The second circumstance, the pilgrimages of that age, if considered in itself, was as liable to objection as the former; but it proved of equal advantage to the cause of literature.

A principal object of these pious journeys was Rome, which contained all the little that was left in the Western world of ancient learning and taste.

The other great object of those pilgrimages was Jerusalem: this led them into the Grecian Empire, which still subsisted in the East with great majesty and power.

Here the Greeks had not only not discontinued the ancient studies, but they added to the stock of arts many inventions of curiosity and convenience that were unknown to antiquity.

When, afterwards, the Saracens prevailed in that part of the world, the pilgrims had also by the same means an opportunity of profiting from the improvements of that laborious people; and however little the majority of these pious travellers might have had such objects in their view, something useful must unavoidably have stuck to them; a few certainly saw with more discernment, and rendered their travels serviceable to their country by importing other things besides miracles and legends.
Thus a communication was opened between this remote island and countries of which it otherwise could then scarcely have heard mention made; and pilgrimages thus preserved that intercourse amongst mankind which is now formed by politics, commerce, and learned curiosity.
It is not wholly unworthy of observation, that Providence, which strongly appears to have intended the continual intermixture of mankind, never leaves the human mind destitute of a principle to effect it.