"He denied it. He had never introduced into the school any académiste féminine: he had departed at the summons of his father, having taken proper leave of M. and Mme. de Poix."[271]
However, something of an education had to be provided for Royalist boys at the time of the Civil War, when Oxford was demoralized. Parents wandering homeless on the Continent were glad enough of the academies. Even the Stuarts tried them, though the Duke of Gloucester had to be weaned from the company of some young French gallants, "who, being educated in the same academy, were more familiar with him than was thought convenient."[272] It was a choice between academies or such an education as Edmund Verney endured in a dull provincial city as the sole pupil of an exiled Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. But the effects of being reared in France, and too early thrown into the dissolute Courts of Europe, were evident at the Restoration, when Charles the Second and his friends returned to startle England with their "exceeding wildness." What else could be the effect of a youth spent as the Earl of Chesterfield records:[273] at thirteen years old a courtier at St Germaine: at fourteen, rid of any governor or tutor: at sixteen, at the academy of M. de Veau, he "chanced to have a quarrel with M. Morvay, since Captaine of the French King's Guards, who I hurt and disarmed in a duel." Thereupon he left the academy and took up his abode at the Court of Turin. It was from Italy, De Gramont said, that Chesterfield brought those elaborate manners, and that jealousy about women, for which he was so notorious among the rakes of the Restoration.[274]
Henry Peacham's chapter "Of Travaile"[275] is for the most part built out of Dallington's advice, but it is worthy of note that in The Compleat Gentleman, Spain is pressed upon the traveller's attention for the first time. This is, of course, the natural reflection of an interest in Spain due to the romantic adventures of Prince Charles and Buckingham in that country. James Howell, who was of their train, gives even more space to it in his Instructions for Forreine Travell. Notwithstanding, and though Spain was, after 1605, fairly safe for Englishmen, as a pleasure ground it was not popular. It was a particularly uncomfortable and expensive country; hardly improved from the time--(1537)--when Clenardus, weary with traversing deserts on his way to the University of Salamanca, after a sparse meal of rabbit, sans wine, sans water, composed himself to sleep on the floor of a little hut, with nothing to pillow his head on except his three negro grooms, and exclaimed, "O misera Lusitania, beati qui non viderunt."[276] All civilization was confined to the few large cities, to reach which one was obliged to traverse tedious, hot, barren, and unprofitable wastes, in imminent danger of robbers, and in certainty of the customs officers, who taxed people for everything, even the clothes they had on. None escaped. Henry the Eighth's Ambassador complained loudly and frantically of the outrage to a person in his office.[277] So did Elizabeth's Ambassador. But the officers said grimly "that if Christ or Sanct Fraunces came with all their flock they should not escape."[278] If the preliminary discomforts from customs-officers put travellers into an ill mood at once against Spain, the inns confirmed them in it. "In some places there is but the cask of a House, with a little napery, but sometimes no beds at all for Passengers in the Ventas--or Lodgings on the King's highway, where if passengers meet, they must carry their Knapsacks well provided of what is necessary: otherwise they may go to bed supperless."[279] The Comtesse d'Aunoy grumbles that it was impossible to warm oneself at the kitchen-fire without being choked, for there was no chimney. Besides the room was full of men and women, "blacker than Devils and clad like Beggars ... always some of 'em impudently grating on a sorry Guitar."[280] Even the large cities were not diverting, for though they were handsome enough and could show "certain massie and solid Braveries," yet they had few of the attractions of urban life. The streets were so ill-paved that the horses splashed water into one's carriage at every step.[281] A friend warned Tobie Matthew that "In the Cities you shall find so little of the Italian delicacie for the manner of their buildings, the cleannesse and sweetnesse of their streets, their way of living, their entertainments for recreations by Villas, Gardens, Walks, Fountains, Academies, Arts of Painting, Architecture and the like, that you would rather suspect that they did but live together for fear of wolves."[282]
How little the solemnity of the Spanish nobles pleased English courtiers used to the boisterous ways of James I. and his "Steenie," may be gathered from The Perambulation of Spain.[283] "You must know," says the first character in that dialogue, "that there is a great deal of gravity and state in the Catholic Court, but little noise, and few people; so that it may be call'd a Monastery, rather than a Royal Court." The economy in such a place was a great source of grievance. "By this means the King of Spain spends not much," says the second character. "So little," is the reply, "that I dare wager the French King spends more in Pages and Laquays, than he of Spain among all his Court Attendants." Buckingham's train jeered at the abstemious fare they received.[284] It was in such irritating contrast to the lofty airs of those who provided it. "We are still extream poor," writes the English Ambassador about the Court of Madrid, "yet as proud as Divells, yea even as rich Divells."[285] Not only at Court, but everywhere, Spaniards were indifferent to strangers, and not at all interested in pleasing them. Lord Clarendon remarks that in Madrid travellers "will find less delight to reside than in any other Place to which we have before commended them: for that Nation having less Reverence for meer Travellers, who go Abroad, without Business, are not at all solicitous to provide for their Accomodation: and when they complain of the want of many Conveniences, as they have reason to do, they wonder men will come from Home, who will be troubled for those Incommodities."[286]
