300 FKinilKS AND XAVK JAP.LE HIVKIJS. 



The great commercial republic of Holland may Iv 

 said to have led the way in Europe in the construction 

 of a system of artificial water-roads, which placed the 

 whole country in direct communication with the seaports. 

 Centuries before any attempt of the kind had been made 

 in England, 1 Holland had provided itself with a magni- 

 ficent system of canals ; and the industrial energy of its 

 people had enabled the nation to attain a remarkable de- 

 gree of vigour, prosperity, and power. France also had 

 constructed a system of canals, connecting the Loire and 

 the Seine, the Loire and the Saone, and, by means of the 

 great canal of Languedoc, the Atlantic Ocean with the 

 Mediterranean Sea. This latter magnificent work was 

 begun almost a century before England had attempted 

 to make a single canal. Even Sweden and Eussia were 

 long before England in undertaking such works, and 

 Peter the Great constructed his grand canal between the 

 Don and the Volga about half a century before England 

 had entered upon her career of canal-making. 



In the reign of James I. several Acts of Parliament 

 were passed enabling rivers to be improved, so as to 

 facilitate the passage of boats and barges carrying mer- 

 chandise. Thus, in 1623, we have found Sir Hugh 

 Myddelton engaged upon a Committee on a bill then 

 under consideration " for the making of the river of 

 Thames navigable to Oxford." In the same year Taylor, 

 the water poet, pointed out to the inhabitants of Salis- 

 bury that their city might be effectually relieved of its 

 poor by having their river made navigable from thence 

 to Christchurch. 2 The progress of improvement, how- 

 ever, must have been slow ; for urgent appeals Continued 

 to be addressed to Parliament and the public, for a cen- 

 tury later, on the same subject. 



1 It is right, however, to state that j Morton's Learn having been thus used 

 the large drains cut by the early between Peterborough and the se.-i M 



churchmen in the Cambridge Fens 

 seem to have been employed for pur- 

 poses of inland navigation Bishop 



early as the fifteenth century. 



' A Discovery by Sea from Lon- 



i.~ O^'K.-.'U,,,.,,. ' T K,~.A^-r* 1COQ 



don to Salisbury.' London, 1623. 



