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"Indeed, so striking were these coincidences that we were as nearly as possible going off on the wrong tack, and singing 'Io Pæan' to 'Dame Nature herself at the expense of the bard; but we were soon brought back to our allegiance by a sense of the way in which all we saw tallied with the description of him who sang of Nature so surpassingly well, who challenges posterity in charmed accents, and could shape the sternest and most concise of tongues into those melodious cadences, that invest his undying verse with all the magic of music and all the freshness of youth. For this was clearly the 'Angulus iste,' the nook which restored him to himself'-this the lovely spot which his steward longed to exchange for the slums of Rome. Below lay the green sward by the river, where it was sweet to recline in slumber. Here grew the vine, still trained, like his own, on the trunks and branches of trees. Yonder the brook which the rain would swell till it overflowed its margin, and his lazy steward and slaves were fain to bank it up; and above, among a wild jumble of hills, lay the woods where, on the Calends of March, Faunus interposed to save him from the attack of the wolf as he strolled along unarmed, singing of the soft voice and sweet smiles of his Lalage! The brook is now nearly dammed up; a wall of close-fitting rough-hewn stones gathers its waters into a still, dark pool; its overflow gushes out in a tiny rill that rushed down beside our path, mingling its murmur with the hum of myriads of insects that swarmed in the air.”—Horace, by Theo. Martin in “Classics for English Readers."

Visitors to Licenza will be glad further to beguile the long drive with the following extract :

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Entering the valley which opens to the north. On a height which rises to the right stand two villages, Cantalupo and Bardela; the latter is supposed to be the Mandela, which the poet describes as rugosus frigore pagus; and, certes, it stands in an airy position, at the point of junction of the two valleys. You soon come to a small stream, of no remarkable character, but it is the Digentia, the gelidus rivus, at which the poet was wont to slake his thirst-me quoties reficit-and which flows away through the meadows to the foot of the said hill of Bardela —quem Mandela bibit. You are now in the Sabine valley, so fondly loved and highly prized.

'Cur valle permutem Sabinâ
Divitias operosiores?'

"A long lofty ridge forms the left-hand barrier of the valley. It is Lucretilis. It has no striking features to attract the eye-with its easy

HORACE'S FARM.

215

swells, undulating outline, and slopes covered with wood, it well merits the title of amanus, though that was doubtless due to its grateful shade, rather than to its appearance. Ere long you espy, high up beneath the brow of the mountain, a village pushed on a precipitous grey cliff. It is Rocca Giovane, now occupying the site of the ruined temple of Vacuna.

"On a conical height in this valley stands the town of Licenza ; while other loftier heights tower behind, from which the village of Civitella, apparently inaccessible, looks down on the valley like an eagle from its eyrie. In the foreground a knoll crested with chestnuts, rising some eighty or hundred feet above the stream, marks the site of the muchsung farm.

"This knoll stands at a bend of the stream, or rather at the point where several rivulets unite to form the Digentia. Behind the knoll stood the Farm. Its mosaic pavement, still shown, is black and white, in very simple geometrical figures, and, with the other remains, is quite in harmony with an abode where

'Non ebur neque aureum

Meá renidet in domo lacunar;

Non trabes Hymettiæ

Premunt columnas ultimâ recisas

Africâ.'

"From the poet's description, we learn that his land was little cultivated :

'Quid, si rubicunda leniquè

Corna vepres et pruna ferunt? si quercus et ilex
Multâ fruge pecus, multâ dominum juvat umbrâ?'

You may remember, too, that he says of the neighbourhood :-
'Angulus iste feret piper et thus ocyus uvâ.'

ἐσ Tempora mutantur, and soils may change also-the cultivation of nineteen centuries has rendered this more fertile; for vines hang in festoons from tree to tree over the site of his abode; the cornels and sloes have in great measure given way to the olive and fig; and the walnut and Spanish chestnut have taken the place of the oak and ilex. Nevertheless the poet's description still holds good of the uncultivated spots in the neighbourhood, which are overrun with brambles and are fragrant with odoriferous herbs; and until late years the ground was covered with wood-with cere and quercie, different kinds of oak, and with scarlet-holm and Spanish chestnut.

“The Farm is situated on a rising ground, which sinks with a gentle

slope to the stream, leaving a level intervening strip, yellow in the harvest. In this I recognized the pratum apricum which was in danger of being overflowed. The aprica rura were probably then, as now, sown with corn,—puræ rivus aquæ, et segetis lecta fides meæ. Here it must have been that the poet was wont to repose after his meal: prope rivum somnus in herbâ ; and here his personal efforts, perhaps, to dam out the stream, provoked his neighbours to a smile

'Rident vicini glebas et saxa moventem.'

From a Letter by G. Dennis-" De Villa Horatii,”—given in Milman's "Works of Quintus Horatius Flaccus."

Those who are able to encounter rather a rough walk will not be satisfied without trying to reach the spring, which is supposed to be the Fons Blandusiæ.