It is no wonder, therefore, that Spain was considered a rather tedious country for strangers, and that Howell "met more Passengers 'twixt Paris and Orleans, than I found well neer in all the Journey through Spain."[287] Curiosity and a desire to learn the language might carry a man to Madrid for a time, but Englishmen could find little to commend there. Holland, on the other hand, provoked their admiration more and more. Travellers were never done exclaiming at its municipal governments, its reformatories and workhouses, its industry, frugality, and social economy. The neat buildings, elegant streets, and quiet inns, were the subject of many encomiums.[288]
Descartes, who chose Amsterdam as the place in which to think out his philosophy, praised it as the ideal retreat for students, contending that it was far better for them than Italy, with its plagues, heat, unwholesome evenings, murder and robbery.[289] Locke, when he went into voluntary exile in 1684, enjoyed himself with the doctors and men of letters in Amsterdam, attending by special invitation of the principal physician of the city the dissection of a lioness, or discussing knotty problems of theology with the wealthy Quaker merchants.[290] Courtiers were charmed with the sea-shore at Scheveningen, where on the hard sand, admirably contrived by nature for the divertisement of persons of quality, the foreign ambassadors and their ladies, and the society of the Hague, drove in their coaches and six horses.[291] However, Sir William Temple, after some years spent as Ambassador to the Netherlands, decided that Holland was a place where a man would choose rather to travel than to live, because it was a country where there was more sense than wit, more wealth than pleasure, and where one would find more persons to esteem than to love.[292]
Holland was of peculiar delight to the traveller of the seventeenth century because it contained so many curiosities and rareties. To ferret out objects of vertu the Jacobean gentleman would take any journey. People with cabinets of butterflies, miniatures, shells, ivory, or Indian beads, were pestered by tourists asking to see their treasures.[293] No garden was so entrancing to them as one that had "a rupellary nidary"[294] or an aviary with eagles, cranes, storks, bustards, ducks with four wings, or with rabbits of an almost perfect yellow colour.[295] Holland, therefore, where ships brought precious curiosities from all over the world, was a heaven for the virtuoso. Evelyn in Rotterdam hovered between his delight in the brass statue of Erasmus and a pelican, which he carefully describes. The great charm of Dutch inns for Sam Paterson was their hoards of China and Japan ware and the probability you had of meeting a purring marmot, a squeaking guinea-pig, or a tame rabbit with a collar of bells, hopping through the house.[296]
But we have dwelt too long, perhaps, on those who voyaged to see knick-knacks, and to gain accomplishments at French academies. Though the academies were characteristic of the seventeenth century, there were other centres of education sought by Englishmen abroad. The study of medicine, particularly, took many students to Padua or Paris, for the Continent was far ahead of England in scientific work.[297] Sir Thomas Browne's son studied anatomy at Padua with Sir John Finch, who had settled there and was afterwards chosen syndic of the university.[298] At Paris Martin Lister, though in the train of the English Ambassador, principally enjoyed "Mr Bennis in the dissecting-room working by himself upon a dead body," and "took more pleasure to see Monsieur Breman in his white waistcoat digging in the royal physic-garden and sowing his couches, than Mounsieur de Saintot making room for an ambassador": and found himself better disposed and more apt to learn the names and physiognomy of a hundred plants, than of five or six princes.[299]
It was medicine that chiefly interested Nicholas Ferrar, than whom no traveller for study's sake was ever more devoted to the task of self-improvement. At about the same time that the second Earl of Chesterfield was fighting duels at the academy of Monsieur de Veau, Nicholas Ferrar, a grave boy, came from Cambridge to Leipsic and "set himself laboriously to study the originals of the city, the nature of the government, the humors and inclinations of the people." Finding the university too distracting, he retired to a neighbouring village to read the choicest writers on German affairs. He served an apprenticeship of a fortnight at every German trade. He could maintain a dialogue with an architect in his own phrases; he could talk with mariners in their sea terms. Removing to Padua, he attained in a very short time a marvellous proficiency in physic, while his conversation and his charm ennobled the evil students of Padua.[300]