CHAP. XIX.] THE FIFTH DAT. 297 



and Isis ; whereof the former, rising somewhat beyond 

 Thame in Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester 

 in Gloucestershire, 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 whase 

 banks are so many fair towns and princely palaces, that a 

 German poet thus truly spake : 



Tot campos, &c. 



We saw so many woods and princely bowers, . 

 Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers ; 

 So many gardens, dress'd with curious care, 

 That Thames with royal Tiber may compare. 1 



2. The second river of note, is Sabrina or Severn. It 

 hath its beginning in Plinilimmon-Hill in Montgomeryshire, 

 and his end seven miles from Bristol ; washing in the mean 

 space, the walls of Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester, 

 and divers other places and palaces of note. 



solemn still deeps of the Shannon Loughs, their beautiful islets, the 

 majestic serene sweep of its broad swelling streams, their surface ruffled 

 only by a gentle ground swell, or by the passing breeze, and the grand 

 turbulent rapids at Castle Connell, must create delightful emotions of 

 surprise in the mind of the beholder. In the outlets of many of the Irish 

 lakes, as the river Erne at Bally Shannon, there may be as picturesque 

 points, and equal beauty ; but the Shannon alone has the magnitude of 

 sublimity, and that pleasing variety which its great extent only could 

 give. There is a peculiar interest, scarcely equalled in any other part 

 of the United Kingdom, in the mediaeval remains scattered about the banks 

 and islands of this noble stream, as any traveller must feel who lingers, 

 as I did, among the mysterious round towers and the crosses of Elan- 

 macnoise. ED. 



1 Who this German poet was is not known, but the verses, in the 

 original Latin, are in Heylin's "Cosmography," page 240, and are as 

 follow : 



"Tot campos, sylvas, tot regia tecta, tot hortos 



Artifici excultos dextra, tot vidimus arces ; 



Ut nunc Ausonio, Thamisis cum Tibride certet." H. 



