74 



\f these antiquarian proofs were less strong, the place itself would 

 bear no feeble testimony to its having been the seat of Horace, as 

 there is not any one of the numerous descriptions he has left of it, 

 to which it does not at this day perfectly answer. Of these I was 

 better enabled to judge by reading Horace upon the spot, and it 

 will, probably, as you are so fond of reading him at home, be the 

 pleasantest method I can take of describing the modern appearance 

 of the place, to refer you to his own descriptions of it in its ancient 

 state. 



In the l6th Epist. Book 1. he says to his friend Guinctius, " Lest 

 you should ask whether my farm feeds its owner by tillage, or en. 

 riches him with olives, with orchards and pasture, or the elm clothed 

 with vines I will describe to you at length the form and situation 

 of it. 



" It is surrounded by mountains uninterrupted except by a shady 

 valley : of which the sun rising beholds the right side, and warms 

 the left wilh his retreating car What if it produces kindly cornels 

 and wild plums, while the oak and holm oak delight the cattle with 

 their fruit, and their master with their shade. You would say that 

 Tarentum itself was brought hither with all its groves. There is a 

 spring fit to give name to a river, cooler and purer than which He- 

 brus not encircles Thrace. -It flows useful in pains of the head and 

 indigestions. These retreats, pleasant, and even (if you will be- 

 Jieve me) delightful, keep me in health during the unwholesome 

 hours of September.'* 



Upon this text I make no further comment than to observe, that 

 all the trees here mentioned are found so plentifully as to appear 

 the spontaneous growth of the country, though the difference of 

 culture probably has introduced such a number of olives, walnuts, 

 and chesnuts, that they would hardly have escaped the mention of 

 so accurate a painter of nature as Horace, if they had existed so 

 plentifully in his time. 



In every other respect the situation answers as perfectly as if the 

 description had been just written $ and the circumstance of the vines 

 being raised on elms, continues to this day, though at so small a. 

 distance as Tivoli, the custom is universally to prop them upon reeds, 

 of which they make large plantations for that purpose. 



' The spring is not only " fit to give name to the stream that 

 waters the valley of Licenza, but is sometimes so abundant as to oo 



