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THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
by water. He calls it “ deplorable music.” “ What can be more chilling than to see these 
stone creatures, daubed with colour, making melancholy music without piping or moving ? ” 
He and his friends spent an afternoon at Frascati in getting thoroughly drenched. The fun 
began at Mondragone, round the “ basin of the polypus,” so called from leather pipes set round 
it. It looked dry and innocent, but, on a secret tap being turned, the water swelled into the 
pipes and they gradually turned their showers upon all within reach. De Brosse and his grave 
companions abandoned themselves to the sport of turning them against one another, with such 
gusto that they were soon soaked from head to foot. Having changed their wet clothes at the 
inn, they were presently, after sitting quietly at Villa Aldobrandini, listening to the doleful strains 
of the centaur, unsuspicious of a hundred little jets of water concealed in the stonework, which 
suddenly spurted upon them. Being thoroughly wet through again, he says, they gave them- 
selves up to these games for the rest of the evening, and he particularly commends “ one 
173. — VIEW OF THE GREAT HEMIC YCLE AT THE BACK OF THE VILLA ALDOBRANDINI AT FRASCATI. 
excellent little staircase, which, as soon as you go up it, sends out jets of water which cross from 
right to left and from top to bottom, so that there is no escape.” At the top of the stairs they 
were revenged on the mischievous comrade who had turned the tap. He tried to turn a fresh 
one, but this was constructed expressly pour tromper Jes trompeurs. It turned upon the jarceiir. 
by name Legouz, with astonishing force, a torrent as thick as his arm, which caught him full 
in the middle. “ He fled with his breeches full of water, running out into his shoes.” After 
this they had to eat their supper in dressing gowns, having no more dry clothes ; and, having 
eaten two or three pounds of nougat, in addition to a bad supper, it is not surprising to hear 
that they had a violent nightmare, and we only marvel that apparently no one died of rheumatism 
or inflammation of the lungs. 
The fine rooms of the palace were at one time hung with paintings by Domenichino, 
executed at the time when he was painting the famous frescoes at Grotta Ferrata, but, as they were 
