less do than send her some flesh, prognosticating that hereafter thou must have some of mine, which, if he please, I would have now. As touching your sister's mother, I have consigned Walter Welsh to write to my lord Manwring my mind therein, whereby I trust he shall not have power to disseid her; for surely, whatever is said, it cannot so stand with his honour, but that he must needs take his natural daughter in her extreme necessity. No more to you at this time, my own darling, but that with a whistle I wish we were together one evening; by the hand of yours.

" HENRY."

These letters are always shown to an Englishman that visits the Vatican library.

TOWNS WITHIN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ROME.

I SPENT three or four days on Tivoli, Frescati, Palæstrina, and Albano. In our way to Tivoli I saw the rivulet of Salforata, formerly called Albula, and smelt the stench that arises from its waters some time before I saw them. Martial mentions this offensive smell in an epigram of the fourth book, as he does the rivulet itself in the first:

Quod siccæ redolet palus lacunæ,
Crudarum nebulæ quod Albularum.
The drying marshes such a stench convey,
Such the rank steams of reeking Albula.
Iter ad Herculei gelidas quà Tiburis arces,
Canaque sulphureis Albula fumat aquis.
As from high Rome to Tivoli you go,
Where Albula's sulphureous waters flow.

Lib. iv. ep. 4.

Lib. i. ep. 13.

The little lake that gives rise to this river, with its floating islands, is one of the most extraordinary natural curiosities about Rome. It lies in the very flat of Campania, and as it is the drain of these parts, it is no wonder that it is so impregnated with sulphur. It has at bottom so thick a sediment of it, that upon throwing in a stone the water boils for a considerable time over the place which has been stirred up. At the same time are seen little flakes of scurf rising up, that are probably the parts which compose the islands, for they often mount of themselves, though the water is not troubled.

I question not but this lake was formerly much larger than it is at present, and that the banks have grown over it by degrees, in the same manner as the islands have been formed on it. Nor is it improbable but that, in process of time, the whole surface of it may be crusted over, as the islands enlarge themselves, and the banks close in upon them. All about the lake, where the ground is dry, we found it to be hollow by the trampling of our horses' feet. I could not discover the least traces of the Sibyls' temple and grove, which stood on the borders of this lake. Tivoli is seen at a distance lying along the brow of a hill. Its situation has given Horace occasion to call it Tibur Supinum, as Virgil, perhaps for the same reason, entitles it Superbum. The Villa de Medicis with its water-works, the cascade of the Teverone, and the ruins of the Sibyls' temple (of which Vignola has made a little copy at St. Peter's de Montorio) are described in every itinerary. I must confess I was most pleased with a beautiful prospect that none of them have mentioned, which lies at about a mile's distance from the town. It opens on one side into the Roman Campania, where

the eye loses itself on a smooth spacious plain. On the other side is a more broken and interrupted scene, made up of an infinite variety of inequalities and shadowings, that naturally arise from an agreeable mixture of hills, groves, and valleys. But the most enlivening part of all is the river Teverone, which you see at about a quarter of a mile's distance throwing itself down a precipice, and falling by several cascades from one rock to another, till it gains the bottom of the valley, where the sight of it would be quite lost, did it not sometimes discover itself through the breaks and openings of the woods that grow about it. The Roman painters often work upon this landscape; and I am apt to believe that Horace had his eye upon it in those two or three beautiful touches which he has given us of these seats. The Teverone was formerly called the

Anio:

Me nec tam patiens Lacedæmon,

Nec tam Larissa percussit campus opimæ,

Quam domus Albuneæ resonantis,

Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lacus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis.

Not fair Larissa's fruitful shore,
Nor Lacedæmon charms me more,
Than high Albunea's airy walls
Resounding with her waterfalls,
And Tivoli's delightful shades,
And Anio rolling in cascades,

That through the flow'ry meadows glides,
And all the beauteous scene divides.

Lib. i. Od. 7.

I remember monsieur Dacier explains mobilibus by ductilibus, and believes that the word relates to the conduits, pipes, and canals that were made to distribute the waters up and down, according to the pleasure of the owner. But any one who sees the

Teverone must be of another opinion, and conclude it to be one of the most moveable rivers in the world, that has its stream broken by such a multitude of cascades, and is so often shifted out of one channel into another. After a very turbulent and noisy course of several miles among the rocks and mountains, the Teverone falls into the valley before mentioned, where it recovers its temper, as it were, by little and little, and after many turns and windings glides peaceably into the Tiber. In which sense we are to understand Silius Italicus's description to give it its proper beauty:

Sulphureis gelidus quà serpit leniter undis

Ad genitorem Anio, labens sine murmure, Tibrim. Lib. 12.
Here the loud Anio's boist'rous clamours cease,
That with submissive murmurs glides in peace

To his old sire the Tiber.

At Frescati I had the satisfaction of seeing the first sketch of Versailles in the walks and waterworks. The prospect from it was doubtless much more delightful formerly, when the Campania was set thick with towns, villas, and plantations. Cicero's Tusculum was at a place called Grotto Ferrate, about two miles off this town, though most of the modern writers have fixed it to Frescati. Nardini says, there was found among the ruins at Grotto Ferrate a piece of sculpture which Cicero himself mentions in one of his familiar epistles. In going to Frescati we had a fair view of mount Algido.

On our way to Palæstrina we saw the lake Regillus, famous for the apparition of Castor and Pollux, who were here seen to give their horses drink after the battle between the Romans and the son-in-law of Tarquin. At some distance from it we had a

view of the Lacus Gabinus, that is much larger than the former. We left the road for about half a mile to see the sources of a modern aqueduct. It is entertaining to observe how the several little springs and rilis, that break out of the sides of the mountain, are gleaned up, and conveyed through little covered channels into the main hollow of the aqueduct. It was certainly very lucky for Rome, seeing it had occasion for so many aqueducts, that there chanced to be such a range of mountains within its neighbourhood. For by this means they could take up their water from what height they pleased, without the expense of such an engine as that of Marli. Thus the Claudian aqueduct ran thirty-eight miles, and sunk after the proportion of five foot and a half every mile, by the advantage only of a high source, and the low situation of Rome. Palæstrina stands very high, like most other towns in Italy, for the advantage of the cool breezes, for which reason Virgil calls it Altum, and Horace Frigidum Præneste. Statius calls it Præneste Sacrum, because of the famous temple of Fortune that stood in it. There are still great pillars of granate, and other fragments of this ancient temple. But the most considerable remnant of it is a very beautiful Mosaic pavement, the finest I have ever seen in marble. The parts are so well joined together, that the whole piece looks like a continued picture. There are in it the figures of a rhinoceros, of elephants, and of several other animals, with little landscapes which look very lively and well painted, though they are made out of the natural colours and shadows of the marble. do not remember ever to have met with an old Roman Mosaic, composed of little pieces of clay half vitrified, and prepared at the glasshouses, which

I