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trates want fufficient power, ability, and honefty to execute the laws: a circumftance not to be apprehended, as it cannot happen, till our fenates and our benches fhall be filled with the blindeft ignorance, or with the blackest corrup tion.

Befides the fhips in the docks, we saw many on the water: the yachts are fights of great parade, and the king's body yacht is, I believe, unequalled in any country, for convenience as well as magnificence; both which are consulted in building and equipping her with the most exquifite art and workmanship.

We faw likewife feveral Indiamen juft returned from their voyage. These are, I believe, the largest and finett velels which are any where employed in commercial affairs. The colliers, likewife, which are very numerous, and even affemble in Beets, are fhips of great bulk; and if we defcend to thofe ufed in the American, Afri can and European trades, and pass through those which vifit our own coafts, to the small craft that lie between Chatham and the Tower, the whole forms a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an Englishman, who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognize any effect of the patriot in his conftitution.

Laftly, the Royal Hofpital of Greenwich, which prefents fo delightful a front to the water, and doth fuch honour at once to its builder and the nation, to the great skill and ingenuity of the one, and to the no lefs fenfible gratitude of the other, very properly clofes the account of this fcene; which may well appear romantic to thofe ho have not themfelves feen, that, in this one

inftance, truth and reality are capable, perhaps, of exceeding the power of fiction.

When we had paft by Greenwich, we faw only two or three gentlemens houfes, all of very moderate account, till we reached Gravefend; thefe are all on the Kentifh fhore, which affords a much drier, wholfomer, and pleafanter fituati tion, than doth that its oppofite, Effex. This circumftance, I own, is fomewhat furprizing to me, when I reflect on the numerous villas that crowd the river, from Chelfea upwards as far as Shepperton, where the narrower channel affords not half fo noble a profpect, and where the con⚫ tinual fucceffion of the fmall craft, like the frequent repetition of all things, which have nothing in them great, beautiful, or admirable, tire the eye, and give us diftafte and averfion inftead of pleasure. With fome of thefe fituations, fuch as Barnes, Mortlake, &c. even the fhore of Effex might contend, not upon very unequal terms; but, on the Kentish borders, there are many fpots to be chofen by the builder, which might juftly claim the preference over almoft the very finest of thofe in Middlefex and Surry.

How fhall we account for this depravity in tafte for, furely, there are none fo very mean and contemptible, as to bring the pleasure of feeing a number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, in competition with what we enjoy, in viewing a fucceflion of fhips, with all their fails expanded to the winds, bounding over the waves before us.

And here I cannot pafs by another observation on the deplorable want of taste in our en joyments, which we fhew by almost totally neglecting the pursuit of what seems to me the

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highest degree of amufement: this is, the failing ourfelves in little veffels of our own, con, trived only for our cafe and accommodation, to which fuch fatuations of our villas, as I have recommended, would be fo convenient and even necellary.

This amufement, I confefs, if enjoyed in any perfection, would be of the expentive kind; but fuch expence would not exceed the reach of a moderate fortune, and would fall very fhort of the prices which are daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate. The truth, I believe, is, that failing in the manner I have juft mentioned," is a pleasure rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejected by thofe who have experienced it; unlefs, perhaps, the apprehenfion of danger, or feafick nefs, may be fuppofed, by the timorous and delicate, to make too large deductions; infifting, that all their enjoyments thall come to them pure and unmixed, and being ever ready to cry

out,

-Noset empta dolore voluptas.

This, however, was my prefent cafe; for the eafe and lightnefs which I felt from my tapping, the gaiety of the morning, the pleasant failing with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which I was constantly entertained during the whole way, were all fuppreffed and overcome by the fingle confideration of my wife's pain, which continued inceffantly to torment her till we came to an anchor, when I difpatched a meffenger in great hafte, for the best reputed operator in Gravefend. A furgeon of fome eminence now appeared, who did not decline toothdrawing, though he certainly would have been offended with the appellation of tooth-drawer

no lefs than his brethren, the members of that venerable body, would be with that of barber, fince the late feparation between thofe long united companies, by which, if the furgeons have gained much, the barbers are fuppofed to have loft very little.

This able and careful perfon (for fo I fincerely believe he is) after examining the guilty tooth, declared that it was fuch a rotten thell, and fo placed at the very remoteft end of the upper jaw, where it was, in a manner, covered and secured by a large, fine, firm tooth, that he despaired of his power of drawing it.

He faid, indeed, more to my wife, and ufed more rhetoric to diffuade her from having it drawn, than is generally employed to perfuade young ladies, to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months continuance; efpecially, if thofe young ladies happen to be past forty or fifty years of age, when, by fubmitting to fupport a racking torment, the only good circumstance attending which is, 'tis fo fhort, that fcarce one in a thousand can cry out, I feel it, they are to do a violence to their charms, and lofe one of those beautiful holders, with which alone Sir Courtly nice declares, a lady can ever lay hold of his heart.

He faid at laft fo much, and feemed to reafon fo juftly, that I came over to his fide, and affifted him in prevailing on my wife (for it was no eafy matter) to refolve on keeping her tooth a ittle longer, and to apply to palliatives only for relief. Thefe were opium applied to the tooth, and blifters behind the ears.

Whilft we were at dinner this day, in the ca in, on a fudden the window on one fide was

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beat into the room, with a crash, as if a twentypounder had been difcharged among us. were all alarmed at the fuddennefs of the accident, for which, however, we were foon able to account for the fafh, which was fhivered all to pieces, was purfued into the middle of the cabin by the boltfprit of a little fhip, called a cod fmack, the master of which made us amends for running (carelefly at beft) against us, and injuring the fhip, in the fea way; that is to fay, by damning us all to hell, and uttering feveral pious wifhes that it had done us much more mifchief. All which were anfwered in their own kind and phrafe by our men; between whom, and the other crew, a dialogue of oaths and fourrility was carried on, as long as they continued în each other's hearing.

It is difficult, I think, to affign a fatisfactory reafon why failors in general fhould, of all others think themselves entirely discharg❜d from the common bands of humanity, and fhould feem to glory in the language and behaviour of favages? They fee more of the world, and have, most of them, a more erudite education, than is the portion of land men of their degree. Nor do I believe that in any country they vifit (Holland itself not excepted) they can ever find a parallel to what daily paffes on the river Thames. Is it that they think true courage (for they are the Bravelt fellows upon earth) inconfiftent with all the gentleness of a humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order fprings up in minds but Fittle cultivated at the fame time, and from the fame principles, with the contempt of danger and death? Is it? In fhort, it is fo; and how it comes to be fo, I leave to form a question in the

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