his admirers would fometimes afk him why he affected this fingularity, he was used to fay, That Stones and Trees did not edify him: intimating, I fuppofe, that the fight of fine towns and fine countries, which the voyagers of those days, as of ours, made a matter of much vanity, was the principal fruit they had reaped to themselves from their fashionable labours. HOWEVER, allowing your lordship to make the most of these refpectable authorities for the ufe of travelling, it must still be remembered, that they are wide of our prefent purpose. They were Sages, that travelled: and we are now inquiring, whether this be the way for young men to become Sages. might pick up more learning in his Voyages, than any body fince has been able to understand; and yet a youth of eighteen be little the wiser for ftaring away two or three years in mysterious Egypt. PLATO LORD LORD SHAFTESBURY. WHY, truly, if he carried nothing abroad with him but the ufe of his eyefight, I should be much of your mind with regard to the improvements he might be expected to bring back with him. But let him hear and obferve a little, as well as fee; and methinks a youth of eighteen might pick up fomething of value, though he should not return laden with the myfteries of Egypt. As to the gaiety on the antient Sages, I could be much entertained with it, if I did not recollect that the more enlightened moderns have, alfo, been of their mind in this inftance.. To fay nothing of other countries, which yet have risen in reputation for knowledge and civility in proportion to their acquaintance with the neighbouring nations, furely it must be allowed of our own, that all its valuable acquifitions in both have been forwarded warded at least, if not occafioned, by this reasonable practice. We are now, without doubt, arrived at the fummit of politeness, and may fubfift at length upon our own proper ftock. But was this always the cafe? And muft it not be acknowledged, that the brighteft periods of our story are thofe, in which our noble youth were fashioned in the school of foreign Travel? You will hardly pretend that the ornaments of the fecond CHARLES' and ELIZABETH's courts were caft in the coarse mould of this homebreeding. MR. LOCKE. I SHALL perhaps carry my pretenfions still further, and affirm it had been much better if they had been fo. I KNOW What is to be faid for the voyagers in ELIZABETH'S time. We were juft then emerging from ignorance and barbarity. Learning and the Arts were but then getting up; and were beft acquired, acquired, we will fay, in foreign fchools, and the commerce of other nations, which might have the start of us in fuch improvements. The state of Europe at that time was not unlike what I obferved of the old world, when knowledge was in few hands, and the exclufive property, as it were, of particular perfons. So that it was to be travelled for, and fetched home, by fuch as would have it, Italy, in particular, was in those days, as it had long been, the theatre of politenefs, and without doubt could furnish us with very much of the learning we most wanted. THIS then was the fashionable route of our curious and courtly youth and many accomplished perfons, I can readily admit, were to be found in the number of our Italian Travellers. Yet, methinks, they had done better to stay at home, and at least import the arts of Italy, if they they were neceffary to them, in fager heads than their own. I SAY this, because it is no fecret that the civility, we thus acquired, was dearly paid for; and that Irreligion, and even Atheism, were packed up among their choiceft gleanings, and fhewn about, at their return, as curiofities, which could not but very much enhance the confideration of those who had been to gather them beyond the mountains [d]. [d] " Infidelity is the natural product of restraint * and spiritual tyranny-Hence it is we see France and Italy over-run with the worst kind of Deism. "There our travelling gentry first picked it up for "a rarity. And, indeed, at firft, without much "malice. It was brought home in a cargo of new "fashions: and worn, for fome time, with that "levity, by the importers, and treated with that contempt by the reft, as fuited, and was due, to "the apifhness of foreign manners: till a fet, &c.' Bishop of GLOUCESTER's Sermon on the Suppression of the late Rebellion, p. 78. C VOL. III. LORD |