This essay was written in 1908-1910 while I was studying at Oxford as Fellow of the Society of American Women in London. Material on the subject of travel in any century is apparently inexhaustible, and one could write many books on the subject without duplicating sources. The following aims no further than to describe one phase of Renaissance travel in clear and sharp outline, with sufficient illustration to embellish but not to clog the main ideas. In the preparation of this book I incurred ma

Among the many didactic books which flooded England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were certain essays on travel. Some of these have never been brought to light since their publication more than three hundred years ago, or been mentioned by the few writers who have interested themselves in the literature of this subject. In the collections of voyages and explorations, so often garnered, these have found no place. Most of them are very rare, and have never been reprinted. Yet they do

Of the many social impulses that were influenced by the Renaissance, by that "new lernynge which runnythe all the world over now-a-days," the love of travel received a notable modification. This very old instinct to go far, far away had in the Middle Ages found sanction, dignity and justification in the performance of pilgrimages. It is open to doubt whether the number of the truly pious would ever have filled so many ships to Port Jaffa had not their ranks been swelled by the restless, the adve

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 b

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 gai

The quickening of animosity between Protestants and Catholics in the last quarter of the sixteenth century had a good deal to do with the censure of travel which we have been describing. In their fear and hatred of the Roman Catholic countries, Englishmen viewed with alarm any attractions, intellectual or otherwise, which the Continent had for their sons. They had rather have them forego the advantages of a liberal education than run the risk of falling body and soul into the hands of the Papist

The admonitions of their elders did not keep young men from going to Italy, but as the seventeenth century advanced the conditions they found there made that country less attractive than France. The fact that the average Englishman was a Protestant divided him from his compeers in Italy and damped social intercourse. He was received courteously and formally by the Italian princes, perhaps, for the sake of his political uncle or cousin in England, but inner distrust and suspicion blighted any rea

After the Restoration the idea of polishing one's parts by foreign travel received fresh impetus. The friends of Charles the Second, having spent so much of their time abroad, naturally brought back to England a renewed infusion of continental ideals. France was more than ever the arbiter for the "gentry and civiller sort of mankind." Travellers such as Evelyn, who deplored the English gentry's "solitary and unactive lives in the country," the "haughty and boorish Englishman," and the "constrain

During the several generations when the Stuarts communicated their love of France to the aristocracy of England, there was, as we might suppose, a steady undercurrent of protest against this Gallic influence. A returning traveller would be pursued by the rabble of London, who, sighting his French periwig and foreign gestures, would pelt his coach with gutter-dirt, squibs, roots and rams-horns, and run after it shouting "French Dogs! French Dogs! A Mounser! A Mounser!" [376] Between the courtiers

1561. Gratarolus, Guilhelmus. Authore Gratarolo Guilhelmo, philosopho et medico, De Regimine Iter Agentium, vel equitum, vel peditum, vel navi, vel curru rheda ... viatoribus et peregrinatoribus quibusque utilissimi libri duo, nunc primum editi. Basileæ, 1561. 1570-1. Cecil, William, Lord Burghley: Letter to Edward Manners, Earl of Rutland , among State Papers, Elizabeth, 1547-80, vol. lxxvii. No. 6. 1574. Turlerus, Hieronymus. De Peregrinatione et agro neapolitano, libri II. scripti ab Hieronym

Ascham, Roger. Works . Ed. Giles. London, 1865. Aubrey, John. Letters written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries ; and Lives of Eminent Men . London, 1813. D'Aunoy, Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville, Comtesse. Relation du Voyage D'Espagne. A La Haye, 1691. ---- The Ingenious and Diverting Letters of the Lady ... Travels into Spain . 2nd Ed. London, 1692. Belvoir MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Report; Appendix, Part IV. MSS. of the Duke of Rutland preserved at Belvoir

Addison, Joseph. Remarks on Several Parts of Italy ... in the years 1701, 1702, 1703 . London, 1705. ---- A Letter from Italy to the Right Honourable Charles, Lord Halifax, by Mr Joseph Addison, 1701 . Printed London, 1709. Andrich, I.A. De Natione Anglica et Scotia Iuristarum universitatis Patavinæ ab an. MCCXXII. P. Ch. N. usque ad an. MDCCXXXVIII. præfatus est Blasius Brugi. Patavii excudebant fratres Gallina MDCCCXCII. Avenel, Le Vicomte G. D'. La Noblesse française sous Richelieu . Paris, 1