Spenser's English Rivers. 105 



of gratulation, so in Leland's Cygnea Cantio (52-6), when the 

 swan begins his journey, his attendants crowd about: 



Aptantes capiti meo coronam, 

 Baccatam nitidis et hinc et illinc 

 Gemmis, ac niveum aurese catenae 

 Collum multiplici orbe circinantes 

 Postremoque vale vale canentes. 



In the same poem, as the swan approaches London — from the 

 west, however — he views the splendid palaces along the Thames, 



Quid magnas referam sedium nitelas 

 Multarum, radiant suo emicanti 

 Quae nunc lumine, clivus adjacet qua 

 Ripse excelsior, aspicitque lymphas 

 Nymphae ca;ruleas sibi faventis? 



He enumerates two or three palaces, but omits Leicester, later 



Essex, House: 



Hinc templi veteris ruina sensim 

 Frontem attcllere ccepit excitata. 



In the Prothalamion the swans, ascending the stream, see first 

 the 'bricky towres' of the Temple, and after it the stately Essex 

 House, their journey's end. 



Any detailed use of Camden's poem which Spenser may have 

 made has already been noted. But whether these slight resem- 

 blances signify or not, it is clear that the Prothalamion and canto 

 xi are glorifications of motives not unfamiliar in academic verse. 



That Spenser had long meditated such themes appears from 

 his lost earlier work, the Epithalamion Thamesis. Critics and 

 editors of Spenser have long been accustomed to say that this 

 lost work is essentially preserved in canto xi, in which it is 

 embodied. So said Upton,'^° and so Miss Helen E. Sandison in 

 the most recent study of the 'lost works. '"^ But evidence has 



""Todd's Spenser 5. 431. 



"P. L. M. A. 25. 148-9. 'If the poem Ep. Tham. was actually written, 

 and not merely projected, at that date [1580], as seems very probable, 

 we can reasonablj'^ believe that we have in the Faerie Queene the actual 

 poem which Spenser described revised only to meet the exigencies of 

 the epic stanza' (p. 149). Some, however, are in doubt whether the 

 Ep. Tham. was ever written. See C. A. Harper, Sources of the British 



