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[Illustration: AT HAMPTON COURT]




  THE THAMES


  DESCRIBED BY G. E. MITTON
  PICTURED BY E. W. HASLEHUST


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  LONDON AND GLASGOW




Beautiful England

  BATH AND WELLS
  CANTERBURY
  DARTMOOR
  DICKENS-LAND
  EXETER
  FOLKESTONE AND DOVER
  HAMPTON COURT
  HASTINGS AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
  NORWICH AND THE BROADS
  OXFORD
  THE PEAK DISTRICT
  RIPON AND HARROGATE
  SHAKESPEARE-LAND
  THE THAMES
  WINCHESTER
  YORK

London

  THE HEART OF LONDON
  THROUGH LONDON'S HIGHWAYS
  IN LONDON'S BY-WAYS
  RAMBLES IN GREATER LONDON


Beautiful Scotland

  EDINBURGH
  THE SCOTT COUNTRY
  LOCH LOMOND, LOCH KATRINE, AND THE TROSSACHS


Beautiful Switzerland

  CHAMONIX
  LAUSANNE
  VILLARS AND CHAMPERY


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  Facing Page

  At Hampton Court      _Frontispiece_

  Windsor                            5

  Richmond                          12

  Marlow Lock                       16

  Maidenhead Bridge                 21

  Cookham Church                    28

  Henley                            33

  Sonning                           37

  Pangbourne                        44

  Folly Bridge, Oxford              48

  Streatley Hills                   51

  Wallingford                       54




[Illustration: WINDSOR]




THE THAMES


When the American wondered what all the fuss was about, and "guessed" that
any one of his home rivers could swallow the Thames and never know it, the
Englishman replied, he "guessed" it depended at which end the process
began; if at the mouth, the American river would probably get no farther
than the "greatest city the world has ever known" before succumbing to
indigestion!

With rivers as with men, size is not an element in greatness, and for no
other reason than that it carries London on its banks the Thames would be
the most famous river in the world. It has other claims too, claims which
are here set forth with pen and pencil; for at present we are not dealing
with London at all, but with that river of pleasure of which Spenser
wrote:--

  Along the shores of silver-streaming Themmes;
  Whose rutty bank, the which his river hemmes,
  Was paynted all with variable flowers,
  And all the meades adorned with dainty gemmes,
  Fit to deck mayden bowres and crowne their paramoures,
  Against the brydale day which is not long,
  Sweet Thames! runne softly till I end my song.

Oddly enough, this is one of the comparatively few allusions to the Thames
in literature, and there is no single striking ode in its honour. It is
perhaps too much to expect the present Poet Laureate to fill the gap, but
certainly the poet of the Thames has yet to arise.

Besides Spenser, Drayton makes allusion to the Thames in his _Polyolbion_,
using as an allegory the wedding of Thame and Isis, from which union is
born the Thames; and in this he is correct, for where Thame and Isis unite
at Dorchester there begins the Thames, and all that is usually counted
Thames, up to Oxford and beyond, is, as Oxford men correctly say, the
Isis. Yet by custom now the river which flows past Oxford is treated as
the Thames, and when we speak of our national river we count its source as
being in the Cotswold Hills.

Other poets who refer to the Thames are Denham, Cowley, Milton, and Pope.
In modern times Matthew Arnold's tender descriptions of the river about
and below Oxford have been many times quoted. Gray wrote an _Ode on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College_, in which he refers to the "hoary
Thames", but the lines apostrophizing the "little victims" at play are
more often quoted than those regarding the river.

The influence of the Thames on the countless sons of England who have
passed through