CHAPTER XIX. OF SEVERAL RIVERS, AND SOME 

 OBSERVATIONS OF FISH 



PISCATOR 



WELL, Scholar, since the ways and weather do both 

 favour us, and that we yet see not Tottenham-Cross, 

 you shall see my willingness to satisfy your desire. 

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

 note out of Dr. Heylin's 'Geography' and others, in number 

 325, but those of chiefest note he reckons and describes as 

 followeth. 



The chief is Thamisis, compounded of two rivers, Thame 

 and Isis ; whereof the former, rising somewhat beyond Thame 

 in Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester in Glou- 

 cestershire, meet together about Dorchester in Oxfordshire ; the 

 issue of which happy conjunction is the Thamisis, or Thames. 

 Hence it flieth betwixt Berks, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, 

 Surrey, Kent, and Essex, and so weddeth himself to the Kentish 

 Medway in the very jaws of the Ocean : this glorious river 

 feeleth the violence and benefit of the sea more than any river 

 in Europe, ebbing and flowing twice a day more than sixty 

 miles : about whose banks are so many fair towns, and princely 

 palaces, that a German Poet thus truly spake: 



Tot Campos, &c. 



We saw so many Woods and Princely bowers, 

 Sweet Fields, brave Palaces, and stately Towers; 

 So many Gardens, dress'd with curious care, 

 That Thames with royal Tiber may compare. 



2. The second river of note, is Sabrina or Severn ; it hath 

 it's beginning in Plinilimmon-Hill in Montgomeryshire, and his 

 end seven miles from Bristol, washing in the mean space the 

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