150 best's art of angling. 



shire. They meet together about Dorchester in 

 Oxfordshire, and thence run united betwixt that 

 county and Bucks, and between Buckingham- 

 shire, Middlesex, and Essex, on the one side, 

 and Surr}^ and Kent on the other, wedding itself 

 to the Kentish Medway in the very jaws of the 

 ocean. This river rj said to feel the violence 

 and benefit of the sea more than any other river 

 in Europe, ehbing and flowing twice a day, more 

 than sixty miles. Sir John Denham has given 

 so grand a description of the Thames, in his 

 Cooner s-hiil, that 1 think the insertion of some 

 part, cannot prove unacceptable to the reader : 



JMy eye descending from the hill, surveys 

 "Where Thames among the wanton vaUies strays: 

 Thames ! the most lov'd of all the oceaa'^s sons 

 By his old Sire to his embraces runs, 

 Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, 

 Like mortal life to meet eternity ; 

 Tho' with those streams he no resemblance hold^ 

 Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold : 

 His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore, 

 Search not his bottom, but survey his shore ; 

 O'er v/hich he kindly spreads his spacious wing, 

 i\nd hatches plenty for the ensuijig spring;. 

 Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay, 

 Like mothers which their infants overlay : 

 Nor with a sadden and impetuous wave. 

 Like profuse kings, resuuies the wealth he gave. 

 No unexpected inundations spoil, 

 The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toiiy 

 But god-like his unweary'd bounty flows : 

 First loves to do, tlu-n loves the good he does.. 

 Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd. 

 But free and commoa as the L-ea or wind; 

 When he, to boast or to di.'^perse his stores. 

 Full of the tribute of his grateful shores. 

 Visits the world, and in his flying tow'rs, 

 Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours. 

 Finds v*^ealth v/here 'tis, bestows it where il wantS;^ 

 Citiee \n deserts, woods in cities, plants. 

 So tiicvt to us no thing, no place, is strange. 

 While his fair bosom is the world's exchange,. 



