Spenser's English Rivers. 71 



such an advantage, I have followed Bartholomew's half-inch-to- 

 the-mile maps, based on the ordnance-maps, and occasionally the 

 ordnance-maps themselves, and have consulted various choro- 

 graphic works. The results may perhaps be most conveniently 

 presented in the form of quotation and running comment. 

 First came the bridegroom, 



The noble Thamis, with all his goodly traine ; 



But him before there went, as best became, 



His auncient parents, namely th' auncient Thame : 



But much more aged was his wife then he, 



The Ouze, whom men doe Isis rightly name; 



Full weake and crooked creature seemed shee, 



And almost blind through eld, that scarce her way could see.' 



Harrison writes of the Thames : T affirme that this famous 

 streame hath his head or beginning out of the side of an hill, 

 standing in the plaines of Cotswold, about one mile from 

 Tetburie, . . . where it was sometime named Isis. or the Ouse, 

 although diverse doo ignorantlie call it the Thames even there, 

 rather of a foolish custome than anie skill, bicause they either 

 neglect or utterlie are ignorant how it was named at the first. '- 

 And later: 'From hence [Abingdon] it goeth to Dorchester, and 

 so to Thame, where joining with a river of the same denomina- 

 tion, it looseth the name of Isis or Ouse (whereof Ouseneie at 

 Oxford is producted) and from thenceforth is called Thamesis.' 

 And ag'ain (p. 84), the Isis 'beneath Dorchester taketh in the 

 Thame water, from whence the Isis loseth the preheminence of 

 the whole denomination of this river, and is contented to impart 

 the same with the Thame, so that by the conjunction of these 

 two waters Thamesis is producted.' Camden says : 'A little 

 beneath this towne Tame and Isis meeting in one streame 

 become hand-fast (as it were) and joyned in Wedlocke : and 

 as in waters, so in name, they are coupled. . . . For ever after 

 this, the river by a compound word is called. Tamisis, that is, 

 Tamis' (p. 384, Oxfordshire). He then quotes at considerable 

 length from a Latin poem, on the wedding of the Isis and the 

 Thame, from which he cites other passages elsewhere.^ In that 



'St. 24. 



"Vol. I, p. 79. I cite from the edition of 1807. 



" See below, p. 103, for the contents of the fragments in Camden, and 

 n. 67 on the question of authorship. 



