Page:The grand tour in the eighteenth century by Mead, William Edward.djvu/142

 Yet, although few knew anything thoroughly, every one in society was expected to have at least a superficial acquaintance with a multitude of things. Hasty and inattentive tourists were doubtless far too common, but besides the mob of dissipated young spendthrifts who flocked to the fashionable centers for mere diversion there were a good number of Englishmen who regarded the Continental tour as a valuable means of culture and profited by it as they best could. They mapped out an ambitious programme and were keenly curious about everything. There were tourist manuals that prescribed an astonishing range of topics on which the traveler was supposed to inform himself in advance and to accumulate information as he journeyed. But herein lay the danger that the relative value of facts would be hardly considered. "It is indispensably necessary," says Berchtold, "for a young gentleman who desires to travel, either for his own improvement, the welfare of mankind in general, or for the happiness of his country in particular, to lay in a certain stock of fundamental knowledge, before he undertakes the difficult task of travelling to real advantage."

"A mere connoisseur and virtuoso," says Andrews, "is a character by no means to be coveted by a gentleman. They who aim at no more misunderstand the only justifiable purpose for which men of rank, education, and fortune ought to travel; which is to adorn their minds with proper ideas, of men and things, and not to learn the trade of a collector of curiosities."

Intending travelers were advised to read the best histories and accounts of each country, and to get the best maps and have them "properly fitted up on linen, in order to render them convenient for the pocket." There is, indeed, no end to the well-meant advice tendered the tourist.

Had the plan of such books been actually followed to the letter, the tourist would unquestionably have learned something. But more than one conscientious young fellow gathered unrelated facts which were of no special importance to him, but which he industriously assembled because he