Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal
signs=.
THE THAMES
VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES BY MORTIMER MENPES
EACH 20S. NET WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
THE DURBAR
JAPAN · WORLD'S CHILDREN
WORLD PICTURES · VENICE
WAR IMPRESSIONS
INDIA · BRITTANY
_Published by_
A. & C. BLACK. SOHO SQUARE. LONDON. W.
_AGENTS_
AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
27 RICHMOND STREET, TORONTO
INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY
309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA
[Illustration: PUNTING]
THE THAMES
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY G. E. MITTON
PUBLISHED BY A.&C. BLACK
SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
_Published July 1906_
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
The Beauty of the River 1
CHAPTER II
The Oxford Meadows 25
CHAPTER III
The Old Town of Abingdon 37
CHAPTER IV
Dorchester and Sinodun Hill 47
CHAPTER V
Castle and Stronghold 53
CHAPTER VI
Twin Villages 57
CHAPTER VII
A Mitred Abbot 67
CHAPTER VIII
Sonning and its Roses 72
CHAPTER IX
Wargrave and Neighbourhood 80
CHAPTER X
Henley 97
CHAPTER XI
The Romance of Bisham and Hurley 105
CHAPTER XII
Boulter's Lock and Maidenhead 128
CHAPTER XIII
Windsor and Eton 140
CHAPTER XIV
Magna Charta 155
CHAPTER XV
Penton Hook 161
CHAPTER XVI
Weybridge and Chertsey 167
CHAPTER XVII
The Londoner's Zone 177
CHAPTER XVIII
The River at London 205
CHAPTER XIX
Our National Possession 231
Index 243
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Punting _Frontispiece_
PAGE
2. Thames Ditton v
3. Sutton Courtney, Culham Bridge 1
4. Pangbourne _Facing_ 4
5. Dorchester Abbey " 8
6. Day's Lock " 12
7. Near the Bridge, Sutton Courtney " 14
8. Streatley Inn " 18
9. Sandford Lock 25
10. Iffley _Facing_ 28
11. Radley College Boat-house " 34
12. Almshouses of Abingdon 37
13. Abingdon _Facing_ 38
14. The Mill at Abingdon " 40
15. Sutton Courtney Backwater " 42
16. Clifden Hampden from the Bridge " 44
17. Clifden Hampden " 46
18. Hurley 47
19. Cottages, Dorchester _Facing_ 48
20. White Hart Hotel, Dorchester " 50
21. Dorchester Backwater " 52
22. Danesfield 53
23. Wallingford _Facing_ 54
24. Streatley Mill " 56
25. Goring Bridge 57
26. Streatley _Facing_ 58
27. Goring Church " 60
28. Goring " 62
29. Pangbourne, from the Swan Hotel " 64
30. Whitchurch Lock " 64
31. Mapledurham Mill " 66
32. Evening 67
33. Caversham _Facing_ 70
34. Paddling 72
35. The Rose Garden at Sonning _Facing_ 72
36. Sonning " 76
37. St. George and the Dragon, Wargrave 80
38. The Church at Wargrave _Facing_ 80
39. Barges at Oxford 97
40. Red Lion Hotel, Henley _Facing_ 98
41. Henley Regatta " 100
42. Hambleden " 102
43. Medmenham Abbey 105
44. General View of Marlow _Facing_ 106
45. Quarry Woods " 108
46. Bisham Church " 110
47. Hurley Backwater " 112
48. Bisham Abbey " 114
49. Cookham, from above 128
50. Boulter's Lock, Ascot Sunday _Facing_ 128
51. Below Boulter's Lock " 130
52. Maidenhead " 132
53. Eton, from the Brocas 140
54. Windsor Castle _Facing_ 140
55. Windsor " 144
56. Eton Chapel, from the Fields " 148
57. Magna Charta Island 155
58. Hedsor Fishery 161
59. Temple Lock 167
60. Walton Bridge _Facing_ 172
61. Sunbury " 174
62. Hampton Court 177
63. Hampton Court, from the River _Facing_ 178
64. Marlow Church 205
65. Beyond Hammersmith Bridge _Facing_ 206
66. The Custom House " 208
67. Dutch Barges near the Tower " 210
68. The Tower of St. Magnus " 212
69. St. Paul's _Facing_ 214
70. The Houses of Parliament " 216
71. Westminster by Night " 218
72. Hay Barges near Westminster Bridge " 222
73. Chelsea Reach, with the Old Church " 226
74. View from Richmond Hill 231
75. From Battersea Bridge _Facing_ 232
_Sketch Map at end of Volume_
_The Illustrations in this volume were engraved and printed at the
Menpes Press, Watford._
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE BEAUTY OF THE RIVER
Close your eyes and conjure up a vision of the river Thames; what
is the picture that you see? If you are a prosaic and commercial
person, whose business lies by the river side, the vision will be one
of wharves and docks, of busy cranes loading and unloading; a row of
bonded warehouses rising from the water's edge; lighters filled with
tea lying in their shadow, tarpaulined and padlocked; ships of all
sizes and shapes, worn by water and weather. And up and down, in and
out, among it all you see river police on their launch, inquisitive
and determined, watching everything, hearing everything, and turning
up when least expected. The glories of the high Tower Bridge, and the
smoky gold of the setting sun will not affect you, for your thoughts
are fixed on prosaic detail. As for green fields and quiet backwaters,
such things do not enter into the vision at all.
