is a perfect description of this tiniest and gentlest of rills, flowing through the meadow-grass; while the "chasm of sky above," of which the Wanderer speaks, though an obvious exaggeration, is more appropriate to this spot than to any other in the vale.--ED.] [Footnote CW: See Wordsworth's note, p. 385.--ED.] [Footnote CX: Stonehenge. Old legends gave it a mythic origin. Geoffrey of Monmouth attributed it to Merlin, the stones having been brought over from Ireland by magic. It was not a Druid Temple, but a Saxon ring, set up--after the Romans had left Britain--for parliamentary and coronation purposes. "Roman pottery and coins have been found under the stones, and they are fitted with mortice and tenon, an art unknown in Britain till it was taught by the Romans." Compare Dryden's _Epistle to Dr. Charleton_ (Ep. II.) Stonehenge, once thought a temple, you have found A throne, where kings, our earthly Gods, were crown'd. and Henry Crabb Robinson's account of a visit to Stonehenge, in the second volume of his _Diary and Correspondence_, p. 230.--ED.] [Footnote CY: This must refer to Palmyra. The Baalbec ruins are, for the most part, not marble, but limestone.--ED.] [Footnote CZ: The Navagos and several other American tribes have this legend; but see Note B in the Appendix to this volume, p. 392.--ED.] [Footnote DA: Before the time of Solon, the Athenians wore golden τέττιγες--probably either brooches, or pins with a golden cicada for the head--as a sign that they considered themselves αὐτόχθονες, since the grasshopper τέττιξ (cicada) was supposed to spring out of the ground.--ED.] [Footnote DB: The Ganges--sacred river of India--rising in the snow-clad Himalaya, was believed to have a celestial origin.--ED.] [Footnote DC: The great river of Western Africa, which was supposed, until recent geographical discovery, to lose itself in the sand.--ED.] [Footnote DE: Compare _The Prelude_, book viii. I. 133 (see vol. iii. p. 276). Also _In Memoriam_, stanza xxiii.-- And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady. ED. ] [Footnote DF: The end sought by Epicurus, the _summum bonum_ of the Epicurean school, was ἀταραξία, repose or peace of mind. This was to be obtained by freedom from pain of body or distraction of mind; but it consisted in the harmony or equilibrium that resulted, when disturbing influences were withdrawn. To attain to it, little was needed--mental enjoyments being superior to bodily ones, and the social joys of friendship the highest of all. Public life was renounced, and private friendship became the bond of union amongst the members of the Epicurean confraternity: but the root principle of the system was emotional, not intellectual.--ED.]