LETTER LXIX.

E delayed visiting Tivoli, Frescati,

and Albano, till our return from Naples. -;

The Campagna is an uninhabited plain surrounding the city of Rome, bounded on one side by the sea, and on the other by an amphitheatre of hills, crowned with towns, villages, and villas, which form the finest landscapes that can be imagined. * The ancient Romans were wont to seek shelter from the scorching heats of summer, among the woods and lakes of those hills; and the Cardinals and Roman Princes, at the same season, retire to their villas; while many of the wealthier sort of citizens take lodgings in the villages, during the season of gathering the vines.

Rome.

desired to visit a kind of lake called Solfatara, formerly Lacus Albulus, and there shown certain substances, to which they give the name of Floating Islands. They are nothing else than bunches of bullrushes, springing from a thin soil, formed by dust and sand blown from the adjacent ground, and glued together by the bitumen which swims on the surface of this lake, and the sulphur with which its waters are impregnated. Some of these islands are twelve or fifteen yards in length; the soil is sufficiently strong to bear five or six people, who, by the means of a pole, may move to different parts of the lake, as if they -Were in a boat. This lake empties itself by a whitish, muddy stream, into the Teverone, the ancient Anio; a vapour, of a sulphureous smell, arising from it as it flows. The ground near this rivulet, as also around the borders of the lake, resounds, as if it were hollow, when a horse gallops over it. The water of this lake has the singular quality of covering every substance sticks or shrubs into it, they will, in a few days, be covered with a white crust; but, what seems still more extraordinary, this encrustating quality is not so strong in the lake itself, as in the canal, or little rivulet that runs from it; and the farther the water has flowed from the lake, till it is quite lost in the Anio, the stronger this quality is. Those small, round encrustations, which cover the sand and pebbles, resembling sugar plumbs, are called Confetti di Tivoli*. Fifties are found in the Anio, both above and below Tivoli, till it receives the Albula; after which, during the rest of its course to the Tiber, there are none. The waters of this lake had a high medical reputation anciently, but they are in no esteem at present.

Near the bottom of the eminence on which Tivoli stands, are the ruins of the vast and magnificent villa built by the emperor Adrian. In this were comprehended gave to the buildings and gardens of this famous villa the names of the most celebrated places; as the Academia, the Lycæum, .the Prytaneum of Athens, the Tempe of Thessaly, and the Elyfian fields and infernal regions of .the poets. There were also commodious apartments for a vast number 9s guests, all admirably distributed, with baths, and every conveniency. Every quarter of the world contributed to ornament this famous villa, whose spoils have since formed the principal ornaments of the Campadoglio, the Vatican, and the palaces of the Roman Princes. It is said to have been three miles in length, and above a mile in breadth. Some Antiquarians make it much larger; but the ruins, now remaining, do not mark a surface of a quarter of that extent.

At no great distance, they shew the place to which the Eastern Queen Zenobia was confined, after she was brought in triumph to Rome by the emperor Aurelian.

The town of Tivoli is now wretchedly which, Horace informs us, was founded by a Grecian colony.

Tibur Argæo positum colono
Sit meæ scdes utinam scnectæ*.

Ovid gives it the same origin, in the fourth book of the Fasti:

■ Jam mcenia Tiburis udi

Stabantj Argolicæ quod posuere manusf.

This was a populous and flourishing town in remoter antiquity; but it appears to have been thinly inhabited in the reign of Augustus. Horace, in an epistle to Mæcenas, fays,

Parvum parva decent. Mihi jam non Regia Roma,

Sed vacuum tibur placet J.

* May Tibur to my latest hours,
Afford a kind and calm retreat;
Tibur, beneath whose lofty towers,
The Grecians fix'd their blissful feat.

Francis.

+ The walls of the moist Tibur, then stood, which was sounded by the Greeks.

J For little works become their little fate.
And every age, not Rome's imperial feat.