Yet for one who sees the Thames thus prosaically, a hundred see it in
a gayer aspect. To many a man it is always summer there, for the river
knows him not when the chill grey days draw in. He sees gay houseboats
in new coats of paint, decorated with scarlet geraniums and other
gaudy plants. He associates the river with "a jolly good time" with a
carefully chosen house-party, with amateur tea-making and an absence of
care. Nowhere else is one so free to "laze" without the rebuke even of
one's own occasionally too zealous conscience.
To another the Thames simply means the Boat Race, nothing more and
nothing less. Year by year he journeys up to London from his tiny
vicarage in the heart of the country for that event. If the high
tide necessitates it, he stands shivering on the brink in the chill
whiteness of early morning. He sits on the edge of a hard wooden cart
for an immense time, and, by way of keeping up his strength, eats an
indigestible penny bun, a thing that it would never enter his head to
do at any other time. He sees here and there one or the other of those
school-fellows or university chums who have dropped out of his life for
all the rest of the year. Then, after a moment's shouting, a moment's
tense anxiety or bitter disappointment, according to the position of
the boats, the flutter of a flag, and a thrill of something of the old
enthusiasm that the unsparing poverty of his life has slowly ground out
of him, he retires to his vicarage again for another year, elated or
depressed according to the result of the race.
To others Henley is the embodiment of all that is joyous; the one week
in the year that is worth counting. But to others, and these a vast
majority of those who know the river at all, the Thames means fresh
and life-giving air after a week spent within four walls. It means
congenial exercise and light, and the refreshment that beauty gives,
even if but half realised. It means a quiet dream with a favourite pipe
in a deep backwater so overhung with trees that it resembles a green
tunnel. The gentle drone of the bees sounds from the banks, there is a
flash of blue sheen as a kingfisher darts by; a gentle dip and slight
crackling tell of another favoured individual making his way cautiously
along to the same sheltered alley; the radiant sunlight falls white
upon the water through the leaves and sends shimmering reflections of
dancing ripples on the sides of the punt. Such a position is as near
Paradise as it is given to mortal to attain.
These are only a few of an inexhaustible variety of aspects of this
glorious river, and each reader is welcome to add his own favourite to
the list.
[Illustration: PANGBOURNE]
For the purposes of this book we are dealing with the Thames between
Oxford and London, though as a matter of fact, tradition has it that
the Thames proper does not begin until below Oxford, where it is formed
by the junction of the Thame and the Isis. Tamese (Thames) means
"smooth spreading water." Tam is the same root as occurs in Tamar,
etc., and the "es" is the perpetually recurring word for water, _e.g._,
Ouse, ooze, usquebagh. Isis is probably a back formation, from Tamesis.
In Drayton's _Polyolbion_, we have the pretty allegory of the wedding
of Thame and Isis, from which union is born the sturdy Thames.
Now Fame had through this Isle divulged in every ear
The long expected day of marriage to be near,
That Isis, Cotswold's heir, long woo'd was lastly won,
And instantly should wed with Thame, old Chiltern's son.
