Spenser's English Rivers. 103 



The fragments tell first how Isis. on his way to his wedding, 

 passes Radcot Bridge, where Sir K. Vere, Earl of Oxford, was 

 defeated in Richard II's time. As he proceeds, he is arrayed 

 for his wedding by Zephyr and Flora. Meanwhile Thame, 

 hurrying from her hills to meet him, passes Tame and Dor- 

 chester. Their union is attended by rejoicing nymphs, satyrs, 

 birds, Echo, and cupids, while Britona sings of how she became 

 an island, and was visited by Hercules, Ulysses, Brutus, and 

 Caesar. Then, united as Thamesis, they hasten to the sea, pass- 

 ing historic Runnimede, and later old Sheen, new named Rich- 

 mond by Henry VH, where died Edward HI of noble memory. 

 Here Thames meets the tide, and boasts that all rivers 'vail to 

 him.' No other river so regularly renews its waters except 

 Scheldt and Elbe. 



From these fragments and the context it is clear that the poem 

 as a whole was primarily antiquarian, and. like Leland's Cygnea 

 Cantio, was a product of the new antiquarian enthusiasms of the 

 sixteenth century. 



In the three poems just described, three motives or themes 

 are distinguishable : A, the journey of the swans ; B, the mar- 

 riage, either in prothalamion or epithalamion. of the rivers ; and 

 C, the topographic and antiquarian review of their shores. In 

 most cases A or B is a mere vehicle for C. In the oldest— 

 Leland's poem — A supports C ; in Camden, B supports C ; and 

 in Vallans, A supports C, with a clear intimation of B at the 

 close. In the case of Spenser's Prothalamion A is exquisitely 

 blended with B by transferring the wedding theme from rivers to 

 swans, with a passing intimation of C in stanza viii, especially 

 lines 132-6: 



There when they came, whereas those bricky towres, 

 The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde, 

 Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, 

 There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde, 

 Till they decayd through pride. 



attempts in verse, and mentions 'The marriage of the Tame and Isis, of 

 which he more than half confesses himself the author' (vol. i, p. xxviii). 

 In a note it quotes Nathanael Salmon's Hertfordshire, 1728 (p. 3) : 'This 

 poem seems to be of his own composition. He was so delighted with 

 the thought of the name of Tamesis being revived [derived?] from the 

 names and union of the two rivers Tame and Isis : his modest intro- 

 duction of the verses giving ground for such a conjecture'. 



