CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 71 



It is precisely through the ruins of the palace of Maecenas, that 

 there still flo\vs one of the moveable rivulets, of which Horace has 

 appeared to speak with so much pleasure. These streams are all of 

 them diverted from the Anio (now the Teverone) and after water- 

 ing the gardens, and turning the mills of the town, fail into the na- 

 tural bed of the river, in the most varied and beautiful cascades ; 

 which, to distinguish them from the grand fall, are called by the 

 Italian diminutive Cascatelle. 



The Grove of Tibur consists principally of olives, the most pic- 

 turesque trees of the kind I have seen ; and from the openings be. 

 tween them, you catch many fine points of view ; particularly one, 

 where you see the high rock on which the town stands, silvered 

 with its numerous cascades; and betwixt this and the olive woods 

 that shelve down to the river, the distance is filled up with the ex- 

 tent of the Campagna di Roma, intersected with ths public road, 

 and terminated by the dome of St. Peter's. Another is from a small 

 grotto, immediately overhanging the Teverone, from which you see 

 the largest of the cascatelle falling in two streams upon the huge 

 moss-grown rocks below, where it meets the main body of the river, 

 which tumbles, im broken falls, through the contracted valley in 

 front. 



In returning to Tivoli by another route, nearly parallel to the 

 course of the river, through the lower part of ' the forest of Ti- 

 burnus,* we find some ruins, commonly called those of the house of 

 Quintilius Varus. 



There is a delightful view from hence through the wood to the 

 scite of Catullus's villa, which was certainly at, though he would not 

 allow it to be upon, the foot of the first Sabine mountain, on account 

 of the contempt in which Sabine rusticity appears from the follow, 

 ing lines, to have been holdeu by the fashionables of his day, who 

 frequented Tibur : 



My Sabine or Tiburtine farm 

 Which they who would Catullus charm, 

 Tiburtine call ; but they who hate, 

 Will Saline prove a any rate. 



Catull. in fund. v. 655. 



Here too the larger caseatelle are just seen through the openings of 

 the trees, while the three smaller ones rush murmuring through the 



F 4 