In Spenser's _Faërie Queene_ the notion is carried one step further,
and Thames, the son of Thame and Isis, is to wed with Medway, a
far-fetched conceit, for the rivers do not run into each other in any
part of their course.
It is strange that a river such as the Thames, which, though by no
means great as regards size, has played an important part in the
life of the nation, should not have inspired more writers. There is
no striking poem on the Thames. The older poets, Denham, Drayton,
Spenser, Cowley, Milton, and Pope, all refer to the river more or less
frequently, but they have not taken it as a main theme. It is even more
neglected by later poets. There are poems to special parts or scenes,
such as Gray's well-known "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College";
the river colours one or two of Matthew Arnold's poems; but the great
poem, which shall take it as a sole theme, is yet to come. Neither
is there a good book on this river, though it is among rivers what
London is among the cities of men. Yet the material is abundant, and
associations are scattered thickly along the banks. No fewer than seven
royal palaces have stood by the river. And of these one is still the
principal home of our sovereign. Of the others, Hampton Court, chiefly
reminiscent of William III., is standing. The neighbouring palace of
Richmond remains but in a fragment. At London, Westminster, the home of
our early and mediæval kings, has vanished, except for the great hall
and a crypt. Whitehall--the old palace--is wholly gone, though one part
of the new palace projected by James I. remains. As for the old palace
of Greenwich, so full of memories of the Tudors, that has been replaced
by a later structure. I hesitate to name Kew in this list, so entirely
unworthy is it of the name of palace, yet, as the residence of a king
it should, perhaps, find a place.
From the annals of these palaces English history could be completely
reconstructed from the time of Edward the Confessor to the present day.
But it is not in historical memories alone that the Thames is so rich.
Poets, authors, politicians, and artists have crowded thickly on its
banks from generation to generation. The lower reaches are haunted by
the names of Hogarth, Cowley, Thomson; further up we come to the homes
of Walpole, Pope, and Fielding. At Laleham lived Matthew Arnold. Not
far from Magna Charta Island is Horton, where Milton lived. Though his
home was not actually on the river, Milton must have often strolled
along the banks of the Thames, and many of his poems show the impress
of associations gathered from such scenery as is to be found about
Ankerwyke and Runneymead:
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
While the landscape round it measures:
Russet lawns and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray.
Meadows trim with daisies pied;
Shallow brooks and rivers wide.
From the records of Eton alone many a book might be compiled of the
lives of men in the public eye, whose impressions were formed there by
the Thames side. Indeed, had the river no other claim to notice than
its connection with Eton and Oxford, through which more men who have
controlled the destiny of their country and made empire have passed,
than through any similar foundations in England, this alone would be
cause enough to make it a worthy subject for any book.
Beside palaces and the homes of great men, castles and religious
houses once stood thickly along the banks of the river. The notable
monasteries of Reading, Dorchester, Chertsey, and Abingdon, etc., were
widely celebrated as seats of learning in their day, and the castles of
Reading, Wallingford, and Oxford were no less well known.
It is a curious law in rivers that, as a whole, the windings usually
cover double the length of the direct axis, and the Thames is no
exception to the rule. It sweeps in and out with a fair amount of
regularity, the great bend to the south at Thames Ditton and Weybridge
being reversed higher up in the great bend to the north at Bourne End
and Hambleden. Naturally the sides of these indentations run north and
south instead of in the usual course of east and west. From Wargrave
to Henley the current is almost due north, and likewise from Surbiton
to Brentford. A more apparent curve, because much smaller in radius, is
that at Abingdon; here the course by the stream is about nine miles, in
contrast to the two overland. The Great Western Railway is the chief
river railway, but as it runs a comparatively straight course between
London and Didcot, some places on the great curves are considerably
off the main line, and are served by branches. After Reading it keeps
very close to the river as far as Moulsford, and is not distant from
it the rest of the way to Oxford, as it turns almost direct north from
Didcot Junction. The Great Western Railway is ably supplemented by the
London and South Western Railway, from which the lesser stations on the
south of the river near to London can be reached, also the districts
of Twickenham, Hampton, etc., included in the chapter called "The
Londoners' Zone." Further up, Weybridge, Chertsey, Egham, and Windsor
can also be reached by this railway, which cuts a curve and touches the
river again at Reading.
