tbe lounger 51 



gradual a rise that you find yourself on high 

 ground without perceiving you have been 

 making an ascent. Behind, but at a great dis- 

 tance, is the Apennine range. In the calmest 

 days we get cool breezes from that quarter, not 

 sharp and cutting at all, being spent and broken 

 by the long distance they have travelled. The 

 greater part of the house has a southern aspect, 

 and seems to invite the afternoon sun in sum- 

 mer (but rather earlier in the winter) into a 

 broad and proportionately long portico, consist- 

 ing of several rooms, particularly a court of 

 antique fashion. In front of the portico is a 

 sort of terrace, edged with box and shrubs cut 

 into different shapes. You descend from the 

 terrace by an easy slope, adorned with the 

 figures of animals in box, facing each other, to 

 a lawn overspread with the soft, I had almost 

 said the liquid, Acanthus ; this is surrounded 

 by a walk enclosed with evergreens, shaped 

 into a variety of forms. Beyond it is the gesta- 

 tio, laid out in the form of a circus running 

 round the multiform box-hedge and the dwarf- 

 trees, which are cut quite close. The whole is 

 fenced in with a wall completely covered by 

 box cut into steps all the way up to the top. 

 On the outside of the wall lies a meadow that 

 owes as many beauties to nature as all I have 

 been describing within does to art ; at the end 





