12. Sir Thomas Bodleigh to Sir Francis Bacon,— same occasion.

MY GOOD COUSIN,-According to your request in your letter (dated the 19th of Oct. at Orleans) I received here the 18th of Dec., I have sent you by your merchant 30l. sterling, for your present supply; and had sent you a greater sum, but that my extraordinary charge this year hath utterly unfurnished me. And now, cousin, though I will be no severe exacter of accounts, either of your money or of time, yet, for the love I bear you, I am very desirous both to satisfy myself and your friends, how you prosper in your travels, and how you find yourself bettered thereby, either in knowledge of God or of the world; the rather, because the days you have already spent abroad are now both sufficient to give you light how to fix yourself and end with counsel, and accordingly to shape your course constantly upon it. Besides, it is a vulgar scandal to travellers, that few return more religious than they went forth; wherein both my hope and request is to you, that your principal care be to hold your foundation, and to make no other use of informing yourself in the corruptions and superstitions of other nations, than only thereby to engage your own heart more firmly to the truth. You live, indeed, in a country of two several professions; and you shall return a novice, if you be not able to give an account of the ordinances, strength, and progress of each, in reputation and party, and how both are supported, balanced, and managed by the state, as being the contrary humours in the temper of predominancy, whereof the health or disease of that body doth consist. These things you will observe, not only as an Englishman, whom it may concern to know what interest his coun

try may expect in the consciences of their neighbours; but also as a Christian, to consider both the beauties and blemishes, the hopes and dangers, of the Church in all places. Now for the world, I know it too well to persuade you to dive into the practices thereof: rather stand upon your own guard against all that attempts you thereunto, or may practise upon you in your conscience, reputation, or your purse. Resolve no man is wise or safe but he that is honest; and let this persuasion turn your studies and observations from the compliment and impostures of the debased age, to more real grounds of wisdom, gathered out of the story of times past, and out of the government of the present state. Your guide to this is, the knowledge of the country and the people among whom you live: for the country, though you cannot see all places, yet if, as you pass along, you inquire carefully, and further help yourself with books that are written of the cosmography of those parts, you shall sufficiently gather the strength, riches, traffic, havens, shipping, commodities, vent, and the wants and disadvantages of all places. Wherein, also, for your own good hereafter, and for your friends, it will be fit to note their buildings, furnitures, their entertainments; all their husbandry, and ingenious inventions in whatsoever concerneth either pleasure or profit.

For the people, your traffic among them, while you learn their language, will sufficiently instruct you in their habilities, dispositions, and humours, if you a little enlarge the privacy of your own nature, to seek acquaintance with the best sort of strangers, and restrain your affections and participation for your own countrymen of whatsoever condition. In the story of France, you have a large and pleasant field in three lines of their kings,-to observe their alliances and successions, their con

quests, their wars, especially with us; their councils, their treaties; and all rules and examples of experience and wisdom, which may be lights and remembrances to you hereafter, to judge of all occurrents both at home and abroad.

Lastly, for the government: your end must not be, like an intelligencer, to spend all your time in fishing after the present news, humours, graces, or disgraces of court, which happily may change before you come home; but your better and more constant ground will be, to know the consanguinities, alliances, and estates of their princes; the proportion between the nobility and magistracy; the constitutions of their courts of justice; the state of their laws, as well for the making as the execution thereof; how the sovereignty of the king infuseth itself into all acts and ordinances; how many ways they lay impositions and taxations, and gather revenues to the crown; what be the liberties and servitudes of all degrees; what discipline and preparation for wars; what inventions for increase of traffic at home, for multiplying their commodities, encouraging arts, manufactures, or of worth in any kind; also what good establishment, to prevent the necessities and discontentment of people, to cut off suits at law, and duels, to suppress thieves, and all disorders.

To be short, because my purpose is not to bring all your observations to heads, but only by these few to let you know what manner of return your friends expect from you,-let me, for all these and all the rest, give you this one note, which I desire you to observe as the counsel of a friend: not to spend your spirits, and the precious time of your travel, in a captious prejudice and censuring of all things, nor in an infectious collection of base vices and fashions of men and women, or general corruption of these times, which will be of use only among humorists, for jests

and table-talk; but rather strain your wits and industry soundly to instruct yourself in all things between heaven and earth which may tend to virtue, wisdom, and honour, and which may make your life more profitable to your country, and yourself more comfortable to your friends, and acceptable to God. And, to conclude, let all these riches be treasured up, not only in your memory, where time may lessen your stock; but rather in good writings, and books of account, which will keep them safe for your use hereafter. And if in this time of your liberal traffic, you will give me an advertisement of your commodities in these kinds, I will make you as liberal a return from myself and your friends here as I shall be able. And so commending all your endeavours to Him that must either wither or prosper them, I very kindly bid you farewell.

Yours to be commanded,

THOMAS BOdleigh.

13. Mr. Nicholas Ferrar to his Parents, before going abroad.

SINCE there is nothing more certain than death, nor more uncertain than the time when, I have thought it the first and chiefest wisdom for a man to prepare himself for that which must one day come, and always be ready for that which may every hour happen; especially considering how dangerous an error is here, which cannot be amended: neither is any one the nearer to death for having prepared for it. It is, then, a thing of exceeding madness and folly to be negligent in so weighty a matter, in respect whereof all other things are but trifles. I here confess my own wretchedness and folly in

this, that through a common hope of youth, I have set death far from me; and, persuading myself that I had a long way to go, have walked more carelessly than I ought. The good Lord God be merciful unto me! Indeed I have a long way to run, if death stood still at the end of three score years: but God knows if he be not running against me-if he be not ready to grasp me, especially considering the many dangers wherein I am now to hazard myself, in every one whereof death dwells. If God be merciful to me, and bring me safe home again, I will all the days of my life serve him in his tabernacle, and in his holy sanctuary. I hope he who hath begun this mind in me will continue it, and make me to walk so as I may be always ready for him, when he shall come, either in public judgment of all the world, or in private judgment to me by death This is my purpose, and this shall be my labour. And you, my most dear parents, if God shall take me from you, I beseech you be of good comfort, and be not grieved at my death, which I undoubtedly hope shall be to me the beginning of eternal happiness. It was God that gave me to you; and if he take me from you, be not only content, but joyful that I am delivered from the vale of misery. This God that hath kept me ever since I was born, will preserve me to the end, and will give me grace to live in his faith, to die in his favour, to rest in his peace, to rise in his power, and to reign in his glory. I know, my most dear parents, your tender affections towards your children; and fear your grief, if God take me away. I therefore write and leave this, that you might know your son's estate, and assure yourselves that though he be dead to you, yet he is alive to God. I now most humbly beseech you to pardon me in whatever I may have at any time displeased you; and I pray God to bless and keep you,