Page:The grand tour in the eighteenth century by Mead, William Edward.djvu/132

 and Customs of Italy" in 1768, estimates that in the preceding seventeen years "more than ten thousand English (masters and servants) have been running up and down Italy." The aggregate appears large, but when we consider that this means no more than five or six hundred a year we see that out of a population of six or seven millions scarcely one Englishman in ten thousand found his way to Italy.

"But in the latter half of the century the movement towards the Continent was much more general, and foreign travel became the predominating passion of a large portion of the English people. 'Where one Englishman traveled,' wrote an acute observer in 1772, 'in the reigns of the first two Georges, ten now go on a grand tour. Indeed, to such a pitch is the spirit of travelling come in the kingdom, that there is scarce a citizen of large fortune but takes a flying view of France, Italy, and Germany in a summer excursion.' Gibbon wrote from Lausanne describing the crowd of English who were already thronging the beautiful shores of Lake Leman, and he mentions that he was told — though it seemed to him incredible — that in the summer of 1785 more than 40,000 English — masters and servants — were on the Continent."

But there was a vast difference between the scholars who poured into Italy to garner the new learning at the time of the Revival of Letters and the young spendthrifts of the eighteenth century who dawdled away their time in the capitals of the Continent. Apart from individual differences, the Englishmen who traveled in the first half of the century had much in common. Most of them belonged to wealthy, and many to titled, families. In the course of the century the increasing wealth of the mercantile and professional classes brought a large increase in the number of young tourists, with a very short pedigree but a very long purse, who wished to gain whatever social distinction travel might confer. It is worth noting that, as had long been the case, a large proportion of the travelers were men. For this many reasons may be given; but, apart from the