[Illustration: DORCHESTER ABBEY]
There are many zones on the river, and each has its devotees. It is
curious to notice how one crowd differs from another crowd on its
"people-pestered shores." It is difficult to draw hard and fast lines,
but taking the boundaries of the London County Council as the end of
London, we can count above it many zones, rich in beauty, divided from
each other by stretches of dulness; for, beautiful as the river is,
it must be admitted parts of it are dull, though, like the patches
on a fair skin, these serve but to emphasise the characteristics
of the remainder. A rather dreary bit succeeds Hammersmith, though
this is not without its own attractiveness, and the first real zone
that we can touch upon is that from Richmond to Hampton, which runs
Maidenhead hard for first place in popularity; but the Richmond and
Hampton river people are largely recruited from the inhabitants, while
those at Maidenhead are mostly visitors. Passing over the waterworks
and embankments above Hampton, we begin another zone, much less known
because less accessible, but in its own way more attractive than that
of Richmond. It is pure country, with green fields, willow trees, cows
grazing on the banks, many curves and doublings in the channel of the
main stream, and ever varying vistas, and this continues to beyond
Weybridge. About Chertsey the scenery is flat, but Laleham and Penton
Hook are two places that annually delight hundreds of persons.
Between Staines and Windsor there is a fairly attractive stretch, with
the park and woods of Ankerwyke on one side, and the meadows on the
other. High on the south rises Cooper's Hill, and beyond Albert Bridge
we see the smoothly kept turf of the Home Park.
Windsor and Eton, of course, will require a chapter to themselves. In
this general description it is sufficient to say that the influence
of Eton is apparent all the way to Bray. Then we start a new zone, the
most popular one on the river, that from Maidenhead to Bourne End. Of
the delights of this beautiful and varied section it is unnecessary
here to speak. But the Maidenhead reach is spoilt for fastidious people
by its too great popularity. To those who love the river for itself,
the endless passing and repassing, the impossibility of finding quiet,
undisturbed corners, the noise and merrymaking, even the sight of too
many fellow creatures, is a burden. From this the part above Marlow is
protected by being less accessible. It is too far to be reached easily
from Maidenhead, and those who come by train have an awkward change at
a junction; therefore the crowd finds it not. Yet the beauties are no
less admirable than those of the adored Maidenhead.
At Hambleden the influence of Henley begins to be felt, and above
Henley we enter on another zone. Nowhere else on the river are to
be found so many fascinating spots lying in the stream; certainly,
no other part offers so many tempting backwaters. This is the zone
for those who love the country pure and simple, and who can put up
cheerfully with the inconveniences attendant on the procuring of
supplies, for the sake of the quiet, marshy meadows.
The reach includes Sonning with its two bridges, its islands, and its
rose-garden; but beyond Sonning dulness is apparent once more, and
with the neighbourhood of the great and smoky town of Reading, charm
withers. It is not until Mapledurham that the prettiness of the river
becomes again apparent, and Mapledurham is rather an oasis, for in
the reach beyond it, though the great rounded chalk hills grow opal
in the sunlight, and the larks sing heavenwards, the attractiveness
cannot be called beauty. From Pangbourne and Whitchurch to Goring and
Streatley, the river lies beneath the chalk heights, which seem to dip
underground, reappearing on the other side by Streatley; and the whole
of the stretch, with its rich and varied woods, its delightful islands
and weirs, its pretty cottages and churches, is full of charm.
[Illustration: DAY'S LOCK]
Beyond Cleeve Lock, with the single exception of Mongewell, there is
again dulness, though for boating pure and simple the reach is very
good. Wallingford has a trim prettiness of its own, with its clean-cut
stone bridge and its drooping willow. Park-like grounds and pleasant
trees succeed, Sinodun Hill looms up ahead, and one may penetrate up
the Thame to Dorchester, where the willows nearly meet overhead. Day's
Lock still belongs to the clean prettiness of the Wallingford stretch,
which, in fact, continues all the way to Culham, notwithstanding that
we pass the much admired Clifton Hampden, where the church stands high
on the cliff. Culham itself is dull, but with the pretty backwater of
Sutton Courtney we begin a new kind of scenery. Abingdon has something
of its richness and profusion, and Nuneham Courtney woods, though not
rising so abruptly as those at Clieveden, are glorious. After this
we begin the famous meadows that continue more or less all the way to
Oxford, and have a fascination of their own.
