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An Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen
Jacque & Fussell
1841
Engraving on wood
7.1 cm high by x 7.9 cm wide, vignetted: exclusive of caption
Tailpiece for "The Désobligeant" in Sterne's A Sentimental Journey (1841), page 16.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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. . . I am of opinion, that a man would act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of either: and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might have seen dry-shod at home. It is an age so full of light, that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed and interchanged with others. Knowledge in most of its branches, and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake who pay nothing: but there is no nation under heaven — and God is my record, before whose tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this work, that I do not speak it vauntingly,—but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more variety of learning — where the sciences may be more fitly wooed, or more surely won, than here; where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high; where Nature, take her altogether, has so little to answer for; and, to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed the mind with:—Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going? —
"We are only looking at this chaise," said they. — "Your most obedient servant," said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat. — "We were wondering," said one of them, who, I found, was an Inquisitive Traveller, "what could occasion its motion." "’Twas the agitation," said I, coolly, "of writing a preface." "I never heard," said the other, who was a Simple Traveller, "of a preface wrote in a désobligeant." "It would have been better," said I, in a vis-a-vis.
— As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I retired to my room. ["The Désobligeant, Calais," pp. 15-16]
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.
Last modified 30 September 2018