147. Simond's hill: In the essay _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_ Lowell describes the village as seen from the top of this hill. 159-161. An allusion to the Mexican War, against which Lowell was directing the satire of the _Biglow Papers_. 174-182. Compare the winter pictures in Whittier's _Snowbound_. 177. Formal candles: Candles lighted for some form or ceremony, as in a religious service. 192. Stonehenge: Stonehenge on Salisbury plain in the south of England is famous for its huge blocks of stone now lying in confusion, supposed to be the remains of an ancient Druid temple. 207. Sanding: The continuance of the metaphor in "higher waves" are "whelming." With high waves the sand is brought in upon the land, encroaching upon its limits. 209. Muses' factories: The buildings of Harvard College. 218. House-bespotted swell: Lowell notes with some resentment the change from nature's simple beauties to the pretentiousness of wealth shown in incongruous buildings. 220. Cits: Contracted from citizens. During the French Revolution, when all titles were abolished, the term _citizen_ was applied to every one, to denote democratic simplicity and equality. 223. Gentle Allston: Washington Allston, the celebrated painter, whom Lowell describes as he remembered him in the charming essay _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_. 225. Virgilium vidi tantum: I barely saw Virgil--caught a glimpse of him--a phrase applied to any passing glimpse of greatness. 227. Undine-like: Undine, a graceful water nymph, is the heroine of the charming little romantic story by De la Motte Fouque. 234. The village blacksmith: See Longfellow's famous poem, _The Village Blacksmith_. The chestnut was cut down in 1876. An arm-chair made from its wood still stands in the Longfellow house, a gift to Longfellow from the Cambridge school children. 254. Six old willows: These much-loved trees afforded Lowell a subject for a later poem _Under the Willows_, in which he describes particularly one ancient willow that had been spared, he "knows not by what grace" by the ruthless "New World subduers"-- "One of six, a willow Pleiades, The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink Where the steep upland dips into the marsh." In a letter written twenty years after the _Reverie_ to J.T. Fields, Lowell says: "My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed to _my_ willow a board with these words on it, 'These trees for sale.' The wretch is going to peddle them for firewood! If I had the money, I would buy the piece of ground they stand on to save them--the dear friends of a lifetime." 255. Paul Potter: One of the most famous of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, notable for the strong realism of his work.