ABSTRACT
The writers of the 1790s, tended to be more confident when they measured the Continent according to British standards. Following the Congress of Vienna, the British travelers perceptions of their country's position vis-à-vis the Continent become more complicated, as they realize that Britain's increasingly important role as an empire and England's internal 'colonization' of Ireland and Scotland may resemble relationships between emerging nations and oppressive empires in eastern Europe. The chapter outlines the realignment of cosmopolitan and nationalist values that occurred in response to the Napoleonic Wars and Congress of Vienna. Byron, Hobhouse, and their contemporaries traveled off the beaten track beyond the scope of the Grand Tour because the conflicts on the Continent obstructed the traditional itinerary through France and Italy. During Byron's first journey, the Napoleonic Wars highlighted conflicting concepts of European identity and shifted the ideological valences of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. In the early eighteenth century, conditions were ripe for British traveler's exploration of the Eastern Mediterranean.
