o speak of the fabled Nile, as it was in the days of Sesostris, when
Herodotus wrote of it; and the Danube, the Po, and the Arno,--all rivers
of the old world, that have been described by a thousand poets. But,
above all these, the Thames has furnished a more frequent theme, and for
great poets, too! Every aspirant for the immortal bays has tried his
'prentice hand on it, from Chaucer, in excelsis, down to the poet Close
at the foot of the Parnassian ladder!

"We were talking of the Thames," continued the vicar, pouring out a
flood of archaeological reminiscences--"The great reason why it is so
suggestive, beyond the great practical fact that it is the silent
highway of the fleets of nations, is, that it is also indissolubly bound
up, as well, with by-gone memories of people that have lived and died,
to the glory and disgrace of history--of places whose bare names we
cherish and love! Every step, almost, along its banks is sacred to some
noble name. `Stat magno nominis umbra' should be its motto. Strawberry
Hill reminds you of witty, keen-sighted Horace Walpole, and his
gossiping chit-chat concerning wrangling princes, feeble-minded
ministers, and all the other imbecilities of the last century.
Twickenham brings back to one, bitter-tongued Pope, his distorted body
and waspish mind. Richmond Hill recalls the Earl of Chatham in his
enforced retirement, his gout, and the memorable theatrical speech he
made on the floor of the House of Lords, at the time of our greatest
national triumph and exertion, that closed his public life. Further up
the stream, we come to old Windsor Castle, to be reminded of bluff
Bluebeard, bigamous, wicked, king Hal; higher still, we are at Oxford,
the nursery of our Church, the `alma mater' of our learning. Lower
down, at Whitehall stairs, we are face to face again with Roundheads,
and regicides, and gunpowder plots; lower still, and we are at the
Tower, with its cruel tyrannies and beheadings of traitors and patriots;
and then, we find ourselves amidst a sea of masts which bear the English
flag to the uttermost parts of the earth. No wonder our river has been
so poetical:--it has deserved it! But, really, if all the poems that
have been written in its honour could be collected in one volume, what a
prodigious tome it would be!--what a medley of versification it would
present!"

"Sure you've forgotten the Shannon entirely," observed Lady Dasher in
her plaintive way.

She was certainl