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T h e G r a n d T o u r in th erqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA E ig h te e n th C e n tu ry R o b e rt S h a c k le to n A WORK OF SCHOLARSHIP recently published in Italy prints an appendix which it entitles b ib lio g ra fia n e g a tiv a , meaning by this a list of works which the author has been unable to see. For anyone working on the Grand Tour, however, the words b ib lio g ra fia n e g a ­ tiv a might be taken to refer to works seen, found valueless, and not to be seen again. Many books have in fact been written on the Grand Tour; several of them are beautiful, being richly illustrated; some of them are well written; some of them are interesting through their quaintness, since the ordinary things of the past sometimes seem quaint at a distance of two hundred years. But few of them make any serious attempt to study the importance of travel in the develop­ ment of literature and ideas. In this paper I aim not at giving a detailed examination of the literary or sociological importance of the Grand Tour (a necessary and desirable enterprise but outside my present scope), but at throwing some light on some aspects of that or similar modes of travel in the age of the Enlightenment. I have said "that or similar modes," because the Grand Tour, strictly so called, presents difficulties to the investigator. It is Richard Lassels who, in the first edition of his Ita lia n V o y a g e , published in 1670, appears first to have used the term "Grand Tour," which, though French in its derivation, no longer makes sense in French. Lassels writes, "No man understands L iv y and C a esa r, G u ic c ia rd in and M o n tlu c , like him, who hath made exactly the G ra n d T o u r of F ra n c e , and the G iro of Ita ly .” 1 For him the Grand Tour is essen­ tially an experience for the young nobleman. He expressly writes in his preface, "I speak to men of high condition"; he makes it clear that a tutor or governor should accompany the young man, and he 127 Th e Mo d e r n it y o f t h e Eig h t e e n t h Ce n t u r y would have the young traveller give an account, at the end of his journey, to the king. The traditional Grand Tour for the English­ man—and in its organized form, it is essentially an English institu­ tion—is a young man’s exercise, in which as well as seeing famous towns he shakes off the discipline of his family and of the university, and learns something of dissipation as well as of languages and pol­ itics. Such a Grand Tourist is not always the most suited to give liter­ ary expression to his experience, and most accounts of travel in the eighteenth century are not written by the principal participants in the Grand Tour in the strictest sense of the term. There are excep­ tions to this generalization, the most important being Addison at the beginning of the century and Gibbon, Boswell, and Beckford later. Addison was twenty-seven when he began his travels, as was Gibbon. Boswell was twenty-five and Beckford was twenty-one. To these may be added Walpole and Gray, who were twenty-two and twenty-three when they set off together, and whose correspondence gives a close picture of their travels. Sometimes the accompanying tutor writes an account of the journey. Brydone, Moore, Sherlock, and Spence were all clients of the great and all wrote memorable ac­ counts of their journeys. But Sterne travelling at fifty-five, Smol­ lett at forty-three, Arthur Young at forty-five, Thicknesse at sixty, Burney at forty-four have their undoubted importance in the history of travel, and they are not Grand Tourists in the strictest...

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