ON GARDENS 227 



exactly, and found it to be one of the most magnificent 

 and pleasant in Rome. I am told the gardener is 

 annualy alowed 2000 scudi for the keeping it. Here 

 I observ'd hedges of myrtle above a man's height ; 

 others of laurell, oranges, nay of ivy and juniper ; the 

 close walks, and rustic grotto ; a crypta, of which the 

 laver or basin is of one vast, intire, antiq porphyrie, 

 and below this flows a plentifull cascade ; the steppes 

 of the grotto and the roofs being of rich Mosaiq. 

 Here are hydraulic organs, and a fish-pond in an ample 

 bath. 



By these (stairs) we descended into the Vatican 

 Gardens cal'd Belvedere, where entring first into a kind 

 of Court we were shown those incomparable statues (so 

 fam'd by Pliny and others) of Laocoon with his three 

 sonns embrac'd by an huge serpent, all of one entire 

 Parian stone very white and perfect, somewhat bigger 

 then the life, the worke of those three celebrated 

 sculptors, Agesandrus, Polidorus, and Artemidorus, 

 Rhodians ; it was found among the ruines of Titus's 

 Baths, and placed here. ... In the Garden without 

 this (which containes a vast circuit of ground) are 

 many stately fountaines, especialy two casting water 



