Take two strong men and in Temese [380] cast them,
And both naked as a needle, ther non sikerer [381] than other;
The one hath cunnynge and can swymme and dyve,
The other is lewed of that laboure, lerned never to swym,
Which trowest of these two in Temese is most in dred,
He that never dived ne nought can of swymmyng,
Or the swymmer that is safe if he himself lyke?
Boys in the country usually learn to swim with bundles of bulrushes, and with corks where the rushes cannot readily be procured; particularly in the neighbourhood of London, where we are told, two centuries back, there were men who could teach the art of swimming well, and, says the author, "for commoditie of river and water for that purpose, there is no where better." [382]
I am sorry to add, that swimming is by no means so generally practised with us in the present day as it used to be in former times. We have several treatises on the art of swimming and diving, and in the Encyclopædia Britannica are many excellent directions relating to it, under the article Swimming.