OF SEVERAL RIVERS. 337 



4. Medway, a Kentish river, famous for harbouring the 

 royal navy. 



5. Tweed, the north-east bound of England ; on whose 

 northern banks is seated the strong and impregnable town 

 of Berwick. 



6. Tyne, famous for Newcastle, and her inexhaustible 

 coal-pits. These, and the rest of principal note, are thus 

 comprehended in one of Mr. Drayton's sonnets : 



Our floods' queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crown'd ; 



And stately Severn for her shore is praised ; 

 The crystal Trent, for fords and fish renown'd ; 



And Avon's fame to Albion's cliffs is raised. 



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 Medway doth excel. 



Cotswold commends her I sis to the Thame ; 



Our northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood ; 

 Our western parts extol their Willy's fame ; 



And the old Lea brags of the Danish blood. 



These observations are out of learned Dr. Heylin, and 

 my old deceased friend, Michael Drayton ; and because you 

 say you love such discourses as these, of rivers and fish and 

 fishing, I love you the better, and love the more to impart 

 them to you. Nevertheless, scholar, if I should begin but 

 to name the several sorts of strange fish that are usually 

 taken in many of those rivers that run into the sea, I might 

 beget wonder in you, or unbelief, or both ; and yet I will 

 venture to tell you a real truth concerning one lately dis- 

 sected by Dr. Wharton, a man of great learning and ex- 



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