The best way to see the river as a whole, for those who can spare the
time, is to go on Salter's steamers, which run daily, Sundays excepted,
during the summer. The fare one way is 14s., exclusive of food, and the
night spent _en route_. The trip takes two days, the steamer leaving
Kingston at 9 in the morning, and reaching Henley at 7.15 in the
evening. The reverse way, it leaves Oxford at 9.30, and reaches Henley,
which is about half-way, at 7 in the evening.
In this rough sketch it has been shown that there is no lack of choice
for those who seek their pleasure on the river, and the opportunity
meets with full response. Seen in sunshine on a summer morning,
especially if it be the end of the week, the river is brilliant. The
dainty coloured muslins and laces, the Japanese parasols, the painted
boats, the large shady hats, the sparkle where the oars meet the
water, and the white sails of the sailing boats bellying in the wind,
are only a few items in a sparkling picture. Fragile, yellow-white
butterflies and the richer coloured red admirals hover about the banks;
purple loose-strife, meadow-sweet, and snapdragon grow on the banks
with many a tall gaudily coloured weed. Here and there great cedars
rise among the lighter foliage, showing black against a turquoise sky;
while on the water, where the wind has ruffled it, there is the "many
twinkling smile" ascribed by Æschylus to the ocean. But, to those
who know the Thames, this smiling aspect is not the only lovable one:
they know it also after rain, when the water comes thundering over the
weirs in translucent hoops of vivid green, and the boiling foam below
dances like whipped cream. To walk along the sedgy banks is to leave
a trail of "squish-squash" with every step. All the yellow and brown
flat-leaved green things that grow thickly near the edges are barely
able to keep their heads above the stream, and the long reeds bend with
the current like curved swords. Every little tributary gushes gurgling
to join in the mad race, and the sounds that tell of water are in our
ears like the instruments in an orchestra. There are the rush, the
dip, and the tinkle, as well as the deep-throated roar. Watching and
listening, we feel a strange sympathy with the new life brought by
the increased current; we feel as if it were flooding through our own
veins, and as if we, like the squirming, wriggling things that live
in the slime below the flood-curtain, were waking up anew after a long
torpor.
[Illustration: NEAR THE BRIDGE, SUTTON COURTNEY]
Even in late autumn, when the slow, white mist rises from the marshy
ground, and most of the birds are gone; when the eddies are full of
dead leaves floating away from the wood where all their sheltered
lives have been spent; when the sparkle and the gaiety and the
light-heartedness are gone, and the water looks indigo and dun, with
patches of quicksilver floating on it; when the great webs of the
spiders that haunt the banks hang like filmy curtains of lace heavy
with the moisture of the air, and the sun sinks wanly behind a bank of
cloud--even then the river may be loved.
Assuredly, those who go on the river for the day only, and know it but
under one aspect--that of lazy heat--lose much. In the evening time, as
one steps from the long French window into the scented dusk, soft white
moths flap suddenly across the strip of light, and one's feet fall
silently on the velvet turf, cool with the freshness that ever is on
a river margin. Down by the edge the black water hurries swiftly past
with a continuous soothing gurgle. A sleepy bird moves in a startled
way in a bush, and all the small things that awake in the night are
stirring. One can reach down and touch the onyx water slipping between
one's fingers like dream jewels; and far overhead in the rent and torn
caverns of the clouds, the stars, bigger and brighter than ever they
look in London, sail swiftly and silently from shelter to shelter. The
plaintive cry of an owl sounds softly from the meadow across the water,
and there is an indescribable sense of motion and poetry, and a thrill
of expectation that would be wholly lacking in a landscape ever so
beautiful, without the river.
Then there are the grey days, when sudden sheens of silver drop upon
the ruffled water as it eddies round a corner, and in a moment the
surface is peopled with dancing fairies, spangled and brilliant,
flitting in and out in bewildering movement. Or the same cold, silver
light catches the side of a ploughed field, a moment before brown,
but now shot with green as all the long delicate blades are revealed.
