shady nooks on the mountain-side,-thickets of laurestinus, roses, genista, and jessamine,—banks of lilies and hyacinths, anemonies and violets,-grand masses of grey rock, up which white-bearded goats are scrambling to nibble the myrtle and rosemary, and knocking down showers of the red tufa on their way;—and a road, with stone seats and parapets, twisting along the edge of the hill through a constant diorama of loveliness, and peopled by groups of peasants in their gay dresses returning from their work, singing in parts wild canzonetti which echo amid the silent hills, or by women washing at the wayside fountains, or returning with brazen conche, poised upon their heads, like stately statues of water-goddesses wakened into life.

"The pencil only can describe Tivoli; and though unlike other scenes, the beauty of which is generally exaggerated in pictures, no representation has done justice to it, it is yet impossible that some part of its peculiar charms should not be transferred upon the canvas. It almost seems as if Nature herself had turned painter when she formed this beautiful and perfect composition."-Eaton's Rome.

Deep below Quintiliolo, reached by a winding path through grand old olive-woods, is the Ponte dell' Acquoria-" the bridge of the golden water," so called from a beautiful spring which rises near it. It is a fine single arch of travertine, crossed by the Via Tiburtina.

Passengers now cross the Anio by a wooden bridge, and ascend the Clivus Tiburtinus on the other side. Much of the ancient pavement remains. On the right of the road is the curious circular-domed building, somewhat resembling the temple of Minerva-Medica at Rome, and called by local antiquaries Il Tempio della Tosse, or "The Temple of Cough." The fact being, that it was probably the sepulchre of the Turcia family, one of the members of which, Lucius

VILLA OF MECENAS.

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Arterius Turcius, is shown by an inscription to have repaired the neighbouring road in the time of Constans. In the interior are some remains of 13th-century frescoes, which indicate that this was then used as a Christian church.

The Via Constantina, which leads into the town from the Ponte Lucano, falls into the Via Tiburtina near this.

On the brow of the hill, we may now visit the immense ruins called The Villa of Maecenas, though there is no reason whatever to suppose that it was his villa, or even that he had a villa at Tibur at all.

"It is an immense quadrilateral edifice, 6371⁄2 feet long, and 450 broad, surrounded on three sides by sumptuous porticoes. The fourth side, or that which looks towards Rome, which is one of the long sides, 'had a theatre in the middle of it, with a hall or saloon on each side. The porticoes are arched, and adorned on the side towards the area with half-columns of the Doric order. Behind is a series of chambers. An oblong tumulus now marks the site of the house, or, according to Nibby, who regards it as the temple of Hercules, of the Cella. The pillars were of travertine, and of a beautiful Ionic order. One of them existed on the ruins as late as 1812. This immense building intercepted the ancient road, for which, as appears from an inscription preserved in the Vatican, a vault or tunnel was constructed, part of which is still extant. Hence it gave name to the Porta Scura or Obscura, mentioned in the Bull of Benedict, which it continued to bear at least as late as the 15th century."--Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography.

These ruins are the only remains in Tivoli which at all correspond with the allusions in the poets to the famous Heracleum, or Temple of Hercules, which was of such a size as to be quoted, with the waterfall, by Strabo as characteristics of Tivoli, just as the great temple of Fortune was the distinguishing feature of Præneste. It contained a library, and had an oracle, which answered by sortes like that of Præneste. Augustus, when at Tibur, frequently administered justice in the porticoes of the temple of Hercules.

To trace all the poetical allusions to it would be endless: here are a few of them.

"Curve te in Herculeum deportant esseda Tibur.'

Propertius, 11. 32.

"Tibur in Herculeum migravit nigra Lycoris."

Martial, iv. 62.

"Venit in Herculeos colles : quid Tiburis alti

Aura valet?"

Mart. vii. 12.

"Nec mihi plus Nemee, priscumve habitabitur Argos,
Nec Tiburna domus, solisque cubilia Gades."

Stat. Silv. iii. 1. 182.

"Quosque sub Herculeis taciturno flumine muris
Pomifera arva creant Anienicolæ Catilli."

Sil. Ital. iv. 224.

We re-enter the town by a gate with Ghibelline battlements, near which are two curious mediaval houses, one with a beautiful outside loggia. Passing through the dirty streets almost to the Porta Santa Croce, by which we entered Tivoli, a narrow alley on the right leads us to a little square, one side of which is occupied by the Cathedral of S. Francesco, a picturesque little building, with a good rosewindow. Behind the church is a cella of the age of Augustus, which some antiquaries have referred to the temple of Hercules.

"But it would be difficult to regard these vestiges as forming part of a temple 150 feet in circumference, nor was it usual to erect the principal Christian church on the foundations of a heathen temple. It is pretty certain, however, that the Forum of Tibur was near the cathedral, and occupied the site of the present Piazza dell' Ormo and its environs, as appears from a Bull of Pope Benedict VII., in the year 978. The round temple at the cathedral belonged therefore to the Forum, as well as the crypto-porticus, now called Porto di Ercole in the street del Poggio. The exterior of this presents ten closed arches about 200 feet in length,

which still retain traces of the red plaster with which they were covered. Each arch has three loop-holes to serve as windows. The interior is divided into two apartments or halls, by a row of 28 slender pillars. Traces of arabesque painting on a black ground may still be seen. The mode of building shows it to be of the same period as the circular remains."-Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography.

Close to the Cathedral is the door of the famous Villa d'Este, where we are admitted on ringing a bell, and crossing a court-yard, and descending a long vaulted passage, are allowed unaccompanied to enter and wander about in one of the grandest and wildest and most impressive gardens in the world. The villa itself, built in 1549, by Pirro Ligorio, for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, son of Alfonso II., Duke of Ferrara, is stately and imposing in its vast forms, bold outlines, and deeply-projecting cornices. Beneath it runs a broad terrace (rather too much grown up now), ending in an archway, which none but the most consummate artist would have placed where it stands, in glorious relief against the soft distances of the many-hued Campagna. Beneath the twisted staircases which lead down from this terrace, fountains send up jets of silvery spray on every succeeding level against the dark green of the gigantic cypresses, which line the main avenue of the garden, and which also, interspersed with the richer verdure of Acacias and Judas trees, snowy or crimson with flowers in spring, stand in groups on the hill-side, with the old churches of Tivoli and the heights of Monte Catillo seen between them. The fountains at the sides of the garden are colossal, like everything else here, and overgrown with maiden-hair fern, and water glitters everywhere in stone channels through the dark arcades of thick foliage. Flowers there are few, except the masses of roses, guelder roses, and lilacs, which grow and blossom where they will.

The villa now belongs to the Duke of Modena, the direct descendant of its founder.

(Those who return to Rome the same evening will do well to order their carriages to wait for them at the entrance of the Villa d'Este.)

Outside the Porta Santa Croce are the old Jesuits' College, with its charming terrace called La Veduta, and the Villa. Braschi, in whose cellar the aqueduct of the Anio Novus may be seen. Some disappointment will doubtless be felt at the uncertainty which hangs over the different homes of the poets at Tivoli, especially over that of Horace, which was near the grove of Tiburnus ;* but then, though the actual ruins pointed out to us may not have belonged to them, there is so much of which they tell us that remains unchanged, the luxuriant woods, the resounding Anio, the thymy uplands, that the very atmosphere is alive with their verses; and amid such soul-inspiring loveliness, one cannot wonder that Tibur was beloved by them.