All the wit he
brought home with him is like foreign coin, of a baser alloy than our
own, and so will not pass here without great loss. All noble creatures
that are famous in any one country degenerate by being transplanted, and
those of mean value only improve. If it hold with men, he falls among
the number of the latter, and his improvements are little to his credit.
All he can say for himself is, his mind was sick of a consumption, and
change of air has cured him; for all his other improvements have only
been to eat in ... and talk with those he did not understand, to hold
intelligence with all _Gazettes_, and from the sight of statesmen in the
street unriddle the intrigues of all their Councils, to make a wondrous
progress into knowledge by riding with a messenger, and advance in
politics by mounting of a mule, run through all sorts of learning in a
waggon, and sound all depths of arts in a felucca, ride post into the
secrets of all states, and grow acquainted with their close designs in
inns and hostelries; for certainly there is great virtue in highways and
hedges to make an able man, and a good prospect cannot but let him see
far into things.
A CURIOUS MAN
Values things not by their use or worth, but scarcity. He is very tender
and scrupulous of his humour, as fanatics are of their consciences, and
both for the most part in trifles. He cares not how unuseful anything
be, so it be but unuseful and rare. He collects all the curiosities he
can light upon in art or nature, not to inform his own judgment, but to
catch the admiration of others, which he believes he has a right to
because the rarities are his own.
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