92 Charles G. Osgood, 



Camden, in his account of the Medway, pauses in mentioning 

 Penshurst to glorify at some length the memory of Sir Philip 

 Sidney. Spenser is conspicuously silent. A line or two of 

 allusion would not have disturbed the course of his pageant. 

 Perhaps in the earlier Epithalamion Thamesis the Medway had 

 been chosen as the bride, because of its association with Pens- 

 hurst. Any allusions to Sidney in that poem may have seemed 

 for some reason less appropriate at this later date. 



So much at present for the English rivers that came to the 

 wedding of the Thames and the Medway. Two other passages, 

 however, that deal with English rivers may claim our attention. 



The first is the lament of the ancient city Verulam, already 

 cited from the Ruins of Time. Though Spenser, in the lines 

 quoted above on page 70, plainly implies that the only memori- 

 alist of Verulam 'in true-seeming sort' is Camden, yet it appears 

 by examination that he owes most of the passage to Holinshed : 



I was that citie which the garland wore 

 Of Britaines pride, delivered unto me 

 By Romane victors, which it wonne of yore; 

 Though nought at all but ruines now I bee. 

 And lye in mine owne ashes, as ye see : 

 Verlame I was ; what bootes it that I was, 

 Sith now I am but weedes and wastfuU gras?^^ 



And again : 



O Rome, thy ruine I lament and rue. 



And in thy fall my fatall overthrowe, 



That whilom was, whilst heavens with equall vewe 



Deignd to behold me, and their gifts bestowe, 



The picture of thy pride in pompous shew : 



And of the whole world as thou wast the empresse. 



So I of this small Northerne world was princesse." 



These passages unmistakably derive from the thirteenth chapter 

 of the Description in Holinshed, entitled 'Of Cities and Townes 

 in England.' He writes : 'The British Verolamians, therefore, 



Saxton's, the only maps of Kent in Spenser's time, are the streams 

 named. Symonson locates and names North Frith. It would therefore 

 seem that Spenser knew the region at first hand, and had personal 

 associations with its streams. 



"LI. 36-4^. 



■^^Ll. 78-84. 



