Your Lordship, I know, can say more, and finer things, than you expect
I should seriously dispute with you, on this occasion.
I have now, my Lord, (at least if my old memory has not betrayed me)
gone over the several heads and topics of your defence; and said
enough, I believe, on each, to shew that foreign travel is not, on
whatever side we view it, the most proper method of a young gentleman’s
education.
The benefits, you propose by it, are either of small account in
themselves, at least of much less account than those you must sacrifice
to them; or, when their importance is real and confessed, may be
attained more conveniently in some other way, and at some other season.
For, after all I have said, your Lordship is not to conclude that I am
wholly bent against the practice of foreign travel. I am as sensible,
as any man, of its important use, when undertaken at a proper time
and by fit persons. For, though I esteem it idleness, and something
worse, for a young boy to waste his prime and most precious years in
sauntering round _Europe_, yet I know what ends of wisdom and of virtue
may be answered by a capable man’s survey of it.
But then, my Lord, I reckon that capacity at no vulgar rate. He must
be of worth and consideration enough to be received into the wisest,
nay the greatest company. His natural insight into men and things must
be quick and penetrating. His faculties must all be at their height;
his studies matured; and his reading and observation extensive. With
these accomplishments, if a man of rank and fortune can find leisure to
employ a few years among the neighbouring nations, I readily agree, his
voyage may turn out to his own benefit, and to that of his country.
In this way it may be true, as your Lordship insisted, that our island
prejudices will be usefully worn off, and much real civility and
politeness be imported among us.