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 thofe 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 fee France "and Italy over-run with the worst kind of Deifm. "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 "fafhions 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 apishness of foreign manners: Till a fet &c." Bishop of GLOUCESTER's Sermon on the Suppreffion of the late Rebellion, p. 78.

VOL. III.

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66

LORD

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

OR, fhall we say that this impiety of the time was only employed to correct its fuperftition? And that the philofophic fpirits of that age trafficked in these wares, as thinking them a proper antidote to fuch as another set of miffionaries largely dealt in, I mean the agnus Dei's, holy beads, and confecrated medals?

MR. LOCKE.

TAKE it which way you will, the conclufion, I believe, will fcarcely be much in favour of our Italian Travellers.As to the worthies of CHARLES' court, your Lordship, without doubt, is difpofed to divert yourself with them. For, if they brought any thing with them from France, befides the drefs of its follies and vices (excepting always the facred babble of their language) it is a fecret which it has not been my fortune to be apprized of.

LORD

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

AND fo, becaufe Travelling may, by accident, be attended with fome ill effects, you roundly determine against the thing itfelf; as if the national improvement in arts and civility, which unquestionably arofe from it, were to go for nothing!

MR. LOCKE.

I WOULD have it go for no more than it is honestly worth; which furely is fomething less than the price paid for it, our principles and our morals. And I doubt the truth is, that this degeneracy in both was the ufual acquifition of our travelled youth, and the improvement, your Lordship fpeaks of, only the accidental benefit.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

WITHOUT doubt, there is no extending our acquaintance with the world but we run the risk of catching its vices, as C 2

well

well as virtues. Yet, push this conclufion as far as it will go, and you fhut up mankind in abfolute and incurable barbarism. Such is the unhappy condition of human nature, that, in ftriving to cultivate its powers, you furnish the opportunities, at leaft, of its corruption. Yet to leave it in that fordid state, for fear of those abuses, is methinks but acting with the weak apprehenfion of fond mothers; who deny their children the liberty of ftirring from the fire-fide, for fear of the dirt or damp air, which, in their fieldexercifes, may chance to incommode them.

MR. LOCKE.

THE allufion would be apt, if the health of the mind, as of the body, depended on the use of fuch Liberty; or if it were true, that one could as little help breathing the air of vice, as that of the heavens. But, though I have hear'd much of the dangers, to which virtue is expofed in this bad world, I have never understood

understood that Vice is its proper ele

ment.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

YET methinks, Sir, it will be hard to keep clear of it in any part of the world, that I am acquainted with: Unless perhaps you take this happy Ifland of our's to be as free from Vice, as a Neighbouring one, they fay, is from Venom.

MR. LOCKE.

THERE are, however, degrees in vice, as well as varieties of it; and I cannot think it neceffary for us to be greater proficients, than we are, or to import new fpecies of it; by rambling into countries where it may chance to rage with greater virulence, or where such modes of it, at least, prevail as are luckily unknown to us. And fuch, I doubt were the fruits of our Italian and French travels.