doth excel in good laws, and well administering of justice, so are we likewise to consider in it the many princes with whom we may have league, the places of trade, and means to draw both soldiers and furniture thence in time of need. So on the other side, as in France and Spain, we are principally to mark how they stand towards us both in power and inclination; so are they, not without good and fitting use, even in the generality of wisdom to be known. As in France, the courts of parliament, their subaltern jurisdiction, and their continual keeping of paid soldiers. In Spain, their good and grave proceedings; their keeping so many provinces under them, and by what manner, with the true points of honor; wherein since they have the most open conceit, if they seem over curious, it is an easy matter to cut off when a man sees the bottom. Flanders likewise, besides the neighborhood with us, and the annexed considerations thereunto, hath divers things to be learned, especially their governing their merchants and other trades. Also for Italy, we know not what we have, or can have, to do with them, but to buy their silks and wines; and as for the other point, except Venice, whose good laws and customs we can hardly proportion to ourselves, because they are quite of a contrary government; there is little there but tyrannous oppression, and servile yielding to them that have little or no right over them. And for the men you shall have there, although indeed some be excellently learned, yet are they all given to counterfeit learning, as a man shall learn among them more false grounds of things than in any place else that I know; for, from a tapster upwards, they are all discoursers in certain matters and qualities, as horsemanship, weapons, painting, and such are better there than in other countries; but for other matters, as well, if not better, you shall have them in nearer places.

Now resteth in my memory but this point, which indeed is the chief to you of all others; which is the choice of what men you are to direct yourself to; for it is certain no vessel can leave a worse taste in the liquor it contains, than a wrong teacher infects an unskillful hearer with that which hardly will ever out: I will not tell you some absurdities I have heard travelers tell; taste him well before you drink much of his doctrine. And when you have heard it, try well what you have heard, before you hold it for a principle; for one error is the mother of a thousand. But you may say, how shall I get excellent men to take pains to speak with me? truly in few words, either by much expense or much humbleness. Your most loving Brother,

PHILIP SIDNEY.

use.

LORD BACON. ESSAY.-OF TRAVEL.

TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that traveleth into a country, before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school and not to travel. That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow (approve) well; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been in the country before; whereby he may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where they go, what acquaintances they are to seek, what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth; for else young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. It is a strange thing that, in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries; but in land travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as if chance were fitter to be registered than observation: let diaries, therefore, be brought in The things to be seen and observed are the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments that are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations, and lectures, where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of state and pleasure, near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like: comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go; after all which the tutors or servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not to be put in mind of them: yet they are not to be neglected. If you will have a young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to gather much, this you must do: first, as was said, he must have some entrance into the language before he goeth; then he must have such a servant, or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was likewise said: let him carry with him also some card, or book, describing the country where he traveleth, which will be a good key to his inquiry; let him keep also a diary; let him not stay long in one city or town, more or less as the place deserveth, but not long; nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodg

ing from one end and part of the town to another, which is a great adamant (loadstone) of acquaintance; let him sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he traveleth: let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure recommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither he removeth, that he may use his favor in those things he desireth to see or know: thus he may abridge his travel with much profit. As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel, that which is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men of ambassadors: for so in traveling in one country, he shall suck the experience of many: let him also see and visit eminent persons in all kinds, which are of great name abroad, that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided; they are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words: and let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons, for they will engage him in their own quarrels. When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him; but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth; and let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories: and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts; but only prick in some flowers of that which he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.

SHAKSPEARE-POLONIUS TO HIS SON LOTHARIO.

There, my blessing with you:

And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character:-

Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched unfledgéd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,

Bear 't, that th' opposer may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous, chief in that,
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-to thine ownself be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.-Hamlet.

JOHN MILTON.

MILTON, having improved every facility of culture at home and school, and tested the value of foreign travel in his own experience, but entering on it only when his own mind was well disciplined, and furnished with a knowledge of the government, history, language and literature of the countries which he proposed to visit, and furnished too with letters from scholars and statesmen which introduced him to men eminent in science and public administration-thus educated and equipped, Milton, in his 'plan of a complete and virtuous education to fit the ingenuous youth of England for the exigencies of private and public life, in peace or war,' thus speaks of the advantages of travel:

Besides these constant exercises at home, there is another opportunity of gaining experience to be won from pleasure itself abroad; in these vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake of her rejoicing with heaven and earth. I should not, therefore, be a persuader to them of studying much then, after two or three years that they have well laid their grounds, but to ride out in companies, with prudent and staid guides, to all quarters of the land, learning and observing all places of strength, all commodities of building, and of soil for towns and tillage, harbors and ports for trade. Sometimes taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what they can in the practical knowledge of sailing and sea-fight. These ways would try all the peculiar gifts of nature, and if there were any secret excellences, would fetch it out and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, which could not but mightily redound to the good of this nation, and bring into fashion again those old admired virtues and excellences with far more advantage now in this purity of Christian knowledge. If they desire to see other countries at three or fourand-twenty years of age, not to learn principles, but to enlarge experience and make wise observation, they will by that time be such as shall deserve the regard and honor of all men where they pass, and the society and friendship of those, in all places, who are best and most eminent.

LORD LITTLETON.

Me other cares in other climes engage-
In various knowledge to improve my youth,
And conquer prejudice, worst foe to Truth;
By foreign arts, domestic faults to mend,
Enlarge my notions and my views extend;
The useful science of the world to know,
Which books can never teach, or pedants show.

LORD HARDWICKE.

I WISH, sir, you would make people understand that travel is really the last step to be taken in the instruction of youth: and that to set out with it, is to begin where they should end. Certainly the true end of visiting foreign parts is to look into their customs and policies, and observe in what particulars they excel or come short of our own; to unlearn some odd peculiarities in our manners, and wear off such awkward stiffnesses and affectations in our behavior, as may possibly have been contracted from constantly associating with one nation of men, by a more free, general, and mixed conversation. But how can any of these advantages be attained by one who is a mere stranger to the cus tom and policies of his native country, and has not yet fixed in his mind the first principles of manners and behavior? To endeavor it, is to build a gaudy structure without any foundation; or, if I may be allowed the expression, to work a rich embroidery upon a cobweb.

Another end of traveling, which deserves to be considered, is the improving our taste for the best authors of antiquity, by seeing the places where they lived, and of which they wrote; to compare the natural face of the country with the description they have given us, and observe how well the picture agrees with the original. This must certainly be a most charming exercise to the mind that is rightly turned for it; besides that it may in a good measure be made subservient to morality, if the person is capable of drawing just conclusions concerning the uncertainty of human things, from the ruinous alterations time and barbarity have brought upon so many places, cities, and whole countries, which make the most illustrious figures in history. And this hint may be not a little improved by examining every spot of ground that we find celebrated as the scene of some famous action, or retaining any footsteps of a Cato, Cicero, or Brutus, or some such great virtuous men. A nearer view of any such particular, though really little and trifling in itself, may serve the more powerfully to warm a generous mind to an emulation of their virtues, and a great ardency of ambition to imitate their bright examples, if it comes duly tempered and prepared for the impression. But this I believe you will hardly think those to be, who are so far from entering into the sense and spirit of the ancients, that they do not yet understand their language with any exactness. PHILIP YORKE (afterwards Earl of Hardwicke), in Spectator 364.

MACAULAY.-ON DR. JOHNSON'S ESTIMATE OF TRAVEL AND HISTORY.

It is remarkable that to the last he [Dr. Johnson] entertained a fixed contempt for all those modes of life and those studies which tend to emancipate the mind from the prejudices of a particular age or particular nation. Of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by traveling? Is Beauclerk the better for traveling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt ?" History was, in his opinion, to use the fine expression of Lord Plunket, an old almanac.' Historians could, as he conceived, claim no higher dignity than that of almanacmakers; and his favorite historians were those who, like Lord Hailes, aspired to no higher dignity. He always spoke with contempt of Robertson.

Hume