THE

THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction to the subject.-The blessings of Water.-The Poetry of Rivers.-Old London Bridge.-The New Bridge. -Reminiscences of Southwark.-The Globe Theatre.The Bear Garden.-Paris Garden.-Old Houses of the Nobility.

M

AN speaks of the "Mother Earth," from whence he came, and whither he returns; but, after all, the honour of his maternity belongs to WATER. Earth is but the nurse of another's progeny ; she merely nourishes the children of a more prolific element, by whom she herself is fed and clothed in return. Water is the universal mother, the beneficent, the all fructifying,

beautiful to the eye, refreshing to the touch, pleasant to the palate, and musical to the ear. What should we be without her? We have only to imagine the condition of the

VOL. I.

B

moon, and the question is answered. Men with great telescopes, who have looked over her surface, and examined every hole and cranny in her, have decided that, for want of water, she is nothing but a dry and uninhabitable rock. There is neither salt water nor fresh in all her extent. She is the abode of no living thing,-the Gehenna of desolation, the mere skeleton of a world, which the sun may light, but cannot warm. No wonder that she looks so pale and woebegone as she sails along the sky, and that lovers and poets, ignorant of her peculiar misfortune, have so often asked her the reason of her sorrow. I' faith, they would be sorry too, if they had no more moisture in their composition than she has.

We may pity the idolatry, but cannot condemn the feelings, which led mankind in the early ages to pay divine honours to the ocean and the streams. It was soon recognised that water was the grand reservoir of health, the source of plenty, the beautifier, the preserver, and the renovator of the world. Venus, rising from the sea-froth in immortal loveliness, typifies its uses and beneficence: water was the first parent of that goddess, who was afterwards to become the mother of love and the

emblem of fruitfulness. Poseidon in the Greek, and Neptune in the Roman mythology, ranked among the benevolent gods; and the oceanqueen Amphitrite was adorned with a loveliness only second to that of Venus. In other parts of the world, Ocean, from its immensity, was more an object of terror; but rivers have everywhere been the objects of love and adoration. A sect of the ancient Persians reverenced them so highly, that they deemed it sacrilege to pollute them. For countless ages the dwellers by the Ganges have looked upon it as a god, and have deemed it the summit of human felicity to be permitted to expire upon its banks. The Egyptian still esteems the Nile above all earthly blessings; and the Abyssinian worships it as a divinity. Superstition has peopled these and a thousand other streams with a variety of beings, or personified them in human shapes, the better to pay them homage.

Rivers all over the world are rich in remembrances. To them are attached all the poetry and romance of a nation. Popular superstition clings around them, and every mile of their course is celebrated for some incident,-is the scene of a desperate adventure, a mournful legend, or an old song. What a swarm of

pleasant thoughts rise upon the memory at the sole mention of the Rhine!-what a host of recollections are recalled by the name of the Danube, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Meuse, the Seine, the Loire, the Tagus, the Guadalquiver! even the low-banked and unpicturesque Elbe and Scheldt are dear as household things to the neighbouring people. Their praises are sung in a hundred different idioms; and the fair maidens who have dwelt upon their banks, and become celebrated for their beauty, their cruelty, or their woe, have had their names mingled with that of the river in the indissoluble bands of national song.

To the man who has a catholic faith in poetry, every river in Scotland may be said to be holy water. Liddell, and Tweed, and Dee,

Tiviot, and Tay, and Forth, and doleful Yarrow, sanctified by a hundred songs. Poetry and romance have thrown a charm around them, and tourists from every land are familiar with their history. Great writers have thought it a labour of love to collect into one focus all the scattered memoranda and fleeting scraps of ballads relating to them, until those insignificant streams have become richer than any of our isle in recollections which shall never fade.

"And what has been done for these, shall