Iborace Walpole 241 



the sea. Their gardens are never mentioned as 

 affording shade and shelter from the rage of the 

 dog-star. Pliny has left us descriptions of two 

 of his villas. As he used his Laurentine villa 

 for his winter retreat, it is not surprising that 

 the garden makes no considerable part of the 

 account. All he says of it is, that the gestatio 

 or place of exercise, which surrounded the gar- 

 den (the latter consequently not being very 

 large), was bounded by a hedge of box, and 

 where that was perished, with rosemary ; that 

 there was a walk of vines, and that most of the 

 trees were fig and mulberry, the soil not being 

 proper for any other sorts. 



On his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse ; the 

 garden makes a considerable part of the descrip- 

 tion and what was the principal beauty of that 

 pleasure-ground ? Exactly what was the admi- 

 ration of this country about threescore years 

 ago box-trees cut into monsters, animals, let- 

 ters, and the names of the master and the artifi- 

 cer. In an age when architecture displayed 

 all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste ; 

 when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the Tem- 

 ple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, 

 and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of 

 which still excite our astonishment and curi- 

 osity, a Roman consul, a polished emperor's 

 friend, and a man of elegant literature and taste 



