Spenser's English Rivers. 8i 



and as Spenser from his days at Cambridge was likely to know 

 it as well as any part of England, it is fairly safe to infer that by 

 the Grant he meant (b) the southerly branch. Yet his state- 

 ments grow careless in the last lines of the stanza. 



In Holinshed the Granta is traced in its course among the 

 colleges through Cambridge, 'receiving by and by the Stoure, 

 or Sture (at whose bridge the most famous mart in England is 

 yearlie holden and kept)' (i. 174). This is the famous Stour- 

 bridge Fair, on the lower side of Cambridge. But the little 

 Stour, tiniest of all Spenser's rivers, seems now to be lost in the 

 ditches. 



The Rowne is a mystery ; it is mentioned in neither Holinshed 

 nor Camden, nor in any of the books or maps of the time that I 

 have seen. I suspect that 'Rowne' is a misprint for 'Downe,' 

 which might easily have been made by the printer to avoid what 

 looked to him like an identical rhyme. Such rhymes, however, 

 are not infrequent in Spenser.^^ The Downe, or Dune, is, by 

 the description in Holinshed (i. 173), clearly the Little Ouse, 

 which rises in Suffolk in the same source as the Waveney, but 

 flows west, while the Waveney flows east. It meets the Ouse 

 more than twenty miles below Cambridge. 'The Dune,' writes 

 Harrison, 'goeth first of all by Feltham [Thelnetham?], then to 

 Hopton, & to Kinets hall [Knettishall],' thence on to Euston, 

 receiving various tributaries. 'From hence also they hasten to 

 Downeham,' that is, Santon Downham, clearly marked 'Dowen- 

 ham' on Saxton's map, between Thetford and Brandon, and so 

 through the fens to its mouth. 



Spenser's 'thence' in line 6 is careless, as one, and probably 

 two, of the rivers mentioned are below Cambridge. Further- 

 more, he speaks of the Ouse as if it passed Cambridge, as well 

 as Huntington. For the moment he implies that the name Ouse 

 covered not only the main river, but the whole system. 



^ Thus in this Fourth Book we have went, n. : went, v., in lines 4 and 5 

 as here, of stanza 47 of canto ii ; morne: morne, st. 41 (really concat- 

 enation) ; sound, n. : sound, v., IV. vii. 4. 8, 9 ; between alternate lines, 

 IV. i. 22,. 5, 7; ii- 30. 5, 7; iii- 3- 6, 8; iv. 15. 5, 7; v. 2>Z- 5, 7; vii. 39. 2, 4; 

 identical rhymes more widely separated abound : i. 24. 2, 7 ; 35. 2, 7 ; 

 36. 4, 7; ii. 9. 6, 9; 37. 6, 9; 43. 4, 7; 52. 2, 9, etc. In the Fourth Book 

 identical lines average about two and one half to a canto. The number 

 is more than doubled if one includes such rhj^mes as bound: abound, 

 i. 13 ; along : long, x. 7. 



