Note 49 — THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.
Reading edition
An eagre is a tide swelling above another tide, which I have myself observed in the river Trent.—Dryden. This species of combat between the current and the tide is well known on the Severn; and, so far back as the days of William of Malmesbury, was called the Higre. Unhappy is the vessel, says that ancient historian, on whom its force falls laterally. De Gestis Pontificum, Lib. IV.—Drayton describes the same river,
——With whose tumultuous waves, Shut up in narrower bounds, the Higre wildly raves, And frights the straggling flocks the neighbouring shores to fly. Afar as from the main it comes with hideous cry; And on the angry front the curled foam doth bring, The billows 'gainst the bank when fiercely it doth fling, Hurls up the scaly ooze, and makes the scaly brood Leap madding to the land affrighted from the flood; O'erturns the toiling barch whose steersman does not launch, And thrust the furrowing beak into her ravening paunch. Poly-Albion, Song VII.