TORQUATO TASSO 55 



spring, which the gardener turned on more than 200 paces off, 

 with such art that he raised and depressed these ejaculations 

 at pleasure. . . . They saw too the head fountain issuing from 

 the Canal by two great bronze figures . . . there is also an 

 arbour (Cabinet) amid the branches of an ever-green tree, but 

 richer than any other they had seen for it is all filled with the 

 living green branches of the tree, and all round the arbour is so 

 enclosed with this verdure that there is no view except through 

 certain openings, which must be made by separating the branches 

 here and there; and in the middle, through a concealed pipe, 

 mounts a stream of water through the arbour, in the centre of 

 a small marble basin. There is heard too the water music. . . . 

 A beautiful grotto is also to be seen, where every kind of animal 

 is represented materially, emitting either by the beak, the wing, 

 the claw, the ear or the nostril, the water of those fountains. 



At Rome I had always some occupation, if not so agreeable 

 as I could wish, at least sufficient to stave off ennui : such as 

 visiting the Antiquities, the Vines, which are the Gardens and 

 pleasure-resorts, of singular beauty; and then I learnt how far 

 art could turn to advantage a woody, mountainous, and uneven 

 spot, for they draw inimitable graces from our levels, and elude 

 very artistically this diversity. Among the most beautiful are 

 those of the Cardinals d'Este at Monte Cavallo; Farnese 

 on the Palatine ; Ursino, Sforza, Medicis ; that of Pope Julius, 

 that of Madama (Marguerite, Duchess of Parma) ; the Gardens of 

 Farnese, and of Cardinal Riario at Transtevere, of Cesio, outside 

 the People's Gate. Travels of Montaigne in Germany and Italy. 



CORTHWITH was the Table furnished with Fruits, as Mellons, TORQUATO 

 * Cytrons, and such like, which at the end of Supper were, at 

 a wincke of his, reserved and set up ; and then he began thus. 

 The good old man Coricius, the Gardener of whom I remember 

 I have reade in Virgill : 



' Nocte domum dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis.' 

 Hyed home at night and fild his bord with delicats unbought ; 



