t to
feverishness. Yet I submit him to your total management, only praying
the God of Heaven to direct you for the best, and to make him tractable
to you, and laborious for his own advancement."[313]

A governor became increasingly necessary as the arbiter of what was
modish for families whose connection with the fashionable world was
slight. He assumed airs of authority, and took to writing books on how
the Grand Tour should be made. Such is _The Voyage of Italy_, with
_Instructions concerning Travel_, by _Richard Lassels, Gent._, who
"travelled through Italy Five times, as Tutor to several of the English
Nobility and Gentry."[314] Lassels, in reciting the benefits of travel,
plays upon that growing sensitiveness of the country gentleman about his
innocent peculiarities: "The Country Lord that never saw anybody but his
Father's Tenants and M. Parson, and never read anything but John Stow,
and Speed; thinks the Land's-end to be the World's-end; and that all
solid greatness, next unto a great Pasty, consists in a great Fire, and
a great estate;" or, "My Country gentleman that never travelled, can
scarce go to London without making his Will, at least without wetting
his hand-kerchief."[315]

The Grand Tour, of course, is the remedy for these
weaknesses--especially under the direction of a wise governor. More care
should go to choosing that governor than to any other retainer. For
lacqueys and footmen "are like his Galoshooes, which he leaves at the
doors of those he visits," but his governor is like his shirt, always
next him, and should therefore be of the best material. The revelation
of bad governors in Lassels' instructions are enough to make one recoil
from the Grand Tour altogether. These "needy bold men" led pupils to
Geneva, where the pupils lost all their true English allegiance and
respect for monarchy; they kept them in dull provincial cities where the
governor's wife or mistress happened to live. "Others have been observed
to sell their pupils to Masters of exercises, and to have made them
believe that the worst Academies were the best, because they were the
best to the cunning Governour, who had ten pound a man for every one he
could draw thither: Others I have known who would have married their
Pupils in France without their Parents' knowledge";[316] ... and so
forth, with other more lurid examples.

The difficulties of procuring the right sort of governor were hardly
exaggerated by Lassels. The Duke of O