With the decline of enthusiasm over the serious advantages of travel, there was not much demand for those essays on the duties of the student abroad which we have tried to describe. By the eighteenth century, hand-books for travellers were much the same as those with which we are to-day familiar; that is, a guide-book describing the particular objects to be inspected, and the sensations they ought to inspire, together with exceedingly careful notes as to the price of meals and transportation. This sort of manual became necessary when travel grew to be the recreation of men of moderate education who could not read the local guide-books written in the language of the country they visited. Compilations such as the _Itinerarium Italiæ_ of Schottus, published at Antwerp in 1600, and issued in eleven editions during the seventeenth century, had been sufficient for the accomplished traveller of the Renaissance.[400] France, as the centre of travel, produced the greatest number of handy manuals,[401] and it was from these, doubtless, that Richard Lassels drew the idea of composing a similar work in the English language, which would comprise the exhortation to travel, in the manner of Turler, with a continental guide to objects of art. _The Voyage of Italy_ by Lassels, published in Paris in 1670, marks the beginning of guide-books in English.
Still, in succeeding vade-mecums there are some occasional echoes of the old injunctions to improve one's time. Misson's _A New Voyage to Italy_,[402] maps out some intellectual duties. According to Misson a voyager ought to carry along with him a cane divided into several measures, or a piece of pack-thread well twined and waxed, fifty fathom long and divided into feet by knots, so as to be able to measure the height of the towers and the bigness of pillars and the dimensions of everything so far as he is able. This seems sufficiently laborious, but it makes for an easy life compared to the one prescribed by Count Leopold Berchtold in his _Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travellers_. He would have one observe the laws and customs of foreigners with a curiosity that would extend to every department of social and economic life, beginning with "Causes of the Decrease of Population and Remedies to prevent them"; proceeding to such matters as the state of the peasantry; to questions applicable to manuring, ploughing, and the housing of black cattle; or to an "Inquiry concerning Charitable Institutions such as one for recovering Drowned and Strangled Persons"; or to the "Extent of Liberty to Grown-up Young Ladies." In case the traveller is at a loss how to conduct his investigation, a list of particular questions on the topics for study is added by the author. A few random examples of this list are: