Though deep yet clear; though gentle yet not dulf; Staines and Chertsey with their respective bridges are the next places that are washed by the Thames. The scenery of Ham Farm, Wooburn Farm, and Oatlands, give beauty and splendour to its banks; and having passed the small retired village of Shepperton, and flowed through Walton Bridge, its Middlesex side is decorated with a long line of handsome mansions that form the beauty of Sunbury and Hampton. Here the palace is a magnificent object, and the stream glides on between the royal Park on the one side, and the elegant country houses of Thames Ditton on the other, till it reaches the ancient county town of Kingston in Surrey. The river now assumes a more polished, and, as it has long possessed, a classical character. Twickenham with its gardens and its meads, and Ham, scarce seen in its leafy bowers, adorn the banks of the river, till it flows beneath the lofty brow of Richmond; when it passes on, with the tide's accelerated wave, between the royal Gardens, and the lawns of Sion INTRODUCTION. to Kew, where its rural character, may be said The charms Italian meadows shower, The fields where ceaseless summer smiles, To other streams all these resign: Still none, oh Thames! shall vie with thine, Where peace with freedom, hand in hand, 719796 A But willing labour's careful train, The spreading plain, the cultur'd hill, |