grounds to all comers, and on a pleasant day like this they are probably
sure to be thronged. We left our carriage just within the entrance, and
rambled among these beautiful groves, admiring the live-oak trees, and
the stone-pines, which latter are truly a majestic tree, with tall
columnar stems, supporting a cloud-like density of boughs far aloft, and
not a straggling branch between there and the ground. They stand in
straight rows, but are now so ancient and venerable as to have lost the
formal look of a plantation, and seem like a wood that might have
arranged itself almost of its own will. Beneath them is a flower-strewn
turf, quite free of underbrush. We found open fields and lawns,
moreover, all abloom with anemones, white and rose-colored and purple and
golden, and far larger than could be found out of Italy, except in
hot-houses. Violets, too, were abundant and exceedingly fragrant. When
we consider that all this floral exuberance occurs in the midst of March,
there does not appear much ground for complaining of the Roman climate;
and so long ago as the first week of February I found daisies among the
grass, on the sunny side of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. At this
very moment I suppose the country within twenty miles of Boston may be
two feet deep with snow, and the streams solid with ice.

We wandered about the grounds, and found them very beautiful indeed;
nature having done much for them by an undulating variety of surface, and
art having added a good many charms, which have all the better effect now
that decay and neglect have thrown a natural grace over them likewise.
There is an artificial ruin, so picturesque that it betrays itself;
weather-beaten statues, and pieces of sculpture, scattered here and
there; an artificial lake, with upgushing fountains; cascades, and
broad-bosomed coves, and long, canal-like reaches, with swans taking
their delight upon them. I never saw such a glorious and resplendent
lustre of white as shone between the wings of two of these swans. It was