15

The FIFTH DAY-continued

Of Rivers, and some Observations of Fish

CHAPTER XIX

PISCATOR

WELL, Scholar, since the ways and weather do both favour us, and that we yet see not Tottenham-Cross, you shall see my willingness to satisfy your desire. And, first, for the rivers of this nation: there be, as you may note out of Dr. Heylin's Geography, and others, in number three hundred and twenty-five; but those of chiefest note he reckons and describes as followeth.

The chief is THAMISIS, Compounded of two rivers, Thame and Isis; whereof the former, rising somewhat beyond Thame in Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, meet together about Dorchester in Oxfordshire; the issue of which happy conjunction is Thamisis, or Thames; hence it flieth betwixt Berks, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex and so weddeth itself to the Kentish Medway, in

the very jaws of the ocean. This glorious river feeleth the violence and benefit of the sea more than any river in Europe; ebbing and flowing, twice a day, more than sixty miles; about whose banks are so many fair towns and princely palaces, that a German poet thus truly spake :

Tot campos, &c.

We saw so many woods and princely bowers,
Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers;
So many gardens drest with curious care,

That Thames with royal Tiber may compare.

2. The second river of note is SABRINA or SEVERN: it hath its beginning in Plinilimmon-hill, in Montgomeryshire; and his end seven miles from Bristol; washing, in the mean space, the walls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester, and divers other places and palaces of note.

3. TRENT, so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers; who having his fountain in Staffordshire, and gliding through the counties of Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester, and York, augmenteth the turbulent current of Humber, the most violent stream of all the isle. This Humber is not, to say truth, a distinct river having a spring-head of his own, but it is rather the mouth or æstuarium of divers rivers here confluent and meeting together, namely, your Derwent, and especially of Ouse and Trent; and, as the Danow, having received into its channel the river Dravus, Savus, Tibiscus, and divers others, changeth his name into this of Humberabus, as the old geographers call it.

4. MEDWAY, a Kentish river, famous for harbouring the royal navy.

T

5. TWEED, the north-east bound of England; on whose northern banks is seated the strong and impregnable town of Berwick.

6. TYNE, famous for Newcastle, and her inexhaustible coal-pits. These, and the rest of principal note, are thus comprehended in one of Mr. Drayton's Sonnets:

Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crown'd;
And stately Severn for her shore is prais'd;

The crystal Trent, for fords and fish renown'd;
And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is rais'd.

Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee;

York many wonders of her Ouse can tell;
The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be,
And Kent will say her Medway doth excel:

Cotswold commends her Isis to the Tame;

Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood;
Our Western parts extol their Willy's fame,

And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood.

These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, and my old deceased friend, Michael Drayton; and because you say you love such discourses as these, of rivers, and fish, and fishing, I love you the better, and love the more to impart them to you. Nevertheless, scholar, if I should begin but to name the several sorts of strange fish that are usually taken in many of those rivers that run into the sea, I might beget wonder in you, or unbelief, or both: and yet I will venture to tell you a real truth concerning one lately dissected by Dr. Wharton, a man of great learning and experience, and of equal freedom to communicate it; one that loves me and my art; one to whom I have been