoid their society, and accept with reluctance every offer of hospitality. This happens partly from a prejudice against foreigners of every kind ”

“ So slight was the bond uniting the Austrian provinces that, as is still the case, the personal qualities of the ruler were of great importance in holding together the disparate elements.
It is to be noted, too, that far more than in France and the Rhine region of Germany had the spirit of medievalism survived in Austria. The aristocracy still enjoyed many odious class privileges and raised their heads high above the miserable common people. The peasants were bound to the soil and forced to labor for the aristocratic landowners as a compensation for the privilege of being allowed to exist. ”

“ Should their road lead through Paradise itself; or should they have taken a long and tedious journey expressly to see the garden of Eden, it is a question whether our impetuous gentlemen would not tip the post-boy half a crown extraordinary to mend his pace, as they were driving through it! ”

“ Except in portions of France and of the Low Countries, the roads throughout most of Europe in the eighteenth century were a disgrace to civilized countries. One might reasonably expect that where the highways were the chief, and in many cases the only, means of communication, they would be brought to the highest perfection, but such was by no means the rule. Even in England, which was not lacking in wealth and some degree of splendor, the roads in the seventeenth century presented almost insuperable difficulties, which Macaulay depicts with his usual vigor. ”

“ Grandsire, you bargain for a chaise to go to Paris; if there be only one person, he will let you have a pretty good one for two guineas and a half; and if two, he will have three guineas. You have the privilege of carrying a great weight of portmanteaus and trunks behind your post-chaise; but their horses are very indifferent, so that it is not advisable to encumber yourself with too much baggage, but rather to send it by the stage-coach, which sets out twice a week from Calais to Paris, and is seven days upon the road ”

“ The modern tourist who bowls along in his private motor-car over highways smooth as a floor through almost every part of Europe, or the sight-seer of modest means who employs the more plebeian means of transport, can little appreciate what land travel meant a century and a half ago. The Romans, with their keen practical sense and unsurpassed administrative ability, had constructed a wonderful system of paved roads radiating from the capital to all parts of the Empire. ”

“ The ill-kept inns merely reflected the sluttishness of the inhabitants, which must have been notable to call forth the following outburst from the usually genial Burnet: "It amazes a stranger to see in their little towns the whole men of the town walking in the market-places in their torn cloaks, and doing nothing. And tho' in some big towns, such as Capua, there is but one inn, yet even that is so miserable that the best room and bed in it is so bad that our footmen in England would make a grievous outcry if they were no better lodged. ”

“ The English aversion to foreigners is in opposition to reason, judgment, and politeness. Because we are islanders, the happiest circumstances in some respects belonging to us; are our manners more refined, or are our customs nearer perfection, than the customs and manners of other people? I fear the contrary. Our separation from the Continent gives us peculiarities which other nations have not. It gives us that shyness, `that obstinate, silent, rude reserve, which we practise towards ourselves and all the rest of the world. ”

“ In the Middle Ages, Germany held a commanding position among the nations of Europe, with wealthy cities like Lübeck and Hamburg and Cologne and Nuremberg and Augsburg and Frankfort and Mainz and Strassburg and Breslau. But Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century had long been declining. The Reformation and the animosities it engendered rent the Empire in twain and left a heritage of strife that made Germany a battlefield for a generation. Since the Middle Ages no greater calamity fell upon any European nation than came to Germany with the Thirty Years' War. ”

“ Besides all this, it is worth while to note that the eighteenth century, particularly during the first half, was a time of depression in poetry and art and architecture, and that for a time it appeared to be at a standstill in all moral and religious progress. But there was, nevertheless, in almost every field of human activity a new spirit stirring which wrought an amazing change before the century came to an end. ”

“ He might be a member of an ancient and wealthy family, but, shut out as he was from an active career and disdaining any useful occupation, he was likely to become an amateur in art or music — to spend his days and his nights in dancing attendance upon some woman who could never be his wife, and to fritter away his energy in inane social follies. Civilization in some parts of Italy, particularly in the southern half, seems to have been a thin veneer over ill-concealed barbarism, due to causes of remote origin. ”

“ The pilgrimage to Compostella in Spain was made by vast throngs in the Middle Ages. Voyages of discovery in all parts of the world had already become common in the reign of Elizabeth. Migration to America took tens of thousands of colonists across the Atlantic in the seventeenth century.
In comparison with these perilous ocean voyages the tour of the Continent of Europe, though by no means easy or entirely free from danger, was a mere pleasure trip, and Englishmen of rank had long been accustomed to make it. ”

“ Getting on easily with people that one chances to meet is an art that the French have carried to perfection. The Englishman of the eighteenth century commonly lacked the flexibility and the self-forgetfulness necessary for such casual intercourse, particularly if he had to use a language not his own and thus ran the risk of making himself ridiculous. In general intelligence, or at least in hard common sense, and particularly in self-possession, Englishmen compared favorably with any travelers on the Continent. ”

“ As might be expected, then, the comments in most eighteenth-century books of travel are singularly common-place. When we exclude a few well-known works, those that remain are full of remarks trivial in the extreme. [21] Were it not laughable, the flippant way in which some travelers dispose of cities like Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Siena, and many others, as containing little or nothing worth seeing, would stir our wrath. At Siena even Dupaty found nothing remarkable except the group of the three graces in the cathedral. ”

“ With no family traditions of culture, they commonly treated with contempt the well-meant efforts of the tutor to perform the obligations of his contract. If he was a man of refinement and of conscientious character, he was placed in a position of peculiar embarrassment. If, on the other hand, he was not too scrupulous, and connived at the follies of his pupil, or even abetted them, the young fellow was often in a worse state than if he had ventured abroad alone. Theoretically, nothing could be better than to put the entire time of a competent teacher at the service of a pupil. ”