"We were talking of the Thames," continued the vicar, pouring out a flood of archaeological reminiscences--"The great reason why it is so suggestive, beyond the great practical fact that it is the silent highway of the fleets of nations, is, that it is also indissolubly bound up, as well, with by-gone memories of people that have lived and died, to the glory and disgrace of history--of places whose bare names we cherish and love! Every step, almost, along its banks is sacred to some noble name. `Stat magno nominis umbra' should be its motto. Strawberry Hill reminds you of witty, keen-sighted Horace Walpole, and his gossiping chit-chat concerning wrangling princes, feeble-minded ministers, and all the other imbecilities of the last century. Twickenham brings back to one, bitter-tongued Pope, his distorted body and waspish mind. Richmond Hill recalls the Earl of Chatham in his enforced retirement, his gout, and the memorable theatrical speech he made on the floor of the House of Lords, at the time of our greatest national triumph and exertion, that closed his public life. Further up the stream, we come to old Windsor Castle, to be reminded of bluff Bluebeard, bigamous, wicked, king Hal; higher still, we are at Oxford, the nursery of our Church, the `alma mater' of our learning. Lower down, at Whitehall stairs, we are face to face again with Roundheads, and regicides, and gunpowder plots; lower still, and we are at the Tower, with its cruel tyrannies and beheadings of traitors and patriots; and then, we find ourselves amidst a sea of masts which bear the English flag to the uttermost parts of the earth. No wonder our river has been so poetical:--it has deserved it! But, really, if all the poems that have been written in its honour could be collected in one volume, what a prodigious tome it would be!--what a medley of versification it would present!" "Sure you've forgotten the Shannon entirely," observed Lady Dasher in her plaintive way. She was certainly waking up from her normal melancholic condition; for, before this, she had been seen to smile--a phenomenon never noticed in her before by her oldest acquaintance. "You have quite forgotten the Shannon! My poor dear papa, when he was alive, used to say that it was the finest river in the world. I remember he had a favourite song about it--I don't know if I quite recollect it now, but, I'll try." "Do, Lady Dasher, do," said Mr Mawley, who, having been paying great attention to Bessie the while, wished, I suppose, to ingratiate himself with her mother. "I must put on the brogue, you know," said she, looking round with an affectation of shyness, which was most incongruous on her melancholy visage; it was just like a death's head trying to grin, I thought to myself;--and then, she commenced, in a thin, quavering voice, the lay of the departed earl, her "poor dear papa."