CHAP, XIX. THE COMPLETE ANGLER, 317 



Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee ; 



York many wonders of her Ouse can tell ; 

 The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be, 



And Kent will say her Mediuay doth excel : 

 Cotswold commends her I sis to the Tame ; 



Our Northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood ; 

 Our Western parts extol the WiUy's fame, 



And the old Lea brag of the Danish blood *. 



* " LEEfu. Ly jail, Saxon. Luy. Mar. [forsan Marcellinus] Lea % 

 Polydoro. " The name of the water which (runnyn betwene Ware and 

 " London) devydethe, for a great part of the way, Essex and Hertford- 

 " shyre. It begynnethe near a place called Whitchurche; and, from 

 ' thence passinge by Hertford, Ware, and Waltham, openethe into the 

 " Thamise at Ham in Essex : wheare the place is, at this day, called Lee 

 " Moutbf. It hathe, of longe tyme, borne vessells from London, 2O 

 " miles towarde the head ; for, in tyme of Kinge Alfrede, the Danes en- 

 *f tered Leymouthe, and fortified, at a place adjoininge to this ryver, 20 

 " myles from London : Where, by fortune, king Alfrede passinge by, 

 " espied that the channell of the ryver might be in suche sorte weakened, 

 " that they should want water to returne withe their shippes : he caused 

 " therefore the water to be abated by two greate trenches, and settinge 

 " the Londoners upon theim, he made them batteil ; wherein they lost 

 " four of their capitaines, and a greate nomber of their common soul- 

 " diers, the rest flyinge into the castle which they had builte. Not longe 

 " after they weare so pressed, that they forsoke all, and lefte their 

 " shippes as a pray to the Londoners ; which breakinge some, and burn- 

 *' inge other, conveyed the reast to London. This castle, for the distance, 

 * might seme Hertforde ; but it was some other, upon that banke, which 

 *' had no longe continuance ; for Edward the elder, and son of this Alfrede^ 

 " builded Hertforde not longe after." Vide Lambarde's Dictionarhim To- 

 pograpkhunt, voce LEE. Drayton's Polyo/liion, Song the twelfth, and 

 the first note thereon. 



Other authors, who confirm this fact, also add, That, for the purpos* 

 aforesaid, he opened the mouth of the river. Vide Sir William Dugdale's 

 History of the embanking and draining the fens, and Sir John Spelman'* 

 Life of Alfred the Great, published by Hearne, in 8vo. 1709; the perusal 

 of which last named author will leave the reader in very little doubt, but 

 that these trenches are the very same that now branch off from the river 

 between Temple-Mills and Old-Ford, and, crossing the Stratford road, 

 enter the Thames, together with the principal stream, a little below 

 Blackwall. 



It is hardly supposable, that every reader of this work is acquainted 

 with the character of that excellent prince, whose wisdom and policy are 

 above celebrated. Let us, therefore, stop a moment, to contemplate 

 that venerable and amiable assemblage of regal and private virtues, 

 which has hitherto distinguished his name ; And when we are told, That 

 hje was the founder of that excellent constitution ^ which even foreigners 

 confess to be the best formed in the world for the purposes of govern- 



