Spenser's English Rivers. 69 



breathes in comparison a faint odor of lucubration and bookish- 

 ness. 



And bookish it proves, both by the poet's own statement and 

 by detailed analysis. In an oft-quoted passage from a letter to 

 Harvey dated 'Quarto Nonas Aprilis,'* 1580, Spenser writes: 

 'I minde shortely at convenient leysure, to sette forth a Booke in 

 this kinde, whiche I entitle Epithalamion Thamesis; whyche 

 Booke, I dare undertake wil be very profitable for the knowledge, 

 and rare for the Invention and manner of handling. For in 

 setting forth the marriage of the Thames : I she we his first begin- 

 ning, and offspring, and all the Countrey, that he passeth 

 thorough, and also describe all the Rivers throughout Englande, 

 whyche came to this Wedding-, and their righte names, and right 

 passage, &c. A worke, beleeve me, of much labour, wherein not- 

 withstanding Master HoUnshed hath muche furthered and advan- 

 taged me, who therein hath bestowed singular paines, in searching 

 oute their firste heades and sources : and also in tracing and 

 dogging oute all their Course, til they fall into the Sea.'^ 



The English rivers named by Spenser in his pageant of the 

 marriage of the Medway and the Thames are in most cases easily 

 recognized and traceable on any good modern map. Several there 

 are, however, whose identity is not clear, and various details of 

 the passage require explanation. It has long been observed that 

 the Epithalamion Thamesis probably bears some precedent rela- 

 tion to the bridal passage before us. Setting aside for the 

 moment the question of this relationship, the poet's hint in the 

 passage quoted points any inquirer concerning the meaning of his 

 lines in the Faery Queen on English rivers to Holinshed's Chron- 

 icles, where he finds a part — perhaps half — of the light he seeks. 

 It is found in chapters ii to 16 of the First Book, entitled 'The 

 Description of Britain.' This part, as is well known, was written 



* April 2. 



^ Works of Spenser, Globe ed., p. 709. In the second chapter of her 

 study on The Sources of the British Chronicle History in the Faerie 

 Queene (pp. 10-22), Dr. Carrie A. Harper quotes this passage, and makes 

 several scattered notes on the sources of Spenser's knowledge of English 

 rivers. She finds that while, of course, he referred to the first edition, 

 1577, of Holinshed's Chronicles in the passage of 1580 just quoted, yet 

 in arranging the pageant of English rivers of the Fourth Book he used 

 the edition of 1587. 



