Mrs. Charles MacVeagh

“ The moss-grown stone-work of the basin, and the light and shade of the great ilex trees about it give this little fountain a peculiar charm. It seems to belong quite consciously to other days than ours.
There are fountains everywhere in the gardens. They are as common as the trees and the marbles and the violets. The water seems to play at will among the lights and shadows, for during three centuries this has been a Roman pleasure-ground; and to the Roman no pleasure-ground is worthy the name without the sound and sight of water. ”

“ Much of the architecture and statuary Evelyn describes has vanished, but enough remains for the present traveller to recognize the picture and to feel that he is walking in groves and meadows trodden by many feet through many years. Since Evelyn's time eight generations have also found these pleasure-grounds delightful As full of memories as of fragrance, these gardens convey a sense of human life once lived among them and now forever gone, which is as poignant as the smell of the boxwood hedges in the hot sunshine. ”

“ The cardinal endeavored to lessen the envy which such opulence naturally aroused by a complaisant and courtly behavior, as well as by benevolence; and he earned for himself the sobriquet of "the delight of Rome," This villa he laid out for the benefit of the people, and it has really existed for them for over three hundred years. ”

“ John Evelyn writes in his "Diary" a long account of the Villa Borghese. The groves and avenues had by that time a generation's growth, but the Casino and little temples and the multifarious delights which enriched them were still in pristine freshness. The taste of the present day may prefer the gardens as they now are to those of i645; they have more of natural beauty and fewer artificial devices, and the simple fountains are more effective than the spouts of water made to resemble the shapes of vessels and fruits and the conceit of artificial rain. ”

“ Sea-horses with tossed manes and backward curving wings plunge outward from the shelter of the lower basin. Their tails twine about its stem, and the basin is close above their heads^ but it does not rest upon them; they are free. It is evident that in one more spring they will be out and away. Yet they do not take it, and they never will. ”

“ It is admirably suited to its surroundings, for rich carving and imaginative sculpture held in subservience to the natural charm of quiet water, conform exquisitely with a garden where stately formality enhances the loveliness of wild and simple beauty. ”

“ Hugo and Goethe and many more of these noble ghosts come back, together with a long line of splendid popes and brilliant cardinals, to haunt the sun-warmed yet shadowy places, never jostling or disturbing the living but felt by the living in some strange and undefinabie way. ”

“ Behind these stood a formally clipped box hedge rising some three feet above the benches, while the larger trees growing behind the hedge made by their branches a green canopy to this truly charming bit of garden architecture. Vansantio's basins and benches are now in a half-ruined condition, but they are still extremely lovely and suggest pictures of eighteenth-century garden-parties, where groups of Watteau's figures idle away the hours. The fountains are hardly visible, even at dose range. ”