in length.

21. TO WHARTON

Dear Doctor

Whatever my pen may do, I am sure my thoughts expatiate nowhere oftener
or with more pleasure, than to Old-Park. I hope you have made my peace
with Miss Deborah. it is certain, whether her name were in my letter or
not, she was as present to my memory, as the rest of the little family,
& I desire you would present her with two kisses in my name, & one
a-piece to all the others: for I shall take the liberty to kiss them all
(great & small) as you are to be my proxy.

In spite of the rain, w^ch I think continued with very short intervals
till the beginning of this month, & quite effaced the summer from the
year, I made a shift to pass May & June not disagreeably in Kent. I was
surprised at the beauty of the road to Canterbury, which (I know not
why) had not struck me in the same manner before. The whole country is a
rich and well-cultivated garden, orchards, cherry-grounds, hop-gardens,
intermix'd with corn & frequent villages, gentle risings cover'd with
wood, and everywhere the Thames and Medway breaking in upon the
Landscape with all their navigation. It was indeed owing to the bad
weather, that the whole scene was dress'd in that tender emerald-green,
w^ch one usually sees only for a fortnight in the opening of spring, &
this continued till I left the country. My residence was eight miles
east of Canterbury in a little quiet valley on the skirts of
Barhamdown. In these parts the whole soil is chalk, and whenever it
holds up, in half an hour it is dry enough to walk out. I took the
opportunity of three or four days fine weather to go into the Isle of
Thanet, saw Margate (w^ch is Bartholomew-Fair by the sea side),
Ramsgate, & other places there, and so came by Sandwich, Deal, Dover,
Folkstone, & Hithe, back again. The coast is not like Hartlepool: there
are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height, till you come
to Dover. There indeed they are noble & picturesque, and the opposite
coasts of France begin to bound your view, w^ch was left before to range
unlimited by anything but the horizon: yet it is by no means a
_shipless_ sea, but everywhere peopled with white sails & vessels of all
sizes in motion. And take notice (except in the Isle, w^ch is all
corn-fields, and has very little inclosure) there are in all places
hedgerows & tall trees even within a few yards of the beach.
Particularly Hithe stands on an eminence cover'd with wood. I shall
confess we had f