Note GQ — 1820
Reading edition
Armstrong's "apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth" is in his Art of Preserving Health (book ii. ll. 355-364)—
. . . . . . I hear the din Of waters thund'ring o'er the ruined cliffs. With holy reverence I approach the rocks Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient song. Here from the desert down the rumbling steep First springs the Nile; here vents the sounding Po In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves A mighty flood to water half the East; And there, in Gothic solitude reclined, The cheerless Tanais pours his hoary urn. Ed.
[GR] From his Epistle to William Simpson, Ochiltree; stanza 15.—Ed.