to Turnbrig, a port town serving indifferently for all the west parts, where he pays his tribute to the Ayre."

Hear Michael Drayton next, who being as determined a personificator as Darwin himself, makes "the wide West Riding" thus address her favorite River Don;

Thou first of all my floods, whose banks do bound my south And offerest up thy stream to mighty Humber's mouth;

Of

yew and climbing elm that crown'd with many a spray,
From thy clear fountain first thro' many a mead dost play,
Till Kother, whence the name of Rotherham first begun,
At that her christened town doth lose her in my Don;
Which proud of her recourse, towards Doncaster doth drive,
Her great and chiefest town, the name that doth derive
From Don's near bordering banks; when holding on her race,
She, dancing in and out, indenteth Hatfield Chase,

Whose bravery hourly adds new honors to her bank :
When Sherwood sends her in slow Iddle that, made rank

With her profuse excess, she largely it bestows

On Marshland, whose swoln womb with such abundance flows,
As that her battening breast her fatlings sooner feeds,
And with more lavish waste than oft the grazier needs;
Whose soil, as some reports, that be her borderers, note,
With water under earth undoubtedly doth float,

For when the waters rise, it risen doth remain

High, while the floods are high, and when they fall again,

It falleth but at last when as my lively Don

Along by Marshland side her lusty course hath run,
The little wandering Trent, won by the loud report
Of the magnific state and height of Humber's court,
Draws on to meet with Don, at her approach to Aire.

Seldon's rich commentary does not extend to that part of the Polyolbion in which these lines occur, but a comment upon the supposed rising and falling of the Marshland with the waters, is supplied by Camden. "The Don," he says after it has passed Hatfield Chase "divides itself, one stream running towards the river Idel which comes out of Nottinghamshire, the other towards the river Aire; in both which they continue till they meet again, and fall into the Estuary of Humber. Within the island, or that piece of ground encompassed by the branches of these two rivers are Dikemarsh, and Marshland, fenny tracts, or rather river-islands, about fifteen miles round, which produce a very green rank grass, and are as it were set round with little villages. Some of the inhabitants imagine the whole island floats upon the water; and that sometimes when the waters are encreased 'tis raised higher; just

like what Pomponius Mela tells us of the Isle of Autrum in Gaul." Upon this passage Bishop Gibson remarks, " as to what our author observes of the ground being heaved up, Dr. Johnston affirms he has spoke with several old men who told him, that the turf-moor between Thorne and Gowle was so much higher before the draining, especially in winter time, than it is now, that before they could see little of the church steeple, whereas now they can see the church-yard wall." The poet might linger willingly with Ebenezer Elliott amid

-rock, vale and wood,—
Haunts of his early days, and still loved well,-
And where the sun, o'er purple moorlands wide,
Gilds Wharncliffe's oaks, while Don is dark below;
And where the black bird sings on Rother's side,
And where Time spares the age of Conisbro';

but we must proceed with good matter of fact prose.

The river has been made navigable to Tinsley, within three miles of Sheffield, and by this means Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster carry on a constant intercourse with Hull. A cut was made

for draining that part of Hatfield Chase called the Levels, by an adventurous Hollander, Cornelius Vermuyden by name, in the beginning of Charles the first's reign. Some two hundred families of French and Walloon refugees were induced to colonize there at that time. They were forcibly interrupted in their peaceful and useful undertaking by the ignorant people of the country, who were instigated and even led on by certain of the neighbouring gentry, as ignorant as themselves; but the Government was then strong enough to protect them; they brought about twenty-four thousand acres into cultivation, and many of their descendants are still settled upon the ground which was thus reclaimed. Into this new cut, which is at this day called the Dutch river, the Don was turned, its former course having been through Eastoft; but the navigation which has since proved so beneficial to the country, and toward which this was the first great measure, produced at first a plentiful crop of lawsuits, and one of the many pamphlets which this litigation called forth, bears as an alias in its title, "the Devil upon Don."

Many vestiges of former cultivation were discovered when this cut was made,-such (according to Gibson's information) as gates, ladders, hammers and shoes. The land was observed in some places to lie in ridges and furrows, as if it had been ploughed; and oaks and fir trees were frequently dug up, some of which were found lying along, with their roots still fastened; others as if cut, or burnt, and severed from the ground. Roots were long to be seen in the great cut, some very large and standing upright, others with an inclination toward the east.

About the year 1665 the body of a man was found in a turf pit, some four yards deep, lying with his head toward the north. The hair and nails were not decayed, and the skin was like tanned leather; but it had lain so long there that the bones had become spongy.