These, and a thousand other delights, cannot be known to the visitor
of a day only. Under all its aspects, in all its vagaries, the river
may be loved; and in the swift gliding motion there is an irresistible
fascination. It gives meaning to idleness, and fills up vacancy. By the
banks of the river one never can be dull.
The river is one of the greatest of our national possessions. Other
rivers there are in England where one may boat on a small part, where
here and there are beauty spots; but the Thames alone gives miles of
bewildering choice, and can take hundreds and hundreds at once upon
its flood. Now embanked and weired and locked, its waters are ideal for
boating, and its fishing, with little exception, is free to all.
Shooting on the banks of the Thames is forbidden, and the birds have
quickly learned to know their sanctuary. Lie still for a while in the
lee of an osier-covered ait, or beneath the shelter of an overhanging
willow, and that cheeky little reed-bunting will hop about so near,
that, were you endowed by nature with the quickness of movement granted
to a cat, you could seize it in one hand. White-throats, robins,
thrushes, blackbirds, all haunt the stream, and reed warblers and sedge
warblers have their haunts by the banks. The kingfisher is rapidly
increasing, and makes his home quite close to the locks and weirs; the
russet brown of his breast, as he sits motionless on a twig waiting his
time for a dart, may now be seen by a noiseless and sharp-eyed watcher.
The soft coo of the wood pigeons sounds from tall trees, and the cawing
of the rooks, softened by distance into a melodious conversation, is
wafted from many a rookery. The chatter of an impudent magpie may worry
you, or the hoarse squawk of a jay break your rest, but they are only
the discords that the great musician, Nature, knows how to introduce
into her river symphony.
[Illustration: STREATLEY INN]
Hotels on the river have, in the last few years, awakened to the cry
of the middle classes for air and light, and yet more air. Some of
the hotels are pretty with verandahs and creeper covered walls, but
others are old-fashioned--with low rooms. Yet every proprietor who can
by hook or crook manage it, now runs a lawn of exquisite turf down to
the water's edge, decorates it with flowers far more vivid than can
be seen elsewhere, and knocks up a bungalow-like building, terribly
desolate in the winter when the green mould creeps insidiously over
the wooden posts, and the sail-cloth rots in the damp; but airy and
commodious in the summer, when relays of fifty people or more may be
seated at a time, and yet there is no satiating smell of cooked food.
The boat owners have also seen fit to accommodate their convenience to
the demand, and at any large builder's landing-stage, boats may now be
hired to be left almost anywhere on the river, to be fetched back by
the owner.
Pessimists say that the river is losing its charm, that the advent of
motor cars, stirring in people a hitherto dormant love of speed, makes
the slow progress of punting a weariness instead of a relaxation. But
this is not greatly to be feared. The charm of a motor is one thing,
the charm of the river another; and we cannot spare either. Crowds may
slightly diminish, but this is no loss, rather a gain to the real river
lover.
Thames gardens are peculiar. By the nature of the case they must be far
more public than ordinary gardens, for the owner's reason for buying
the house was that he wanted to sit on his own green turf and see the
river flow endlessly past. Therefore, though he may hedge around the
three land sides with high walls and impenetrable thorns, he leaves
the fourth side open so that all the world may look. No one has yet
been clever enough to invent a screen that shall be transparent on
one side and opaque on the other, and until they do, the owners of
these beautiful river lawns must sit in the full light that beats upon
the river banks, and allow every passing stranger who has raked up a
shilling to hire a boat, to enjoy the beauties of a garden he has not
paid for. Thames lawns are celebrated, and rightly so. Not even the
turf of college quads, grown for hundreds of years, can beat their
turf. Thick, smooth, closely woven they are, and above all, of a pure
rich green that is a delight to see, and, by way of enhancing this
marvellous green, the colour which is most often to be seen with it is
its complementary colour, red. Whether the effect is obtained merely
by contrast I do not know, but certainly it seems as if nowhere else
could be found geraniums of so rich a vermilion, roses of so glorious
a crimson. In many of these river gardens, too, especially where a
little stream trickles down, a light trellis arch is thrown up and
covered with Rambler roses, old rose in colour, and only second to the
vermilion as a complement to the green lawn.
