river floods that the tragedy has occurred. When he stays with my Lord Bathurst at Cirencester, he is dreaming of a great canal which shall wed the Severn to the river by whose streams he was nurtured. Thames is the presiding deity of his rustic pantheon, and round him circle the satellites, the little streams which combine to enhance his glory:—
"Around his throne the sea-born brothers stood,
Who swell with tributary arms his flood;
First the famed authors of his ancient name,
The winding Isis, and the fruitful Thame;
The Kennet swift, for silver eels renown'd;
The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crown'd;
Cole, whose dark streams his flow'ry islands lave;
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave;
The blue, transparent Vandalis appears;
The gulphy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;
And sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood;
And silent Darent, stained with Danish blood."[1]
"The Rape of the Lock" is the culmination of this influence. The story, like its fair heroine, is
"Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames,"
and under all its brilliant epigram, and dipt, biting phrase, the ripple of the water is heard in every line. An excursion to Hampton Court was the foundation of the "heroi-comical poem," as its author calls it; and in nothing is the charm of the Palace in its renewed youth more happily expressed. To compose a serious dissension was the object, it is said, of Mr. Caryll ("a
- ↑ "Windsor Forest."
