CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 69 



a very grand and pleasing one of the mountains on each side of 

 Tivoli. 



The ground is agreeably varied, and the soil seems very favour- 

 able for trees. The air, though surrounded by the coinpagna di 

 Roma, is said to be perfectly healthy. 



Returning into the high road from Rome to Tivoli, where it 

 crosses the river by thePonte Lucana, we find the ancient tombof the 

 Plautian family ; which is a large round tour built of great blocks 

 of Travertiuo. The cornice that runs round the top, is ornamented 

 with bulls' heads, interlaced with festoons of flowers. There are 

 also some remains of columns, &c, in which respect only, (with the 

 exception of being something smaller,) it differs from the tomb of 

 Cecilia Metella near Rome. 



There is reason to suppose that the battlements were added by 

 the Goths, who converted it into a fortress. 



Soon after, we began to mount the side of what Horace calls 

 the supine Tibur,' through a beautiful wood of olives, in which 

 we found a quarry of flowering alabaster. 



We were here diverted with a lad, who, according to the custom 

 of the country, was driving a horse, rather heavily laden, with 

 stones instead of a whip. This enabled him to keep at a very re- 

 spectful distance from the tail of a horse, who, if ever he halted, or 

 turned out of the way, was sure of a stone's falling upon his rump 

 so exactly in the same place, that his conductor mwst have prac- 

 ticed long to acquire so much dexterity. 



The town of Tivoli is wretched, dirty, and uninteresting in itself, 

 but the situation, of it is so enchanting that 1 am almost inclined 

 to join Horace in the preference which, he gave it to all the places 

 he had seen. 



After the lapse of so many ages, the characteristic beauties of 

 Tivoli continue so exactly the same, that it is impossible to give vou 

 \v\Jew words a general idea of them, better than by a literal trans- 

 lation of the poet's own words, Ode fj. B. I. " The patient 

 Lacedacmon, and the fields of rich Larissa, delight me less than the 

 house of the resounding Albunea, the headlong Anio, the grove of 

 Tibur, and orchards moist with streams, that change their course at 

 pleasure.*' 



The house of the resounding Albunea is the chief ornament of 

 Tivoli, and one of the most beautiful remains of antiquity. 



