Maidenhead—Bray—Jesus Hospital—The Harbour of Refuge—Frederick Walker—A Boat-race—Monkey Island—The River—Surley Hall—Boveney Lock—Eton—Windsor—St. George’s Chapel—The Castle—Mr. R. R. Holmes—James I.—Surrey—The Merry Wives of Windsor.
THE next scene in our shifting panorama of the gentle river will be the fair stretch of bank and stream which extends from picturesque Maidenhead to the winding shore from which rise the proud towers of Royal Windsor. From its source, at which a little bright spring bubbles up with a low, softly singing sound, from amid stones and moss and grass, until it becomes merged into the immensity of ship-bearing ocean, our Thames, unhasting but unresting, flows for ever onward between source and sea.
“Thames! the most lov’d of all the Ocean’s sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.”
And Denham adds a wish—
“O, could I flow like thee! and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme;