It was a frequent
saying of Alexander, that he had discovered more by his eyes than other kings
could comprehend in their thoughts. In this, he referred to travel. There is no
map like the view of a country. Experience is the best informer; and one
journey will shew us more than any description can. Some would not have a man
move out of his own country; and Claudian mentions it as a happiness, for one’s
birth, life, and burial, to have been all in one parish. But surely, travel is
of service to man. He has lived as if locked up in a larger chest, who has
never seen any but his own land. One who is learned, honest, and who has
travelled, is the best compound of man, and can correct the vices of one
country with the virtues of another. Italy, England, France, and Spain, are as
the court of the world; Germany, Denmark, and China, are as the city; and he
who has not seen the best of these, is a little lame in knowledge. Yet I think it not
fit, that every man should travel. It makes a wise man better; but a fool worse,
for he attends to nothing but the public sights, the exotic manners, the
aperies; and the vices of the country he visits. A travelling fool is the shame
of all nations: he shames his own, by his conduct abroad: he shames others, by
bringing home nothing but their follies. A man, to improve himself by travel,
ought to observe and comment on what he sees, noting as well the bad, to avoid
it, as the good, to make use of it--and without registering these things by the
pen, they will pass away without profiting him. One can hardly conceive how
much the committing of a thought to paper, fixes it in the mind. He who does
this, can, when he pleases, go over his journey again in his closet. It were an excellent
thing in a state, to have always a select number of youth, of the nobility and
gentry, to send abroad at years of some maturity, for education. Their parents
could not better dispose of them, than in thus dedicating them to the
commonwealth; nor could they themselves be in a fairer way of preferment; and there
is no question but they might prove highly serviceable to the state, on their
return home, well versed in the world and foreign languages, and well read in
men; which, for policy and negotiation, is much better than any book-learning,
though never so deep and extensive. Being abroad, the best
is to converse with the best, and not to choose by the eye, but by fame. For
politics, instruction is to be had, at the court; for traffic, among merchants;
for religious rites, among the clergy; for government, among the lawyers; and
as for the country itself and rural knowledge, the boors and peasantry can best
help you. Curiosities ought not to be neglected, especially antiquities; for
these shew us the ingenuity of past ages, and include in them both example and
precept. By comparing these with modern inventions, we may see how the world
improves in knowledge. But above all, search out men of distingiushed and superior merit. There is no monument like a living worthy man. We shall be sure to find something in him, to kindle our faculties and enlarge our minds, and rouse us to a generous emulation of his virtues. Parts of extraordinary note cannot so lie hid, but they will shine forth through the tongue and behaviour, to the admiration and advantage of beholders; but, unless a man has judgment to direct him, he will, at his return, find all his labour lost. Some men, by travel, change in nothing: and some again, change too much. Indeed the moral outside, wheresoever we be, may seem best, when something fitted to the nation we are in: but wherever I should go or stay, I would ever keep to my God and friends, unchangeably. Howsoever he returns, he makes an ill voyage, who changes his faith with his tongue and garments.
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