. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. h trees and flowers to such anextent that Izaak Walton quotes the complimentof a German poet of his own time :— So many gardens ilressd with cmious Thames willi royal Tiber may compare. The thames.) THifc ROMANCE OF-THE THAMES. 561 Indeed, this noble river has been a great themefor poets of all time, and deservedly. It is calledby Pope the silver Thames and the fruitfulThame; by Spenser the silver - streamingThames, and by Herrick the silver - footedThamesis. Sir John Denhams charming lines,so descriptive
. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. h trees and flowers to such anextent that Izaak Walton quotes the complimentof a German poet of his own time :— So many gardens ilressd with cmious Thames willi royal Tiber may compare. The thames.) THifc ROMANCE OF-THE THAMES. 561 Indeed, this noble river has been a great themefor poets of all time, and deservedly. It is calledby Pope the silver Thames and the fruitfulThame; by Spenser the silver - streamingThames, and by Herrick the silver - footedThamesis. Sir John Denhams charming lines,so descriptive of the English beauty of the Thames,often as they have been quoted, will bear beingrepeated here:— than by a desire to stand well with the alwaysvain but now aged queen, whom Horace Walpole,with his usual cynicism, describes at this periocT asbeing an old woman with bare neck, black teeth,and false red hair. The river and the metropolis, both so dear-toEnglishmen, are thus fantastically celebrated byPope in his Windsor Forest, from which wequote the following lines :—. ON THE TTIAMES AT LOW WATER. Oh ! could I flow like thee, and make thy streamMy great example as it is my theme !Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull;Strong without rage ; without oerflowing full. Drayton, too, in a poem published in EnglandsHelicon in 1600, thus eulogises the Thames andalong with it Elizabeth under the fanciful name ofBeta:— And oh ! thou silver Thames, O dearest crystal flood !Beta alone the phcenix is of all thy watery brood ;The queen of virgins only thou the queen of floods shalt all thy swans, fair Thames, together in a rank,And place them duly one by one upon thy stately bank. But it is sadly to be feared that such poets wereinspired less by a reverence for Father Thames122—Vol. III. From his oozy bedOld Father Thames advanced his reverend head ;His tresses droppd with dews, and oer the streamHis shining horns diffused a golden gleam :Gravd onhis
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