The inundations are not for mock
sea-fights among slaves, but for the peaceful purposes of irrigation.
And though the fiddle of Nero is only traditional, the trumpets of the
French, murdering many an unhappy strain near by, are a most melancholy
fact. In the bottom of the valley, a noble old villa, covered with
frescoes, has been turned into a manufactory of bricks, and the very
Villa Negroni itself is now doomed to be the site of a railway station.
Yet here the princely family of Negroni lived, and the very lady at
whose house Lucrezia Borgia took her famous revenge may once have
sauntered under the walls, which still glow with ripening oranges, to
feed the gold-fish in the fountain, or walked with stately friends
through the long alleys of clipped cypresses, and pic-nicked _alia
Giorgione_ on lawns which are now but kitchen-gardens, dedicated to San
Cavolo. It pleases me, also, descending in memories to a later time, to
look up at the summer-house built above the gateway, and recall the
days when Shelley and Keats came there to visit their friend Severn,
the artist, (for that was his studio,) and look over the same alleys
and gardens, and speak words one would have been so glad to hear,--and,
coming still later down, to recall the hearty words and brave heart of
America's best sculptor and my dear friend, Crawford.
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