PLINY'S "HIPPODROME" 247 



palm-trees here and there raise up their graceful 

 heads. . . . 



It is not because the meandering paths are kept 

 with taste and care, or laid down with mathematical 

 precision, that one admires these gardens ; and 

 neither is it because the banks of the river are 

 trimmed with all the precision of rug-work, or that 

 rustic seats and rose-wreathed bowers are found 

 in every spot where indolence or luxury would 

 wish for them. There is more of nature and less 

 of art here than in the wilderness pleasure-grounds 

 of the Far West. There are miles of shade along 

 the brink of the lazy stream. The noble trees 

 around stretch out their giant arms, or shoot up 

 their stately heads, unrestrained by human care. 

 Here the air is cool and fresh amid the hottest 

 days of summer ; and were it not that in the coolest 

 breezes is wafted the poison of the burning fever, 

 this might well be regarded as an earthly paradise. 



J. L. POSTER. 



PLINY'S "HIPPODROME" 



(From a Letter to his friend Apollinaris) 



THE hippodrome extends its length before this 

 agreeably disposed range of building, entirely open 

 in the middle, so that the eye on the first entrance 

 sees the whole. It is surrounded by plane-trees, 

 which are clothed with ivy, so that while their tops 

 flourish in their own, their bodies are decked in 

 borrowed verdure ; the ivy thus wanders over the 



