FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>   >|  
treets 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] With the same humorous eye he observes the Englishmen returned to London from Paris, "whom their gate and strouting, their bending in the hammes, and shoulders, and looking upon their legs, with frisking and singing do speake them Travellers.... Some make their return in huge monstrous Periwigs, which is the Golden Fleece _they_ bring over with them. Such, I say, are a shame to their Country abroad, and their kinred at home, and to their parents, Benonies, the sons of sorrow: and as Jonas in the Whales belly, travelled much, but saw little."[246] These are some of the advantages an Englishman will reap from foreign travel: "One shall learne besides there not to interrupt one in the relation of his tale, or to feed it with odde interlocutions: One shall learne also not to laugh at his own jest, as too many used to do, like a Hen, which cannot lay an egge but she must cackle. "Moreover, one shall learne not to ride so furiously as they do ordinarily in England, when there is no necessity at all for it; for the Italians have a Proverb, that a galloping horse is an open sepulcher. And the English generally are observed by all other Nations, to ride commonly with that speed as if they rid for a midwife, or a Physitian, or to get a pardon to save one's life as he goeth to execution, when there is no such thing, or any other occasion at all, which makes them call England the Hell of Horses. "In these hot Countreyes also, one shall learne to give over the habit of an odde custome, peculiar to the English alone, and whereby they are distinguished from other Nations, which is, to make still towards the chimney, though it bee in the Dog-dayes."[247] We need not comment in detail upon Howell's book since it is so accessible. The passage which chiefly marks the progress of travel for study's sake is this: "For private Gentlemen and Cadets, there be divers Academies in Paris, Colledge-like, where for 150 pistols a Yeare, which come to about L150 sterling per annum of our money, one may be very well accomodated, with lodging and diet for himself and man, and be taught to Ride, to Fence, to manage Armes, to Dance, Vault, and ply the Mathematiques."[248] These academies were one of the chief attractions which France had for the gentry of England in the seventeenth century. The firs
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
learne
 
England
 
Nations
 
travel
 

English

 

midwife

 

chimney

 

pardon

 

execution

 

Countreyes


Horses

 

Physitian

 

distinguished

 

occasion

 

custome

 

peculiar

 

taught

 
manage
 
lodging
 

accomodated


France

 

gentry

 
seventeenth
 

century

 

attractions

 

Mathematiques

 
academies
 

chiefly

 

progress

 
passage

accessible

 
detail
 

comment

 

Howell

 
private
 

pistols

 

sterling

 

Cadets

 

Gentlemen

 

divers


Academies

 
Colledge
 
return
 

monstrous

 

Periwigs

 

Golden

 

Travellers

 

frisking

 

singing

 
speake