|THE Thames, unrivalled among English rivers in beauty as in fame, is really little known by Englishmen. Of the millions who line its banks, few have any acquaintance with its higher streams, or know them further than by occasional glances through rail way-carriage windows, at Maidenhead, Reading, Pangbourne, or between Abingdon and Oxford. Multitudes, even, who love the Oxford waters, and are familiar with every turn of the banks between Folly Bridge and Nuneham, have never thought to explore the scenes of surpassing beauty where the river flows on, almost in loneliness, in its descent to London; visited by few, save by those happy travellers, who, with boat and tent, pleasant companionship, and well-chosen books--Izaak Walton's _Angler_ among the rest--pass leisurely from reach to reach of the silver stream. Then, higher up than Oxford, who knows the Thames? Who can even tell where it arises, and through what district it flows? There is a vague belief in many minds, fostered by some ancient manuals of geography, that the Thames is originally the Isis, so called until it receives the river _Thame_, the auspicious union being denoted by the pluralising of the latter word. The whole account is pure invention. No doubt the great river does receive the Thame or Tame, near Wallingford; but a Tame is also tributary to the Trent; and there is a Teme among the affluents of the Severn. The truth appears to be that Teme, Tame, or Thame, is an old Keltic word meaning "smooth," or "broad;" and that Tamesis, of which Thames is merely a contraction, is formed by the addition to this root of the old "Es," water, so familiar to us in "Ouse," * "Esk," "Uiske," "Exe," so that Tam-es means simply the "broad water," and is Latinised into Tamesis. The last two syllables again of this word are fancifully changed into Isis, which is thus taken as a poetic appellation of the river. In point of fact, Isis is used only by the poets, or by those who affect poetic diction. Thus, Warton, in his address to Oxford: "Lo, your loved Isis, from the bordering vale, With all a mother's fondness bids you hail."