e First's, the hatred of
Italy as the stronghold of the Roman Catholic Church, and fear of the
Inquisition. Warnings against the Jesuits are a striking feature of the
next group of Instructions to Travellers.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV

PERILS FOR PROTESTANT TRAVELLERS

The quickening of animosity between Protestants and Catholics in the
last quarter of the sixteenth century had a good deal to do with the
censure of travel which we have been describing. In their fear and
hatred of the Roman Catholic countries, Englishmen viewed with alarm any
attractions, intellectual or otherwise, which the Continent had for
their sons. They had rather have them forego the advantages of a liberal
education than run the risk of falling body and soul into the hands of
the Papists. The intense, fierce patriotism which flared up to meet the
Spanish Armada almost blighted the genial impulse of travel for study's
sake. It divided the nations again, and took away the common admiration
for Italy which had made the young men of the north all rush together
there. We can no longer imagine an Englishman like Selling coming to the
great Politian at Bologna and grappling him to his heart--"arctissima
sibi conjunxit amicum familiaritate,"[152] as the warm humanistic phrase
has it. In the seventeenth century Politian would be a "contagious
Papist," using his charm to convert men to Romanism, and Selling would
be a "true son of the Church of England," railing at Politian for his
"debauch'd and Popish principles." The Renaissance had set men
travelling to Italy as to the flower of the world. They had scarcely
started before the Reformation called it a place of abomination. Lord
Burghley, who in Elizabeth's early days had been so bent on a foreign
education for his eldest son, had drilled him in languages and pressed
him to go to Italy,[153] at the end of his long life left instructions
to his children: "Suffer not thy sonnes to pass the Alps, for they shall
learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy, and atheism. And if by travel
they get a few broken languages, that shall profit them nothing more
than to have one meat served on divers dishes."[154]

The mother of Francis Bacon affords a good example of the Puritan
distrust of going "beyond seas." She could by no means sympathize with
her son Anthony's determination to become versed in foreign affairs, for
that led him into intimacy with Roman Catholics. All through