Colloquies on Society Author:Robert Southey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: c- " On the green turf and under the blue sky, Their heads in reverence bare, and bare of foot." The site also precisely accords with the description whic... more »h Edward Williams and William Owen give of the situation required for such meeting places : " a high hill top, Nor bowered with trees, nor broken by the plough : Remote from human dwellings and the stir Of human life, and open to the breath And to the eye of Heaven." The high hill is now enclosed and cultivated; and a clump of larches has been planted within the circle, for the purpose of protecting an oak in the centre, the owner of the field having wished to rear one there with a commendable feeling, because that tree was held sacred by the Druids, and therefore, he supposed, might be appropriately placed there. The whole plantation, however, has been so miserably storm-stricken that the poor stunted trees are not even worth the trouble of cutting them down for fuel, and so they continue to disfigure the spot. In all other respects this impressive monument of former times is carefully preserved; the soil within the enclosure is not broken, a path from the road is left, and in latter times a stepping-stile has been placed to accommodate Lakers with an easier access than by striding over the gate beside it. The spot itself is the most commanding which could be chosen in this part of the country, without climbing a mountain. Derwentwater and the Vale of Keswick are not seen from it, only the mountains which enclose them on the south and west. Lattrigg and the huge side of Skiddaw are 011 the north; to the east is the open country towards Penrith expanding from the Vale of St. John's, and extending for many miles, with Mell- fell in the distance, where it rises alone like a huge tumulus on the right, and Blencat...« less