* "The Ouse, whom men do Isis rightly name."—Spenser,
Faerie Queen.
** The other three were the Fossway, or "entrenched road,"
running to the north-east, the Ikenild Street or "road to
the Iceni," nearly due east, and Ermine or Irmin Street,
passing through Cirencester, north-west to Gloucester, and
south-east to Silchester. Akeman Street is a continuance of
the Fossway, and runs south-west to Bath. Its name probably
means, "Oak-man," or Forester.

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What a contrast with the last bridge that spans the river, with its mighty sweep of traffic below and above!

But we must dally yet among scenes of rural quietude. A few miles beyond Kemble, the Thames has acquired force sufficient to turn a mill. Hence, leaving the highway, and taking our path through pleasant meadows, we pass by one or two rural villages, and so to Cricklade, the first market-town on the Thames. And here a considerable affluent joins the stream—a river, in fact, that has come down from another part of the Cotswold Hills, with some show of right to be the original stream.

This is the Churn (or Corin; Keltic "The Summit"), which rises at "the Seven Springs," in a rocky hill-side, about three miles from Cheltenham, and runs by Cirencester (Corin-cester) down to Cricklade. I he claim of the Churn is the twofold one, of greater height in its source than the traditional meadows and beside quiet villages: much, to say the truth, like other rivers, or distinguished only by the transparency of its gentle stream. For, issuing from a broad surface of oolite rock, it has brought no mountain débris or dull clay to sully its brightness, no town defilement, nor trace of higher rapids, in turbid waves and hurrying foam. It lingers amid quiet beauties, scarcely veiling from sight the rich herbarium which it fosters in its bed, save where the shadows of trees reflected in the calm water mingle confusedly with the forms of aquatic plants. Meanwhile other streams swell the current. As an unknown poet somewhat loftily sings:

"From various springs divided waters glide,
In different colours roll a different tide;
Murmur along their crooked banks awhile:—
At once they murmur, and enrich the isle,
Awhile distinct, through many channels run,
But meet at last, and sweetly flow in one;
There joy to lose their long distinguished names,
And make one glorious and immortal Thames."

Of the little streams thus loftily described, the most important are the Coln and the Leche; as Drayton has it in his Polyolbion: