Is this even limited to the 18th century to the nobility or to the Anglophone world I quote Sometime near the end of 1640 or the beginning of 1641 Van Vliet concluded his studies and as befitted a fashionable young gentleman subsequently embarked on his grand tour Cornelis Dekker The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countries Leiden Brill 1999 p 63 Which refers to it as a common practice of the Dutch middle classes in the 17th century which is something one would never guess from the current article Talk