86 Charles G. Osgood, 



And Twede, the limit betwixt Logris land 



And Albany : and Eden, though but small, 



Yet often stainde with bloud of many a band 



Of Scots and English both, that tyned on his strand.*^ 



What Spenser says of the Tweed seems to reflect the words 

 in HoHnshed concerning the Humber (i. 157) : 'This river in old 

 time parted Lhoegres or England from Albania, which was the 

 portion of Albanactus, the yongest sonne of Brute. But since 

 that time the limits of Lhoegres have beene so inlarged, first by 

 the prowesse of the Romans, then by the conquests of the English, 

 that at this present dale the Twede on the one side, & the Solve 

 on the other, be taken for the principall bounds betweene us and 

 those of Scotland.' 



The course of the Eden is followed in detail by Harrison. 

 Camden says : 'For, Eden, that notable river, which wandereth 

 through Westmoreland and the inner partes of this shire, 

 powreth forth into it [the Solway] a mighty masse of water, 

 having not yet forgotten, what a doe it had to passe away strug- 

 ling and wrestling as it did, among the carcasses of freebutters, 

 lying dead in it on heapes, in the yeere of salvation 1216, when 

 it swallowed them up loden with booties out of England, and 

 so buried that rable of robbers under his waves' (Cumberland, 

 p. y'/6). He has more to say of the border troubles in connec- 

 tion with the Eden's neighbors, Esk, Leven, and Kirsop. 



Then came those sixe sad brethren, like forlorne. 

 That whilome were (as antique fathers tell) 

 Sixe valiant knights, of one faire nymphe yborne, 

 Which did in noble deedes of armes excell, 

 And wonned there where now Yorke people dwell : 

 Still Ure, swift Werfe, and Oze the most of might. 

 High Swale, unquiet Nide, and troublous Skell; 

 All whom a Scythian king, that Humber hight, 

 Slew cruelly, and in the river drowned quight." 



Spenser here groups various tribtitaries of the Ouse in York- 

 shire, which is thus properly 'the most of might.' They con- 

 verge, flowing from the North and the West Riding and from 

 the southwest. Beginning from the north they are the Swale, 

 the Ure, which unite to form the Ouse, the Skell, which is a 



"St. 36. 

 " St. 37. 



