The short tour in France grew in popularity as the seventeenth century advanced, and many were content to spend the whole of their sojourn abroad there, without undertaking the longer continental tour. Others went to France to prepare themselves for the longer tour. Naturally the tour in France alone engaged the attention of French teachers. We are told that the cost of a tour of three months need not be more than L50. "If you take a friend with you 'twill make you miss a thousand opportunities of following your end: you go to get French, and it would be best if you could avoid making an acquaintance with any Englishman there. To converse with their learned men will be beside your purpose too, if you go for so short a time: they talk the worst for conversation and you had rather be with the ladies."[911]

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