CHAPTER VI

THE GRAND TOUR


After the Restoration the idea of polishing one's parts by foreign
travel received fresh impetus. The friends of Charles the Second, having
spent so much of their time abroad, naturally brought back to England a
renewed infusion of continental ideals. France was more than ever the
arbiter for the "gentry and civiller sort of mankind." Travellers such
as Evelyn, who deplored the English gentry's "solitary and unactive
lives in the country," the "haughty and boorish Englishman," and the
"constrained address of our sullen Nation,"[301] made an impression. It
was generally acknowledged that comity and affability had to be fetched
from beyond the Seas, for the "meer Englishman" was defective in those
qualities. He was "rough in address, not easily acquainted, and blunt
even when he obliged."[302]

Even wise and honest Englishmen began to be ashamed of their manners and
felt they must try to be not quite so English. "Put on a decent
boldness," writes Sir Thomas Browne constantly to his son in France.
"Shun pudor rusticus." "Practise an handsome garb and civil boldness
which he that learneth not in France, travaileth in vain."[303]

But there was this difference in travel to complete the gentleman during
the reign of Charles the Second: that Italy and Germany were again safe