THE FIFTH 



CHAP. XIX. Of several Rivers, and some Observations of Fish. 



PISCATOR. 



\ I 7 ELL, Scholar, since the ways and weather do both favor 

 * * 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 Doc- 

 tor Heylin's Geography and others, in number three hundred 

 and twenty-five ; but those of chiefest note he reckons and de- 

 scribes 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, etc. 



*' We saw so many woods and princely bowers, 

 Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers, 

 So many gardens, dressed with curious care, 

 That Thames with royal Tiber may compare." 



2. The second river of note is SABRINA or SEVERN. It hath 

 its beginning in Plinlimmon Hill in Montgomeryshire, and his 



