hospitalem_ consociare amant
Ramis, et obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.

AQUILIUS.--Truly, in many places Horace delights to paint this one
individual spot. We have in all, the wood, the waters from their higher
banks, making falls such as to induce sleep, the garden with its shade,
and its fountain, _near the house_, this continual "aquae fons." Such as
was his "Fons Bandusiae," not _fons_ a mere spring, but sanctified by
architectural art, as well as feeling.

"Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,
Me dicente cavis impositam illicem
Saxis, unde loquaces
_Lymphae_ desiliunt tuae."

But listen to what he desired to possess, and did possess.

"Hoc erat in votis, modus agri non ita magnus,
Hortus ubi, et tecto vicinus jugis aquae fons,
Et paulum sylvae super his foret."

Is he describing his Sabine villa?--I have a sketch on its site--and
there is now, whatever there may have been in his days, a high bank,
over which the water still falls, (I believe from the Digentia) which by
conduits supplied the house, and cattle returned from their labour, and
the flocks. There is a small cascade filling a marble basin (the
fountain) and thence flowing off through the garden. Perhaps he had in
these descriptions one or two scenes in his mind's eye much alike. A
poet's geography shifts its scenery _ad libitum_. But see what his
Sabine farm was.

CURATE.--I remember it.

"Scribetur tibi forma loquaciter, et situs agri."

But does he not in that passage make _rivus_ a river?--

"Fons etiam rivo dare nomen idoneus, ut nec
Frigidior Thracam, nec purior ambiat Hebrus."

AQUILIUS.--The river was the Digentia, the cold Digentia.

"Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus."

It _may_ be here a river, but not _certainly_. Do you suppose he went
down in sight of the whole neighbourhood to bathe in the little river?
for _little_ river it is, and cold enough, too; for I have bathed in it,
and can testify of its coldness. Would you take him, 1 say, down from
his house to the river itself, when he had it conveyed to his own home
by a _rivus_, or channel, and by a _fons_ such as has been described,
from which, without doubt, he was supplied with water enough for his hot
and his cold baths? The gelidus Digentia rivus, I well know, and, as I
said, bathed in it. A countryman seeing me, cried out, "Fa morir!" The
Italians now (at least inland) never bathe; they have a perfect
hydrophobia. Few even wash