Wherefore
I am of opinion that a senator ought not to be a patron or
advocate, nor a patron or advocate to be a senator; for if his
practice be gratis it debauches the people, and if it be
mercenary it debauches himself: take it which way you will, when
he should be making of laws, he will be knitting of nets.
"Lycurgus, as I said, by being a traveller became a
legislator, but in times when prudence was another thing.
Nevertheless we may not shut out this part of education in a
commonwealth, which will be herself a traveller; for those of
this make have seen the world, especially because this is certain
(though it be not regarded in our times, when things being left
to take their chance, it fares with us accordingly) that no man
can be a politician except he be first a historian or a
traveller; for except he can see what must be, or what may be, he
is no politician. Now if he has no knowledge in history he cannot
tell what has been, and if he has not been a traveller, he cannot
tell what is; but he that neither knows what has been, nor what
is, can never tell what must be, or what may be. Furthermore, the
embassies-in-ordinary by our constitution are the prizes of young
men, more especially such as have been travellers. Wherefore they
of these inclinations, having leave of the censors, owe them an
account of their time, and cannot choose but lay it out with some
ambition of praise or reward, where both are open, whence you
will have eyes abroad, and better choice of public ministers,
your gallants showing themselves not more to the ladies at their
balls than to your commonwealth at her Academy when they return
from their travels.
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