CHAF. XIX.] THE FIFTH DA Y. 195 



Buckinghamshire, and the latter near Cirencester in Gloucester- 

 shire, 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 itself 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 t poet 

 thus truly spake : — 



Tot campoSf &=€. 

 We saw so many woods and princely bowers, 

 Sweet fields, brave palaces, and stately towers \ 

 So many gardens drest 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 

 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. 



3. Trent, so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found 

 in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers ; who having his 

 fountain in Staffordshire, and gliding through the counties of 



* Though the current opinion is that the Thames had its name from the conjunction 

 of Thame and Isis, it plainly appears that the Jsis was always called Thames, or 'J ems, 

 before it came near the Tavie. Gibson's Cam.den, edit. 1753, p. og. And although the 

 head of the Thame is generally supposed to be in Oxfordshire, Camden (whom Walton 

 probably followed), Brit. 215, says it is in Buckinghamshire. Lambarde, however, 

 adopting the authority of Leland, says, *' Tame springeth out of the hilles of Hertford- 

 shire, at a place called Bulbume, a few myles from Penlye (the house of a family of 

 gentlemen called Verneys) ; it runneth from thence to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, 

 and to Tame (a market-town in Oxfordshire, whearunto it gyveth the name), then pass- 

 inge imder Whetley Bridge^ it cometh to Dorchester, and hard by joyneih with Isis, or 

 Ouse, and from that place joyneth with it in name a.\s,o." —DiciionaritiTtt To^ographi- 

 cum, voce Thame. Unfortunately, Leland's manuscript has lost twenty-five leaves in 

 that part of it where one might expect to find this passage. But the following extract 

 from an author of great authority, and who had a seat in the county of Hertford, will 

 determine the question : '* The Thame (the most famous river of England) issues from 

 three heads in the parish of Tring: the first rises in an orchard, near the parsonage- 

 house ; the second in a place called Dundell ; and the other proceeds from a spring 

 named Bulboume,, which last stream joins the other waters at a place called New Mill ; 

 whence all, gliding together in one current, through Puttenham in this county, pass by 

 ^ Aylesbury (a fair market-town in Buckinghamshire) to Etherop (an ancient pleasant 

 seat of that noble family of the Dormers, Earls of Carnarvon) ; and crossing that county, 

 bj^ Notley Abbey, to Thame (a market-town in Oxfordshire, which borrows its name from 

 this river), hasteneth away by Whately Bridge to Dorchester (an ancient episcopal seat), 

 and thence congratulates the Isis; but both emulating each other for the name, and 

 neither yielding, they are complicated by that of Thamisis,"— ^iv Henry Chauncy's 

 Historical A7itiq-uities of Hertfordshire, p. 2, — H. 



t Who this German poet was is not known ; but the verses, in the original Latin, are 

 in Heyiin's Cosmography', page 240, and are as follow : — 



Tot catnpos, sylvas, tot regia tecia, tot hortos^ 

 Artificiex cultos dextra, tot vidimus arces ; 

 Ut nunc Ausonio, Thamisis, cum Tibride certet. 



