n's houses, all of very moderate account, till
we reached Gravesend: these are all on the Kentish shore, which affords
a much dryer, wholesomer, and pleasanter situation, than doth that of
its opposite, Essex. This circumstance, I own, is somewhat surprising
to me, when I reflect on the numerous villas that crowd the river from
Chelsea upwards as far as Shepperton, where the narrower channel affords
not half so noble a prospect, and where the continual succession of
the small craft, like the frequent repetition of all things, which have
nothing in them great, beautiful, or admirable, tire the eye, and
give us distaste and aversion, instead of pleasure. With some of these
situations, such as Barnes, Mortlake, etc., even the shore of Essex
might contend, not upon very unequal terms; but on the Kentish borders
there are many spots to be chosen by the builder which might justly
claim the preference over almost the very finest of those in Middlesex
and Surrey.

How shall we account for this depravity in taste? for surely there are
none so very mean and contemptible as to bring the pleasure of seeing
a number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, in
competition with what we enjoy in viewing a succession of ships, with
all their sails expanded to the winds, bounding over the waves before
us.

And here I cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want of
taste in our enjoyments, which we show by almost totally neglecting the
pursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement; this is,
the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own, contrived only for
our ease and accommodation, to which such situations of our villas as I
have recommended would be so convenient, and even necessary.

This amusement, I confess, if enjoyed in any perfection, would be of
the expensive kind; but such expense would not exceed the reach of a
moderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are
daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate.

The truth, I believe, is, that sailing in the manner I have just
mentioned is a pleasure rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejected
by those who have experienced it; unless, perhaps, the apprehension of
danger or seasickness may be supposed, by the timorous and delicate,
to make too large deductions--insisting that all their enjoyments shall
come to them pure and unmixed, and being ever ready to cry out,

----Nocet empta dolore voluptas.

This, how