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the Geologist aud Natural Historian that he may as well, and worthily, 

 spend a few days in this portion of Sabrina's domain, as in many other 

 localities whose charms are superficially more apparent. By the way, the 

 mention, or rather indication, of the existence of meretricious beauty in 

 connection with the name of Sahrina, brings to mind a difficulty in 

 reconciling the very opposite idea represented by the Celtic word from 

 which her Latin name appears to have been eu2)honized, with that 

 which the readers of Milton, are accustomed upon his showing, to 

 attach to it. He tells us in Comus : — 



" There is a gentle nymph not far from hence 



That ■with moist ciu'b sways the smooth Severn stream, 



Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure 

 ****** 



The guiltless damsel, flying the mad x'ursuit 

 Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen, 

 Commended her fair innocence to the flood, 

 That staid her flight with his cross-flowing covu-se." 



The statement that she thereupon became goddess of the river ; the 

 description of her reception by the water-nymphs, of the ofierings made 

 to her by the shepherds, who 



" Threw sweet garland wreaths into her stream 

 Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. " 



The purpose for which her aid was invoked, and the song in which 

 this is formally done by the attendant spirit, beginning, 



" Sabrina, fair, 

 Listen where thou art sitting. 

 Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, 

 In twisted braids of lilies knitting, 

 The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair : 



Listen, for dear honour's sake, 



Goddess of the silver lake. 



Listen and save," 



teach us unmistakeably, that the scene of her death was popularly 

 believed to have taken place in the upper and pellucid portion of the 

 stream ; that her Latin name was almost synonymous with virgin 

 purity and honour. 



Strange to say, the Celtic appellation, Hafren, bears a signification of 

 the most opposite aud degrading character ; the last in fact that should 

 be deemed appropriate to any female. Philology alone, we fear, will 

 not enable us to account for the difierence in meaning, of words avowedly 

 identical in derivation. Can it be, that as the river changed in 

 character from the ciystal stream, to the muddy tide fare, so did the 



