Hear Michael Drayton next, who being as determined a personificator as Darwin himself, makes “the wide West Riding” thus address her favorite River Don; Thou first of all my floods, whose banks do bound my south And offerest up thy stream to mighty Humber's mouth; Of yew and climbing elm that crown'd with many a spray, From thy clear fountain first thro' many a mead dost play, Till Rother, whence the name of Rotherham first begun, At that her christened town doth lose her in my Don; Which proud of her recourse, towards Doncaster doth drive, Her great and chiefest town, the name that doth derive From Don's near bordering banks; when holding on her race, She, dancing in and out, indenteth Hatfield Chase, Whose bravery hourly adds new honors to her bank: When Sherwood sends her in slow Iddle that, made rank With her profuse excess, she largely it bestows On Marshland, whose swoln womb with such abundance flows, As that her battening breast her fatlings sooner feeds, And with more lavish waste than oft the grazier needs; Whose soil, as some reports, that be her borderers, note, With water under earth undoubtedly doth float, For when the waters rise, it risen doth remain High, while the floods are high, and when they fall again, It falleth: but at last when as my lively Don Along by Marshland side her lusty course hath run, The little wandering Trent, won by the loud report Of the magnific state and height of Humber's court, Draws on to meet with Don, at her approach to Aire. Seldon's rich commentary does not extend to that part of the Polyolbion in which these lines occur, but a comment upon the supposed rising and falling of the Marshland with the waters, is supplied by Camden. “The Don,” he says after it has passed Hatfield Chase “divides itself, one stream running towards the river Idel which comes out of Nottinghamshire, the other towards the river Aire; in both which they continue till they meet again, and fall into the Æstuary of Humber. Within the island, or that piece of ground encompassed by the branches of these two rivers are Dikemarsh, and Marshland, fenny tracts, or rather river-islands, about fifteen miles round, which produce a very green rank grass, and are as it were set round with little villages. Some of the inhabitants imagine the whole island floats upon the water; and that sometimes when the waters are encreased 'tis raised higher; just like what Pomponius Mela tells us of the Isle of Autrum in Gaul.” Upon this passage Bishop Gibson remarks, “as to what our author observes of the ground being heaved up, Dr. Johnston affirms he has spoke with several old men who told him, that the turf-moor between Thorne and Gowle was so much higher before the draining, especially in winter time, than it is now, that before they could see little of the church steeple, whereas now they can see the church-yard wall.”