This

"The spring now commonly called the 'Fonte Blandusia' rises at the head of a narrow glen, which opens into the broader valley of the Digentia just beyond the Farm, and stretches up for two or three miles into the heart of the mountains, dividing Lucretilis from Ustica. is evidently the reducta vallis, to which Tyndaris was invited; and is known by the peasants as the 'Valle Rustica,' than which no name could be more appropriate; though it probably was not conferred with reference to the scenery, but as a corruption of Ustica.' Whether Ustica cubans were a mountain or a valley, or both, as hath been opined, I leave to the critics to determine; but the mountain on the right of the glen, which contrasts its recumbent form with the steep-browed Lucretilis, is still called 'Ustica,' and sometimes 'Rustica,' by the peasantry. The penultimate, however, is now pronounced short. The streamlet is called 'Le Chiuse;' it is the same which flows beneath the villa, and threatens the 'pratum apricum.' I ascended its course from the Farm, by the path which Horace must have taken to the fountain. It flows over a rocky bed, here overshadowed by dwarf-willows, there by widespreading fig-trees, and is flanked by vineyards for some distance. Then all cultivation ceases-the scenery becomes wilder-the path steeper the valley contracts to a ravine—a bare grey and red rock rises on the right, schistose, rugged, and stern; another similar cliff rises opposite, crested with ilex, and overtopt by the dark head of Lucretilis.. As I approached the fountain I came to an open grassy spot, where cattle and goats were feeding.

'Tu frigus amabile

Fessis vomere tauris
Præbes, et pecori vago.'

FONS BLANDUSIÆ.

217

The spot is exquisitely Arcadian; no wonder it captivated the poet's fancy. It is now just as it must have met his eye. During the noontide heat, the vast Lucretilis throws his grateful shade across the glen, ' et igneam

Defendit æstatem capellis.'

Goats still wander among the underwood, cropping arbutos et thyma which cover the ground in profusion, or frisking amongst the rocks as smooth-faced-levia saxa-as when they reëchoed the notes of the poet's

pipe.

66

'Crossing the stream by the huge rocks which almost choke its bed, I climbed through brambles and sloes to the fountain. It is a most picturesque spot. Large masses of moss-clad rock lie piled up in the cleft between the hills, and among them the streamlet works its way, overshadowed by hanging woods of ilex, beech, horn-beam, maple, chestnut, nut, and walnut,—which throw so dense a shade, that scarcely a ray of the all-glaring sun can play on the turf below.

'Te flagrantis atrox hora Caniculæ

Nescit tangere: tu frigus amabile
Præbes.'

The water springs from three small holes at the top of a shelving rock of no great height, and glides down into a sandy basin, which it overflows, trickling in a slender thread over the rocks into a small pool, and thence sinking in a mimic cascade into the rugged channel which bears it down the glen. From the rocks which separate the upper from the lower basin of the fountain, springs a moss-grown walnut tree, which stretches its giant limbs over the whole. The water itself merits all that has been said or sung of it; it is verily splendidior vitro. Nothing-not even the Thracian Hebrus-can exceed it in purity, coolness, and sweetness.

"Hæ latebræ dulces, et jam (si credis) amœnæ !'

Well might the poet choose this as a retreat from the fierce noon-tide heat. Here he could lie the live-long day on the soft turf and sing

'ruris amoeni

Rivos, et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque,'

while his goats strayed around, cropping the cyclamen which decks the brink of the fountain, or the wild strawberries and sweet herbs which scent the air around. Here, while all nature below was fainting with the heat, might he enjoy the grateful shade of Lucretilis. Or here might he

well sing the praises of the fountain itself, as he listened to its 'babbling waters,' and feasted his eye on the rich union of wood and rock around it.

'Me dicente cavis impositam ilicem

Saxis, unde loquaces

Lymphæ desiliunt tuæ.'

"Just as it was then, so is it now,—even to the very ilices overhanging the hollow rocks whence it springs. And so exactly, in every particular, does this fountain answer to the celebrated Fons, that my faith in its identity is firm and steadfast."—G. Dennis.

"On this farm lovers of Horace have been fain to place the fountain of Bandusia, which the poet loved so well, and to which he prophesied, and truly, as the issue has proved, immortality from his song (Ode iii. 13). Charming as the poem is, there could be no stronger proof of the poet's hold upon the hearts of men of all ages than the enthusiasm with which the very site of the spring has been contested.

'Bandusia's fount in clearness crystalline

O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
To-morrow shall be thine

A kid, whose crescent brow

Is sprouting, all for love and victory

In vain; his warm red blood, so early stirred,
Thy gelid stream shall dye,

Child of the wanton herd.

'Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,
Forbears to touch; sweet cool thy waters yield
To ox with ploughing tired

And flocks that range afield.

'Thou too one day shall win proud eminence,

'Mid honoured founts, while I the ilex sing

Crowning the cavern, whence

Thy babbling wavelets spring.' (C).”

Horace, by Theo. Martin.

The ascent of Monte Gennaro may be made from Licenza, but it is better to make it from Tivoli itself, whence a carriage may be taken to Polo, and horses ordered there. Hence it is a constant ascent over ridges of hill till we reach

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