BEST'S ART OF ANGLING. 



shire. They meet together about Dorchester in 

 Oxfordshire, and thence run united betwixt that 

 county and Bucks, and between Buckingham- 

 shire, Middlesex, and Essex, on the one side, 

 and Surry and Kent on the other, wedding itself 

 to the Kentish Medway in the very jaws of the 

 ocean. This river is said to feel the violence 

 and benefit of the sea more than any other river 

 in Europe, ebbing and flowing twice a day, more 

 than sixty miles. Sir John l)enham has given 

 so grand a description of the Thames, in his 

 Cooper's-hill, that I think the insertion of some 

 part cannot prove unacceptable to the reader : 



My eye descending from the hill, surveys 

 "Where Thames among the wanton rallies strays : 

 Thames ! the most lov : d of all the ocean's sons 

 By his old Sire to his embraces rwns, 

 Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, 

 Like mortal life to meet eternity j 

 Tho' with those streams he no resemblance hold* 

 "Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold : 

 His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore, 

 Search not his bottom, but survey his shore; 

 O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing, 

 And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring ; 

 Nor then destroys it with two fond a stay, 

 Like mothers, which their infants overlay : 

 Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave, 

 Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave. 

 No unexpected inundations spoil, 

 The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toil ; 

 But god-like his unweary'd bounty flows : 

 First ioves to do, then loves the good he does-. 

 Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd, 

 ' But tree and common as the sea or wind ; 

 "When he, to boast or to disperse his stores, 

 Full of the tribute of his grateful shores, 

 Visits the world, and in his flying tow' r.s, 

 Brings home to us, and makes both Indies 'ours, 

 Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants, 

 Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants. 

 So that to us no thing, no place, is strange, 

 While his fair bosom is the world's 



