otion of an
Italian villa, and show what might have been, since we can not show
what has been here, by borrowing Pliny's account of the garden
attached to his Tuscan villa, the only account of a Roman garden which
has come down to us.

"In front of the house lies a spacious hippodrome, entirely open in
the middle, by which means the eye, upon your first entrance, takes in
its whole extent at one view. It is encompassed on every side with
plane trees covered with ivy, so that while their heads flourish with
their own green, their bodies enjoy a borrowed verdure; and thus the
ivy twining round the trunk and branches, spreads from tree to tree
and connects them together. Between each plane tree are placed box
trees, and behind these, bay trees, which blend their shade with that
of the planes. This plantation, forming a straight boundary on both
sides of the hippodrome, bends at the further end into a semi-circle,
which, being set round and sheltered with cypresses, casts a deeper
and more gloomy shade; while the inward circular walks (for there are
several) enjoying an open exposure, are full of roses, and correct the
coolness of the shade by the warmth of the sun.

"Having passed through these several winding alleys, you enter a
straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others, divided by
box edges. In one place you have a little meadow; in another the box
is cut into a thousand different forms, sometimes into letters; here
expressing the name of the master, there that of the artificer; while
here and there little obelisks rise, intermixed with fruit trees; when
on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant regularity, you are
surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural nature,
in the centre of which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf
plane trees. Beyond this is a walk, interspersed with the smooth and
twining acanthus, where the trees are also cut into a variety of names
and shapes. At the upper end is an alcove of white marble, shaded with
vines, supported by four small columns of Carystian marble. Here is a
triclinium, out of which the water, gushing through several little
pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons who
repose upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from whence it
is received into a fine polished marble basin, so artfully contrived
that it is always full without ever overflowing. When I sup here,
this basin serves for a table, the larger sort