t St John's.[34]

We have noted how Italy came to be the lode-stone of scholars, and how
courtiers sought the grace which France bestowed, but we have not yet
accounted for the attraction of Germany. Germany, as a centre of travel,
was especially popular in the reign of Edward the Sixth. France went
temporarily out of fashion with those men of whom we have most record.
For in Edward's reign the temper of the leading spirits in England was
notably at variance with the court of France. It was to Germany that
Edward's circle of Protestant politicians, schoolmasters, and chaplains
felt most drawn--to the country where the tides of the Reformation were
running high, and men were in a ferment over things of the spirit; to
the country of Sturm and Bucer, and Fagius and Ursinus--the
doctrinalists and educators so revered by Cambridge. Cranmer, who
gathered under his roof as many German savants as could survive in the
climate of England,[35] kept the current of understanding and sympathy
flowing between Cambridge and Germany, and since Cambridge, not Oxford,
dominated the scholarly and political world of Edward the Sixth, from
that time on Germany, in the minds of the St John's men, such as
Burleigh, Ascham and Hoby, was the place where one might meet the best
learned of the day.

We have perhaps said enough to indicate roughly the sources of the
Renaissance fashion for travel which gave rise to the essays we are
about to discuss. The scholar's desire to specialize at a foreign
university, in Greek, in medicine, or in law; the courtier's ambition to
acquire modern languages, study foreign governments, and generally fit
himself for the service of the State, were dignified aims which in men
of character produced very happy results. It was natural that others
should follow their example. In Elizabethan times the vogue of
travelling to become a "compleat person" was fully established. And
though in mean and trivial men the ideal took on such odd shapes and
produced such dubious results that in every generation there were
critics who questioned the benefits of travel, the ideal persisted.
There was always something, certainly, to be learned abroad, for men of
every calibre. Those who did not profit by the study of international
law learned new tricks of the rapier. And because experience of foreign
countries was expensive and hard to come at, the acquirement of it gave
prestige to a young man.

Besides, underneath worldly ambition