all which the tutors or servants ought to make diligent enquiry. As for triumphs, masques, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions and such shews, men need not to be put in mind of them; yet are they not to be neglected. If you will have a young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to gather much, this you must do. First, as was said, he must have some entrance into the language before he goeth. Then he must have such a servant or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was likewise said. Let him carry with him also some card or book describing the country where he travelleth; which will be a good key to his enquiry. Let him keep also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or less as the place deserveth, but not long: nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another; which is a great adamant of acquaintance. Let him sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth. Let him upon his removes from one place to another procure recommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither he removeth, that he may use his favour in those things he desireth to see or know. Thus he may abridge his travel, with much profit. As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel, that which is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he shall suck the experience of many. Let him also see and visit eminent persons in all kinds which are of great name abroad, that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided : they are commonly for mistresses, healths, place and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons, for they will engage him into their own quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence, by letters, with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture: and in his discourse, let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories: and let it appear, that he doth not

change his country manners for those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.

FRANCIS BACON, Essays 1597—1625

The abuse of foreign travel

Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp, and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola. As You Like It, iv. i. 35—40

Foreign travel oftentimes makes many to wander from themselves as well as from their country, and to come back mere mimics; and so in going far to fare worse, and bring back less wit than they carried forth. They go out figures (according to the Italian proverb) and return ciphers. They retain the vice of a country, and will discourse learnedly thereon, but pass by and forget the good, their memories being herein like hair-sieves, that keep up the bran and let go the fine flour. They strive to degenerate as much as they can from Englishmen, and all their talk is still foreign, or at least will bring it to be so, though it be by head and shoulders, magnifying other nations, and derogating from their own. Nor can one hardly exchange three words with them at an ordinary (or elsewhere) but presently they are th' other side of the sea, commending either the wines of France, the fruits of Italy, or the oil and salads of Spain.

Some also there are who by their countenance more than by their carriage, by their diseases more than by their discourses, discover themselves to have been abroad under hot climates.

Others have a custom to be always relating strange things and wonders (of the humour of Sir John Mandeville), and they usually present them to the hearers through multiplying glasses, and thereby cause the thing to appear far greater than it is in itself. They make mountains of mole-hills, like Charenton bridge echo, which doubles the sound nine times. Such a traveller was he, that reported the Indian fly to be as big as a fox, China birds to be as big as some horses, and their mice to be as big as monkeys. But they have the wit to fetch this far enough off, because the hearer may rather believe it than make a voyage so far to disprove it.

Everyone knows the tale of him who reported he had seen a cabbage under whose leaves a regiment of soldiers were sheltered from a shower of rain. Another who was no traveller (yet the wiser man) said, he had passed by a place where there were four hundred braziers making of a cauldron, two hundred within and two hundred without, beating the nails in. The traveller asking for what use that huge cauldron was, he told him, "Sir it was to boil your cabbage.'

...

Furthermore, there is amongst many others (which were too long to recite here) an odd kind of anglicism, wherein some do frequently express themselves, as to say "Your boors of Holland, sir; your Jesuits of Spain, sir; your courtezans of Venice, sir:' whereunto one answered (not impertinently) "My courtezans sir? Pox on them all for me, they are none of my courtezans.

Lastly, some kind of travellers there are, whom their gait and strutting, their bending in the hams and shoulders, and looking upon their legs, with frisking and singing do speak them travellers.

Others by a fantastic kind of ribanding themselves, by their modes of habit and clothing...do make themselves known to have breathed foreign air.

JAMES HOWELL, Instructions for forreine travell 1642

The Italianate Englishman

Fashions in proud Italy,

Whose manners still our tardy apish nation

Limps after in base imitation.

