Even More Distinguished In The Academic World Was The Next To Carry On
The Discussion Of Travel - Justus Lipsius.
His elegant letter on the
subject,[49] written a year after Zwinger's book was published, was
translated into English by Sir John Stradling in 1592.[50] Stradling,
however, has so enlarged the original by whatever fancies of his own
occurred to him, that it is almost a new composition.
Philip Jones took
no such liberties with the "Method" of Albert Meier, which he translated
two years after it was published in 1587.[51] In his dedication to Sir
Francis Drake of "this small but sweete booke of Method for men
intending their profit and honor by the experience of the world," Jones
declares that he first meant it only to benefit himself, "when pleasure
of God, convenient time and good company" should draw him to travel.
The Pervigilium Mercurii of Georgius Loysius, a friend of Scaliger,
was never translated into English, but the important virtues of a
traveller therein described had their influence on English readers.
Loysius compiled two hundred short petty maxims, illustrated by apt
classical quotations, bearing on the correct behaviour and duties of a
traveller. For instance, he must avoid luxury, as says Seneca; and
laziness, as say Horace and Ovid; he must be reticent about his wealth
and learning and keep his counsel, like Ulysses. He must observe the
morals and religion of others, but not criticise them, for different
nations have different religions, and think that their fathers' gods
ought to be served diligently. He that disregards these things acts with
pious zeal but without consideration for other people's feelings ("nulla
ratione cujusque vocationis").[52] James Howell may have read maxim 99
on how to take jokes and how to make them, "joci sine vilitate, risus
sine cachinno, vox sine clamore" (let your jokes be free from vulgarity,
your laugh not a guffaw, and your voice not a roar).
Loysius reflects the sentiment of his country in his conviction that
"Nature herself desires that women should stay at home." "It is true
throughout the whole of Germany that no woman unless she is desperately
poor or 'rather fast' desires to travel."[53]
Adding to these earliest essays the Oration in Praise of Travel, by
Hermann Kirchner,[54] we have a group of instructions sprung from German
soil all characterized by an exalted mood and soaring style. They have
in common the tendency to rationalize the activities of man, which was
so marked a feature of the Renaissance. The simple errant impulse that
Chaucer noted as belonging with the songs of birds and coming of spring,
is dignified into a philosophy of travel.
Travel, according to our authors, is one of the best ways to gain
personal force, social effectiveness - in short, that mysterious "virtu"
by which the Renaissance set such great store. It had the negative value
of providing artificial trials for young gentlemen with patrimony and no
occupation who might otherwise be living idly on their country estates,
or dissolutely in London.
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