summer-house, which rests on the separation of the greater branches some ten or twelve feet from the ground, and is reached by an easy flight of steps. In the afternoon of a summer's day many a comfortable group may be seen taking their ease in this elevated seat.

A substantial bridge of Purbeck stone now supplies the place of "the goodly bridge of wood over the Thames at Chertsey" which Leland mentions.

CHAPTER XIX.

COWAY STAKES.

FOR Some miles below Chertsey the river winds deviously through flat marshy meadows. A raised towing-path runs alongside it, and it is skirted with osiers, and a few willows and alders. Though sufficiently monotonous in character, yet is it not without some charms of the Dutch kind, to which the slow-moving barges and lighter craft contribute their share, as do also the fat cattle in the fields, while the low Surrey hills on the one side, and occasional glimpses of the sister heights of Highgate and Hampstead on the other, serve to relieve and complete the picture. And here the river receives two affluents, the Bourne brook, an unimportant stream that rises near Bagshot; and the river Wey, which has been described in a former volume.

Weybridge is a pleasant healthy village, which seems to be growing into favour as a suburban residence. It is a long, straggling, scattered place, with somewhat of an old-fashioned picturesqueness about many parts of it, which it is to be feared will soon pass away. It is even now a good deal altered from what it was before the railway was brought to it. Some new houses have been erected; and the grounds of Oatlands, once the pride of this neighbourhood, are for the larger part apportioned out "to be let on building leases." One excellent

change has been made. Alongside the very plain and uninteresting old church there has just been erected a very handsome new one, in the early English style of architecture.

By Weybridge the river is, if not strikingly beautiful, yet at least very agreeable. It flows along a wide tranquil stream through meadows of brilliant verdure. A few willows skirt the banks, and larger trees occur at intervals. Two or three swans with their cygnets float stately upon the water. About the broad pastures "fair-eyed cows," as Sir Philip Sidney prettily expresses it, graze or ruminate, or seek shelter from the mid-day sun under the trees, or stand motionless in the stream. Not far off, the tower of a village church rises above the dark foliage of lofty elms; and the blue smoke curls languidly from many a cottage chimney up to the blue vapoury ether. Just such scenery is it as Cuyp would have loved to paint, had he had the good fortune to be an Englishman, and Cooper does paint with genuine Cuypean, and yet honest English relish.

As we proceed, the little quiet-looking village of Shepperton, straggling along at a short distance from the left bank of the river, is the first place that catches the eye, but there is nothing in it that will tempt the stranger to linger long, and there is little in its history to record. It boasts, however, of having been for awhile the dwelling-place of two eminent men-Grocyn and Erasmus. Grocyn, one of the very small band of Englishmen (according to Hallam numbering only four or five) who at the commencement of the sixteenth century had "any tincture of Greek;" whose name is remembered with respect as one of the revivers of classical

learning in our Universities; and of whom, to adopt the words of Fuller, "there needs no more to be added to his honour, save that Erasmus in his Epistles often owns him pro patrono suo et praeceptore "--Grocyn was vicar of Shepperton from 1504 to 1513; during a portion of which time Erasmus resided with him in the vicarage.

Shepperton is a good deal resorted to by Thames anglers, and the gentle brethren have not often to leave Shepperton Deep without some more substantial memento than a few "famous nibbles." The word Deep may need some explanation to the uninitiated. The Deeps are spaces of the river, of two or three hundred yards in extent, granted by the Corporation of London to the several towns and villages between Staines and Richmond. A Deep is given to the village over against which it lies, and it is appropriated and preserved exclusively for angling; no person being allowed to use any "net or engine" for taking fish within its limits. The Deeps are of much benefit to the smaller villages, attracting to them a considerable number of visitors during the fishing season. In almost every such village there is a comfortable inn, to the support of which the anglers mainly contribute: These inns are worth looking into. They are essentially the inns of fishermen, and they are fitted up with due regard to the tastes of their patrons. Angling prints and stuffed fish are the leading ornaments, but portraits of famous fish-catchers, as well as fish caught, are seldom wanting, and there is commonly a list of the nobler fish taken in the adjacent Deep, with their weight, date of capture, and name of captor. During the season,

some of the more social of the brothers of the angle may be found in the evening talking over the sport of the day, or the braver sport of olden days, or, like Piscator and his friends in their hostel by the Lea, having "a gentle touch at singing and drinking; but the last with moderation"-of course.

In addition to the inn, there are also in the village usually two or three "fishermen," who depend chiefly on the angling visitors for support. They keep punts, and provide ground-baits and other gear for anglers. They are mostly shrewd 'knowing' fellows, deep in all the mysteries of the craft, and acquainted with every hole whither big fish retire, like monks, for meditation and good fare. In the main, these fishermen are respectable and trustworthy, though they are apt occasionally, like other guides, to play upon the credulity of a confiding stranger:-and it must be confessed, that they do a little love to tickle the gills of a "cute trout." Some of the clever fishermen are a good deal petted, a few are characters,' and a good many aim to be humourists. Almost all are civil; and their charge is moderate-being about three half-crowns a day, for punt, ground-baits, and attendance.

A short distance west of Walton bridge is the place known as Coway Stakes; by most antiquaries supposed to be the ford by which Cæsar crossed the Thames. Many able scholars, however, who have carefully considered the subject, controvert that opinion. We will first see what is Cæsar's own account of the occurrence, and then we shall be better prepared to understand the matter.

Cæsar, after landing somewhere about Deal