Studies in the life of Robert boyle, F. R. S. Part VII. The Grand Tour

Abstract

The seventeenth century saw the beginning of what was to become, for those who could afford it, the popular practice of continental travel. Restricted in the main to members of the nobility or wealthy class, this Grand Tour, as it came later to be called, was regarded as an indispensable part of the education of a gentleman, and essential preparation for his future career. At that time, much was written on the educative value and benefits of foreign travel. There is the letter of 1595 written by the Earl of Essex to the Earl of Rutland (1); there are the long instructions written about 1617-1618 by Henry, Earl of Northumberland, for his son, which commence thus: ‘Yow must consider, the ends of yowr travels is not to learn apishe iestures, or fashions of attyres or varieties of costely meates, but to gayne the tonges, that hereafter at yowr leisures, yow may discours with them that are dead, if they haue left any worth behind them; talke with them that are present, if yow haue occasion; and conferre with them that are absent, if they haue bestowed vpon vs any thing fitt for the view of the world; and soe, by comparing the acts of men abroade with the deeds of them at home, yowr carriage may be made cummely, yowr minde riche, yowr iudgement wyse to chuse that is best, and to eschew that is naught.’ After detailed consideration of matters worthy o f study, the instructions close with the admonition, ‘What yow obserue of worthe, takes notes of; for when yow list to take a reweu, the leues o f yowr books are easylyer turnd ouer, then the leaues of yowr memory’ (2). Francis Bacon in his Essays wrote ‘Of Travel’. James Howell in his Instructions for Forreine Travell regarded ‘the prime use of Peregrination’ to be ‘the study of living men, and a collation of his [the traveller’s] own Optique observations and judgements with’ those of others.