Note 158 — WINDSOR FOREST.
Reading edition
An undoubted imitation, I think, of Dr. Bathurst's verses on Selden:
As when old Nilus, who with bounteous flows Waters a hundred nations as he goes, Scattering rich harvests, keeps his sacred head Amidst the clouds still undiscovered.
Homer denominates the Nile, whose sources were unknown, a river that falls from Jupiter or heaven. And our countryman calls it sevenfold, as Ovid before him septemfluus, and Catullus still earlier septemgeminus, from the seven mouths by which its waters are discharged into the Mediterranean.—Wakefield.