Both Essex and Fulke Greville are full of warnings against superficial and showy knowledge of foreign countries:  “The true end of knowledge is clearness and strength of judgment, and not ostentation, or ability to discourse, which I do rather put your Lordship in mind of, because the most part of noblemen and gentlemen of our time have no other use nor end of their learning but their table-talk.  But God knoweth they have gotten little that have only this discoursing gift:  for, though like empty vessels they sound loud when a man knocks upon their outsides, yet if you pierce into them, you shall find that they are full of nothing but wind."[66]

Lord Burghley, wasting not a breath, tersely instructs the Earl of Rutland in things worthy of observation.  Among these are frontier towns, with what size garrison they are maintained, etc.; what noblemen live in each province, by what trade each city is supported.  At Court, what are the natural dispositions of the king and his brothers and sisters, what is the king’s diet, etc.  “Particularly for yourself, being a nobleman, how noblemen do keep their wives, their children, their estates; how they provide for their younger children; how they keep the household for diet,” and so on.[67]

So much for the attitude of the first “Subsidium Peregrinantibus.”  It will be seen that it was something of a trial and an opportunity to be a traveller in Elizabethan times.  But biography is not lacking in evidence that the recipients of these directions did take their travels seriously and try to make them profitable to the commonwealth.  Among the Rutland papers[68] is a plan of fortifications and some notes made by the Edward Manners to whom Cecil wrote the above letter of advice.  Sir Thomas Bodley tells how full he was of patriotic intent:  “I waxed desirous to travel beyond the seas, for attaining to the knowledge of some special modern tongues, and for the increase of my experience in the managing of affairs, being wholly then addicted to employ myself, and all my cares, in the public service of the state."[69] Assurances of their object in travelling are written from abroad by Sir John Harington and the third Earl of Essex to their friend Prince Henry.  Essex says:  “Being now entered into my travels, and intending the end thereof to attain to true knowledge and to better my experience, I hope God will so bless me in my endeavours, that I shall return an acceptable servant unto your Highness."[70] And Harington in the same vein hopes that by his travels and experience in foreign countries he shall sometime or other be more fit to carry out the commands of his Highness.[71]