Two of these gloriously green lawns I have particularly in mind, one at
Shepperton, and one near Thames Ditton, but where they are to be seen
so frequently it is invidious to particularise.
These are the private gardens of a grand sort, and no whit less
beautiful, though without the same expanse of lawn, are the gardens of
the lock-keepers, in which the owners take a particular pride.
Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,
Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
Sweet-william with his homely cottage smell,
And stocks in fragrant blow;
Roses, that down the alleys shine afar,
And open, jasmine-muffled lattices.
--_M. Arnold._
But in taking count of Thames's decorations we are not confined to
gardens. Among the flowers growing wild on the river banks we have
no lack of choice. It is a pretty conceit of Drayton's, to make his
bridal pair, Thame and Isis, travel to meet one another along paths
flower-decked by willing nymphs. Old Thame, as the man, was to have
only wild flowers, not those "to gardens that belong":
The primrose placing first because that in the spring
It is the first appears, then only flourishing,
The azured harebell next, with them they neatly mix'd,
T'allay whose luscious smell, they woodbind plac'd betwixt.
Amongst those things of scent, there prick they in the lily;
And near to that again her sister daffodilly.
To sort these flowers of show with th' other that were sweet
The cowslip then they couch, and th' oxlip, for her meet,
The columbine amongst they sparingly do set,
The yellow king-cup wrought in many a curious fret,
And now and then among, of eglantine a spray,
By which again a course of lady smocks they lay
The crow flower, and thereby the clover-flower they stick.
The daisie over all those sundry sweets so thick;
* * * * *
The crimson darnel flowers, the blue-bottle and gold
Which, though esteemed but weeds, yet for their dainty hues
And for their scent not ill, they for this purpose choose.
The "luscious smell" cannot refer to the harebell, which has a very
faint perfume; besides, it is difficult to think of the harebell in
this connection, for it is a full summer flower, while all the rest
belong to spring: Drayton must, therefore, mean the wild hyacinth,
which is still often called the bluebell by people in England, though
in Scotland this name is correctly reserved for the harebell. The
"luscious smell" exactly describes the rich, rather cloying scent of
the hyacinth. There has been some discussion as to what is meant by the
eglantine, which the old poets are so fond of mentioning. In Milton it
means the honeysuckle, but in the others probably the sweetbriar; while
woodbine is either the twining clematis, the "traveller's joy"--rather
a misnomer, by-the-way, as it is an insignificant and disappointing
flower--or the honeysuckle.
Isis was gay with garden flowers:
... The brave carnation then,
With th' other of his kind, the speckled and the pale,
Then th' odoriferous pink, that sends forth such a gale
Of sweetness, yet in scents as various as in sorts.
The purple violet then, the pansy there supports
The marygold above t' adorn the arched bar;
The double daisie, thrift, the button bachelor,
Sweet-william, sops-in-wine, the campion, and to these
Some lavender they put with rosemary and bays.
To make a catalogue of the flowers which may be found on the Thames
banks at the present day would be out of place here, yet there are
one or two plants so frequently seen that they may be mentioned.
Among these are the purple loose-strife, with its tapering, richly
coloured spikes, standing sometimes as high as four feet, and
occasionally mistaken for a foxglove; the pink-flowered willow-herb;
the wild mustard or cherlock, with its sulphur yellow blossoms, and
creeping-jenny. The bog-bean, or buck-bean, with white lace-like
flowers may be seen occasionally in stagnant swamps. The water-violet,
which, however, is not in the least like a violet, is also to be
found in the tributary ditches, as well as the tall yellow iris;
the flowering rush and the bur-reeds often form details in a river
picture. In the lock gardens herbaceous borders, full of phlox,
sweet-william, stocks, valerian, big white lilies, and, later, red hot
pokers, sunflowers, and hollyhocks, are ordinary sights. In the meadows
near Oxford fritillaries, otherwise called snakes'-heads, are seen
abundantly in spring, but these and other flowers shall be mentioned
more particularly in connection with the places where they grow.
It remains but to end with the aspiration of Denham:
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing full.