Gardens 25,3 



ivy, at some turn of the way, and one seems to catch 

 the escaping flutter of white drapery among the 

 leaves. You will sometimes see the shy figure of an 

 old Cardinal taking his walk there ; and if you follow 

 him, you will come upon a broad alley of ilexes, 

 lined with broken statues, broken friezes, and arched 

 over by fantastically twisted branches, brown and 

 interlaced, on which the blue-grey leaves hang 

 delicately like lace; an alley leading to what must 

 once have been a sarcophagus, covered on the side 

 by which you approach it, with white carved figures. 

 On the other side you find yourself in a httle trelHsed 

 circle from which, as through a window suddenly 

 opened, you see the Alban Hills; there is a rustic 

 wooden seat against the stone of the sarcophagus, on 

 which, roughly carved, two lions meet and seem to 

 shake hands ; and above is written : ' Qui San Filippo 

 Xeri discorreva coi suoi discepoli delli cose di Dio.' " 



For a modem rhapsody or ideal picture of ItaUan 

 gardens, a poetical dream, a quotation is given from 

 Mrs. (E. V. B.) Boyle: 



"A garden, the word is indeed a picture, and what 

 a picture it reveals! All through the days of child- 

 hood the garden is our fairy ground of sweet enchant- 

 ment and innocent wonder. The}^ are all beautiful, 

 these Gardens of Poetr^^I and through the midst of 

 them flows the broad stream of Memory, isled with 

 fair lilied lawns, fringed with willo^sy forests of 

 whispering reeds. And not less beautiful than these 



