"The tomb now shown at Syracuse as that of Archimedes corresponds pretty well in point of situation with Cicero's description ('Tusculan Disputations,' v. 23). It is a little distance to the west of the wall of Achradina, on the left of the road which mounts the slope of Epipolæ. I unfortunately cannot remember whether there were any traces of the sphere and cylinder inscribed on it, which Cicero mentions as there when he excavated it; but my impression at the time was, that its identity rested simply on a Ciceronic tradition, and that it was hardly more genuine than Virgil's tomb at Naples. The tomb itself resembled a number of other tombs near—among them, the reputed tomb of Timoleon, which is close by (Cicero speaks of the number of tombs in that spot). But, whatever the value of the identifying tradition, there can be no doubt that Wordsworth, in these lines, has thoroughly reproduced the local colour of the surroundings. As one mounts the road I mentioned, past the tomb of Archimedes, and gets the view over Achradina—once so populous, and now a waste area covered with grey rocks and grass, save where, here and there, it is converted by irrigation into fertile gardens and fields—one has strongly brought before him how completely Syracuse has 'vanished.' The modern city is entirely confined within the limits of Ortygia, and the general impression that one gets of Achradina is that it is the graveyard of the old city. I remember that this feeling came over me very strongly at the time, but it was certainly not suggested by Wordsworth's lines, which I did not remember."—ED.
[KE] The heights between Buxton and Macclesfield, at the top of the Valley of the Gite, near the Cat-and-Fiddle Inn.—ED.
[KF] "The alphabet was called the Christ-cross-row, some say because a cross was prefixed to the alphabet in the old primers; but as probably from a superstitious custom of writing the alphabet in the form of a cross, by way of charm." (Archdeacon Nares's Glossary, Art. "Christ-cross-row.")
"The A B C horn-book, containing the alphabet and nine digits. The most ancient of these infant-school books had the letters arranged in the form of a Latin cross, with A at the top and Z at the bottom, but afterwards the letters were arranged in lines, and a + was placed at the beginning to remind the learner that 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.'
Mortals ne'er shall know
More than contain'd of old the Christ-cross Row.
Tickell, The Horn-Book.
(See Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.)
At the beginning of a poem by the Rev. J. S. Hawker, called A Christ-cross-Rhyme, we find
Christ, his cross, shall be my speed,