Thou saw'st great burthen'd ships through these thy vallies pass.
Lay not here vnlikelihoods to the Authors charge; he tells you more iudi∣ciously towards the end of the Song. But the cause why some haue thought so, is, for that, d Gildas, speaking of S. Albons martyrdome and his miracu∣lous passing through the Riuer at Verlamcestre, calls it iter ignotum trans Tha∣mesis fluuij alueum: so by collection they guest that Thames had then his full course this way, being thereto further mou'd by Anchors and such like here digd vp. This coniecture hath been followed by that e Noble Muse thus in the person of Verlam;
And where the Crystall Thamis wont to slide
In siluer channell downe along the lee,
About whose flowry bankes on either side
A thousand Nymphes, with mirth fulliollity,
Were wont to play from all annoyance free:
There now no Riuers course is to be seene,
But Moorish Fennes, and Marshes euer greene.
There also where the winged ships were seene,
In liquid waues, to cut their fomie way;
A thousand Fishers numbred to haue been
In that wide Lake looking for plentious pray
Of fish, with baites which they vs'd to betray,
Is now no Lake, nor any Fishers store,
Nor euer Ship shall saile there any more.
But, for this matter of the Thames, those two great Antiquaries, Leland and Camden, haue ioind in iudgement against it: and for the Anchors, they may be suppos'd of fish-boats in large pooles, which haue here bin; and yet are lest re∣liques of their name.