74 Charles G. Osgood, 



it takes its name from marl : 'Alarleborow, olim Marleberge. 

 , . . An hoc recentius factum fuerit nomen a Marga, quam 

 !Marle nostra lingua dicinius, . . . non facile dixerim' (1590, 

 Wiltshire, pp. 184, 5). In Holland's translation is added: 

 'Certes, it lieth neere a chaulkey hill, which our Ancestours before 

 they borrowed this name Chaulke of the Latine word Calx, 

 named Marie' (Wiltshire, p. 255). 



'Thetis gray' is the least of all this group. It is the modern 

 Wye, which meets the Thames from the north at Bourne End, 

 near Hedsor. Harrison twice refers to it — once at i. 80: 'the 

 Thetis commonlie called the Tide that commeth from Thetis- 

 ford'; and again at i. 86: 'It [Thames] meeteth with a brooke 

 soone after that consisteth of the water of two rilles, whereof 

 the one called the Use, riseth about west Wickham [mod. West 

 Wycombe], out of one of the Chilterne hilles, and goeth from 

 thence to east W^ickham or high Wickham, a pretie market towne. 

 The other named Higden, descendeth also from those mounteines 

 but a mile beneath west Wickham, and joining both in one at the 

 last, in the west end of east Wickham towne [High Wycombe], 

 they go togither to Wooburne, Hedsor, & so into the Thames. 

 Some call it the Tide; and that word doo I use in my former 

 treatise.' Higden survives in the name of the village Hugh- 

 endon, on the north branch of the little stream, but I find no 

 name Thetisford on the modern map. Why Thetis is called 

 'gray' I do not know. 



'Morish Cole' is the Colne, which meets Thames from the 

 north at Staines. 'JMorish' in Spenser means 'marshy,'^- and 

 the epithet may well describe the Colne valley as it was in 

 Spenser's time. In Leland's Itinerary (Ed. T. Smith i. 105) 

 Colne is called 'the moore water.' 



'Soft sliding Breane' is probably the old Brane or modern 

 Brent. Harrison says (i. 87): 'The next fall of water is at 

 Sion [cf. modern Sion House], neere unto new Brainford, so 

 that it issueth into the Thames between them both. This water 

 is called Brane, that is in the Brittish toong (as Leland saith) a 

 frog. It riseth about Edgeworth [Edgeware], and commeth 

 from thence by Kingesburie, Twiford, Perivall, Hanwell, and 

 Austerleie [Osterley].' Spenser may himself have observed that 

 it is 'soft sliding.' 



"Cf. Vergil's Gnat 251; Rums of Time 140; F. Q. V. x. 18, 4. 



