"Plato, one of the day-starres of that knowledge, which then but dawning hath since shone out in clearer brightness, thought nothing better for the bettering our understanding then Travell: as well by having a conference with the wiser sort in all sorts of learning, as by the [Greek: Autopsiaêi]. The eye-sight of those things, which otherwise a man cannot have but by Tradition; A Sandy foundation either in matter of Science, or Conscience. So that a purpose to Travell, if it be not ad voluptatem Solum, sed ad utilitatem, argueth an industrious and generous minde. Base and vulgar spirits hover still about home: those are more noble and divine, that imitate the Heavens, and joy in motion."
After a warning against Jesuits, which we have quoted, he comes at once to definite directions for studying modern languages[225]--advice which though sound is hardly novel. Continual speaking with all sorts of people, insisting that his teacher shall not do all the talking, and avoiding his countrymen are unchangeable rules for him who shall travel for language.[226] But this is the first treatise for travellers which makes note of dancing as an important accomplishment. "There's another exercise to be learned in France, because there are better teachers, and the French fashion is in most request with us, that is, of dancing. This I meane to my Traveller that is young and meanes to follow the Court: otherwise I hold it needelesse, and in some ridiculous."[227] This art was indeed essential to courtiers, and a matter of great earnestness. Chamberlain reports that Sir Henry Bowyer died of the violent exercise he underwent while practising dancing.[228] Henri III. fell into a tearful passion and called the Grand Prieur a liar, a poltroon, and a villain, at a ball, because the Grand Prieur was heard to mutter "Unless you dance better, I would you had your money again that your dancing has cost you." [229] James I. was particularly anxious to have his "Babies" excel in complicated boundings. His copy of Nuove Inventioni di Balli[230] may be seen in the British Museum, with large plates illustrating how to "gettare la gamba," that is, in the words of Chaucer, "with his legges casten to and fro."[231] Prince Henry was skilful in these matters. The Spanish Ambassador reports how "The Prince of Wales was desired by his royal parents to open the ball with a Spanish gallarda: he acquitted himself with much grace and delicacy, introducing some occasional leaps."[232] Prince Charles and Buckingham, during their stay in Spain, are earnestly implored by their "deare Dad and Gossip" not to forget their dancing. "I praye you, my babie, take heade of being hurt if ye runne at tilte, ... I praye you in the meantyme keep your selfis in use of dawncing privatlie, thogh ye showlde quhissell and sing one to another like Jakke and Tom for faulte of better musike." [233]
However, Dallington is very much against the saltations of elderly persons. "I remember a countriman of ours, well seene in artes and language, well stricken in yeares, a mourner for his second wife, a father of mariageable children, who with his other booke studies abroade, joyned also the exercise of dancing: it was his hap in an honourable Bal (as they call it) to take a fall, which in mine opinion was not so disgracefull as the dancing it selfe, to a man of his stuffe."[234]
Dallington would have criticized Frenchmen more severely than ever had he known that even Sully gave way in private to a passion for dancing. At least Tallemant des Réaux says that "every evening a valet de chambre of the King played on the lute the dances of the day, and M. de Sully danced all alone, in some sort of extraordinary hat--such as he always wore in his cabinet--while his cronies applauded him, although he was the most awkward man in the world."[235]
Tennis is another courtly exercise in which Dallington urges moderation. "This is dangerous, (if used with too much violence) for the body; and (if followed with too much diligence,) for the purse. A maine point of the Travellers care." He reached France when the rage for tennis was at its height,--when there were two hundred and fifty tennis courts in Paris,[236]--and "two tennis courts for every one Church through France," according to his computation.[237] Everyone was at it;--nobles, artizans, women, and children. The monks had had to be requested not to play--especially, the edict said, "not in public in their shirts."[238] Our Englishman, of course, thought this enthusiasm was beyond bounds. "Ye have seene them play Sets at Tennise in the heat of Summer and height of the day, when others were scarcely able to stirre out of doors." Betting on the game was the ruin of the working-man, who "spendeth that on the Holyday, at Tennis, which hee got the whole weeke, for the keeping of his poore family. A thing more hurtfull then our Ale-houses in England."[239]
"There remains two other exercises," says the Method for Travell, "of use and necessitie, to him that will returne ably quallified for his countries service in warre, and his owne defence in private quarrell. These are Riding and Fencing. His best place for the first (excepting Naples) is in Florence under il Signor Rustico, the great Dukes Cavallerizzo, and for the second (excepting Rome) is in Padua, under il Sordo."[240] Italy, it may be observed, was still the best school for these accomplishments. Pluvinel was soon to make a world-renowned riding academy in Paris, but the art of fencing was more slowly disseminated. One was still obliged, like Captain Bobadil, to make "long travel for knowledge, in that mystery only."[241] Brantome says the fencing masters of Italy kept their secrets in their own hands, giving their services only on the condition that you should never reveal what you had learnt even to your dearest friends. Some instructors would never allow a living soul in the room where they were giving lessons to a pupil. And even then they used to keek everywhere, under the beds, and examine the wall to see if it had any crack or hole through which a person could peer.[242] Dallington makes no further remark on the subject, however, than the above, and after some advice about money matters, which we will mention in another connection, and a warning to the traveller that his apparel must be in fashion--for the fashions change with trying rapidity, and the French were very scornful of anyone who appeared in a last year's suit[243]--he brings to a close one of the pithiest essays in our collection.
When the influence of France over the ideals of a gentleman was well established, James Howell wrote his Instructions for Forreine Travell,[244] and in this book for the first time the traveller is advised to stay at one of the French academies--or riding schools, as they really were.
His is the best known, probably, of all our treatises, partly because it was reprinted a little while ago by Mr Gosse, and partly because of its own merits. Howell had an easier, more indulgent outlook upon the world than Dallington, and could see all nations with equal humour--his own included. Take his comparison of the Frenchman and the Spaniard.
The Frenchman "will dispatch the weightiest affairs as hee walke along in the streets, or at meales, the other upon the least occasion of businesse will retire solemnly to a room, and if a fly chance to hum about him, it will discompose his thoughts and puzzle him: It is a kind of sicknesse for a Frenchman to keep a secret long, and all the drugs of Egypt cannot get it out of a Spaniard.... The Frenchman walks fast, (as if he had a Sergeant always at his heels,) the Spaniard slowly, as if hee were newly come out of some quartan Ague; the French go up and down the streets confusedly in clusters, the Spaniards if they be above three, they go two by two, as if they were going a Procession; etc. etc."[245]