314 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Of several RIVERS, and some Observations of 



PlSCATOR. 



WELL, scholar! since the ways and weather do both 

 favour us, and that we yet see not Tottenham cross, you 

 shall see wy willingness to satisfy your desire.. And, 

 first, for the rivers of this nation: there be as you 

 inay note out of Doctor Heylin's Geography *, and 

 others in number 325 ; but those of chiefest note, he 

 yeckons and describes as followeth : 



The chief is Thamesis ; compounded of two rivers, 

 Thame and Jsis, whereof the former, rising some- 

 what l)ejond Thame in Buckinghamshire, and the lat- 

 ter near Girencester in Gloucestershire, meet together 

 about Dorchester in Oxfordshire; the issue of which 

 happy conjunction is the Thamesis, or Thames t; 



* It should be Dr. Heylin's Cosmography, a book well known. Great 

 confusion arises from the want of a clear idea of the many words in our 

 language that have this termination ; but it seems they are well under- 

 stood by some. About forty years ago, Mr. Jefferys, a printseller at the 

 corner of St. Martin's-lane, and a great engraver of maps, got himself 

 to be enrolled in the list of the servants of Frederick, prince of Wales, by 

 the designation of Geographer to his Royal Highness. Rocque, who 

 published the great map of London at that time a young man, and de- 

 sirous of an honourable adjunct to his name applied, shprtly after, to, 

 the servants of the Prince, and with the tender of a proper gratuity, SOT 

 licited the same appointment : but was given to understand by them, that 

 he was too late, for that the office of Geographer was disposed of; but 

 they (probably hearing the chink of his money) comforted him by say- 

 ing, that they could set him down, in terms of their own invention, 

 either Topographer, cr Chorographer, to his Royal Highness the Prince. 

 The charm of these sonorous appellations was too strong to be resisted. 

 Mr. Rocque, therefore, after due deliberation upon a matter so import- 

 ant, made choice of the former ; and, in addition to his name, caused it 

 to be painted on the front of his shop in the Strand. 



j- Though the current opinion is, that the Thames had its name from 

 the conjunction of Tbame and /j/j,- it plainly appears, that the Isis was 

 always called Thames ^ or Terns > before it came near the Tame. Gibson's 

 Camden, Ed r t. 1753. p. 99. . 



And as to the head of the Thame ; although it is generally supposed to 

 be in Oxfordshire, Camden (whom we may suppose Walton followed) 

 Brit. 315. says it is in Buckinghamshire. 



But what shall we say to the following account, which Lambarde haa 