Richard II., II. i. 21-23

Sir Richard Sackville, that worthy gentleman of worthy memory, as I said in the beginning, in the queen's privy chamber at Windsor, after he had talked with me for the right choice of a good wit in a child for learning, and of the true difference betwixt quick and hard wits, of alluring young children by gentleness to love learning, and of the special care that was to be had to keep young men from licentious living, he was most earnest with me, to have me say my mind also, what I thought concerning the fancy that many young gentlemen of England have to travel abroad, and namely to lead a long life in Italy. His request, both for his authority and good will toward me, was a sufficient commandment unto me to

satisfy his pleasure with uttering plainly my opinion in that matter. "Sir," quoth I, "I take going thither and living there for a young gentleman that doth not go under the keep and guard of such a man, as both by wisdom can, and authority dare rule him, to be marvellous dangerous." And why I said so then, I will declare at large now: which I said then privately and write now openly, not because I do contemn either the knowledge of strange and diverse tongues, and namely the Italian tongue, which next to the Greek and Latin tongue I like and loye above all other; or else because I do despise the learning that is gotten, or the experience that is gathered in strange countries; or for any private malice that I bear to Italy, which country, and in it namely Rome I have always specially honoured. Because, time was, when Italy and Rome have been, to the great good of us that now live, the best breeders and bringers up of the worthiest men, not only for wise speaking, but also for well doing in all civil affairs, that ever was in the world. But now, that time is gone, and though the place remain, yet the old and present manners do differ as far as black and white, as virtue and vice. Virtue once made that country mistress over all the world. Vice now maketh that country slave to them that before were glad to serve it. All men seeth it: they themselves confess it, namely such as be best and wisest amongst them. For sin, by lust and vanity, hath and doth breed up everywhere common contempt of God's word, private contention in many families, open factions in every city and so, making themselves bond to vanity and vice at home, they are content to bear the yoke of serving strangers abroad. Italy now is not that Italy, that it was wont to be: and therefore now not so fit a place, as some do count it, for young men to fetch either wisdom or honesty from thence. For surely, they will make other but bad scholars, that be so ill masters to themselves....

But I am afraid that over many of our travellers into Italy do not eschew the way to Circe's court, but go, and ride, and run, and fly thither. They make great haste to come to her: they make great suit to serve her: yea, I could point out some with my finger, that never had gone out of England, but only to serve Circes in Italy. Vanity and vice, and any licence to ill living in England was counted stale and rude unto them.

And so, being mules and horses before they went, returned very swine and asses home again, yet everywhere very foxes with subtle and busy heads, and, where they may, very wolves with cruel malicious hearts. A marvellous monster, which for filthiness of living, for dullness to learning himself, for wiliness in dealing with others, for malice in hurting without cause, should carry at once in one body the belly of a swine, the head of an ass, the brain of a fox, the womb of a wolf. If you think we judge amiss, and write too sore against you, hear what the Italian saith of the Englishman, what the master reporteth of the scholar: who uttereth plainly, what is taught by him, and what learned by you, saying, Englese italianato, è un diavolo incarnato, that is to say, you remain men in shape and fashion, but become devils in life and condition. This is not the opinion of one for some private spite, but the judgment of all in a common proverb, which riseth of that learning and those manners which you gather in Italy: a good schoolhouse of wholesome doctrine and worthy masters of commendable scholars, where the master had rather defame himself for his teaching, than not shame his scholar for his learning. A good nature of the master and fair conditions of the scholars. And now choose you, you Italian Englishmen, whether you will be angry with us for calling you monsters, or with the Italians for calling you devils, or else with your own selves, that take so much pains and go so far to make your selves both. If some yet do not well understand what is an Englishman Italianated, I will plainly tell him. He, that by living and travelling in Italy, bringeth home into England out of Italy the religion, the learning, the policy, the experience, the manners of Italy. That is to say, for religion papistry or worse for learning less commonly than they carried out with them: for policy a factious heart, a discoursing head, a mind to meddle in all men's matters: for experience plenty of new mischiefs never known in England before: for manners variety of vanities, and change of filthy living. These be the enchantments of Circes, brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England; much by example of ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out of Italian into English, sold in every shop in London, commended by honest titles the sooner to corrupt honest manners, dedicated over boldly to virtuous and