JHAP. XIX. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 219 



Cotswold commends her Ixis to the Tame ; 



Our Northern borders boast of Tweed's fair flood; 

 Our Western parts extol their Willy's fme, 



And the old Lea b'rags 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 dissected by Dr. Wharton, a man of great 

 learning and experience, and of equal freedom to commu- 

 nicate it ; one that loves me and my art ; one to whom I 

 have been beholden for many of the choicest observations 



(1) " LEEflu. Ly^an, Saxon. Luy, Mar. [fortan Marcellinus] Lea, Poly- 

 doru. The name of the water which (runnyn betwene Ware tnd London) 

 devydethe, for a prent part of the way, Essex and Hertfordshire. It begynnethe 

 aear a place called Whitchurche ; and from thence, pastinge by Hertford, Ware, 

 and Waltham, openethe into the Thatnise at Ham in Essex ; wheare the place 

 is, at this d*y, called Lee Mouthc. It hathe, of longe tyme, home vessells 

 from London, 20 miles towarde the head ; for, in tyme of Kwige Alfrede, the 

 Danes entered Leymouthe, and fortified, at a place adjoyninge to this ryver, 

 20 myles from London; where, by fortune, Kinge Alfrede passioge by, espied 

 that the channel! of the ryver might be in such sorte weakened, that they should 

 want water to return withe their shippes : he caused therefore the water to be 

 abated by two greate trendies, and settinge the Londoners upon thetro, he made 

 theim batteil: wherein they lost four of their capitaines, and a great nomber of 

 their common touldiers ; the. reste flyinge into the castle which they had builte. 

 Not longe after, they weare so pressed that they forsoVe all, and left their 

 shippes as a pray to the Londoners; which breakinge some, and burninge other, 

 conveyed the rest to London. This castle, for the distance, might seme Htrt- 

 forde; but it was same oilier upon that banke, which had no longe continu- 

 ance; for Edward the elder, and son of this Alfrede, builded Hertforde not 

 longe after." Vide LambarJe's Dictionarium Topographicum, voce LEE. 

 Dray ton's Polyolbion, Song the Twelfth, and the first Note thereon. 



Other authors, who confirm this fact, also add, That for the purpose aforesaid 

 he opened the mouth of the river. See Sir William Dugdale's History of the 

 tmbiinkine, and draining the Fens, and Sir John Spelman's Lift of Alfred 

 the Great, published by Hearne, in 8vo. 1709; the perusal of which last-named 

 author will leave the reader in very little doubt but that these trenches are the 

 very same that now branch off from the river between Temple-Mills aud Old- 

 Ford, aud, crossing the Stratford road, enter the Thames, together with the prin- 

 cipal stream, a little below Blackwall. 



