Wild and august in consecrated pride, There through the deep-blue heaven Olympus towers, Girdled with mists, light-floating as to hide The rock-built palace of immortal powers. --HEMANS. In the Olympian range, also, was Mount Pie'rus, where was the Pierian fountain, one of the sacred resorts of the Muses, so often mentioned by the poets, and to which POPE, with gentle sarcasm, refers when he says, A little learning is a dangerous thing: Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. 1. Thessaly.--From the northern chain of mountains, the central Pindus range, running south, separates Thessaly on the east from Epi'rus on the west. The former region, enclosed by mountain ranges broken only on the east, and watered by the Pene'us and its numerous tributaries, embraced the largest and most fertile plain in all Greece. On the Thessalian coast, south of Olympus, were the celebrated mounts Ossa and Pe'lion, which the giants, in their wars against the gods, as the poets fable, piled upon Olympus in their daring attempt to scale the heavens and dethrone the gods. Between those mounts lay the celebrated vale of Tem'pe, through which the Pene'us flowed to the sea. Romantic Tempe! thou art yet the same-- Wild as when sung by bards of elder time: Years, that have changed thy river's classic name, [Footnote: The modern name of the Pene'us is Selembria or Salamvria.] Have left thee still in savage pomp sublime. --HEMANS. Farther south, having the sea on one side and the lofty cliffs of Mount OE'ta on the other, was the celebrated narrow pass of Thermop'ylæ, leading from Thessaly into Central Greece. 2. Epi'rus.--The country of Epirus, on the west of Thessaly, was mostly a wild and mountainous region, but with fertile intervening valleys. Among the localities of Epirus celebrated in fable and in song was the river Cocy'tus, which the poets, on account of its nauseous waters, described as one of the rivers of the lower world-- Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream. The Ach'eron was another of the rivers-- Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep-- --MILTON. which was assigned by the poets to the lower world, and over which the souls of the dead were said to be first conveyed, before they were borne the Le'the, or "stream of oblivion," beyond. The true Acheron of Epirus has been thus described: Yonder rolls Acheron his dismal stream, Sunk in a narrow bed: cypress and fir Wave their dim foliage on his rugged banks; And underneath their boughs the parched ground, Strewed o'er with juniper and withered leaves, Seems blasted by no mortal tread. As the Acheron falls into the lake Acheru'sia, and after rising from it flows underground for some distance, this lake also has been connected by the poets with the gloomy legend of its fountain stream.