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THE RIVER MEDWAY.

251

CHAPTER X.

Spenser's Bridal of the Thames and Medway.-The Mutiny at the Nore. Sheerness and Queenborough. - The Legend of our Lady of Gillingham.

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M

EDWAY, as Spenser sings, was by nature intended to pay tribute to Thames, but prefers rather to roll on its own course, an independent flood, only mingling with the mightier river in the embraces of the ocean, where the career of both is at an end, "like lovers, in their lives estranged, but in their death united."

Long had the Thames, as we in records read

Before that day, her wooéd to his bedde;
But the proud nymph would for no worldly meed,
Nor no entreatie to his love be ledde,

Till now at last relenting, she to him was wedde.

What reader of that old bard does not remember his gorgeous description of the

bridal, the Thames attended by all his tributary streams, and the Medway by hers; the Bridegroom,

That full fresh and jolly was,

All decked in a robe of watchet hue,

On which the waves glittering like crystal glass,
So cunningly enwoven were, that few

Could weenen whether they were false or trew.
And on his head, like to a coronet,

He wore, that seemed strange to common view,
In which were many towers and castles set,
That it encompast round as with a golden fret.

And then the Bride, without the coronet of a royal city on her bank—

The lovely Medua came,

Clad in a vesture of unknowen geare

And uncouth fashion, yet her well became,

That seemed like silver sprinkled here and there, With glittering spangs, that did like stars appeare, And waved upon like water chamelot,

To hide the metal; which

yet every where Bewrayed itself, to let men plainely wot

It was no mortal work that seemed and yet was not.

Her goodly locks adown her back did flow
Unto her waist, with flowers bescattered;
The which ambrosial odours forth did throw
To all about, and all her shoulders spread
As a new Spring; and likewise on her head
A chaplet rare of sundry flowers she wore;

From under which the dewy humour shed,
Did trickle down her hair, like to the hoar
Congealed little drops that do the morn adore.

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But the place of their bridal, as the poet calls their confluence into the sea, has sterner recollections than such as these; for here took place, in 1797, that famous mutiny of the fleet, which spread so much alarm throughout the nation, occurring as it did, at a time when Europe was convulsed by the struggle of contending principles, and England was watched by jealous and powerful enemies, eager to take advantage of her weakness. The mutiny of the Nore will always render the confluence of the Thames and Medway a memorable spot in the annals of England. Sheerness, whose

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