necessary to be aware that Rustica may be a modern
name which the peasants may have caught from the antiquaries.

The villa, or the mosaic, is in a vineyard on a knoll covered with
chestnut trees. A stream runs down the valley; and although it is not
true, as said in the guide books, that this stream is called Licenza,
yet there is a village on a rock at the head of the valley, which is so
denominated, and which may have taken its name from the Digentia.
Licenza contains seven hundred inhabitants. On a peak a little way
beyond is Civitella, containing three hundred. On the banks of the Anio,
a little before you turn up into Valle Rustica, to the left, about an
hour from the _villa_, is a town called Vicovaro, another favourable
coincidence with the _Varia_ of the poet. At the end of the valley,
towards the Anio, there is a bare hill, crowned with a little town
called Bardela. At the foot of this hill the rivulet of Licenza flows,
and is almost absorbed in a wide sandy bed before it reaches the Anio.
Nothing can be more fortunate for the lines of the poet, whether in a
metaphorical or direct sense:--

"Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus,
Quem Mandela bibit rugosus frigore pagus."

The stream is clear high up the valley, but before it reaches the hill
of Bardela looks green and yellow like a sulphur rivulet.

Rocca Giovane, a ruined village in the hills, half an hour's walk from
the vineyard where the pavement is shown, does seem to be the site of
the fane of Vacuna, and an inscription found there tells that this
temple of the Sabine Victory was repaired by Vespasian. With these
helps, and a position corresponding exactly to every thing which the
poet has told us of his retreat, we may feel tolerably secure of our
site.

The hill which should be Lucretilis is called Campanile, and by
following up the rivulet to the pretended Bandusia, you come to the
roots of the higher mountain Gennaro. Singularly enough, the only spot
of ploughed land in the whole valley is on the knoll where this Bandusia
rises.

" ... tu frigus amabile
Fessis vomere tauris
Praebes, et pecori vago."

The peasants show another spring near the mosaic pavement, which they
call "Oradina," and which flows down the hills into a tank, or mill-dam,
and thence trickles over into the Digentia.

But we must not hope

"To trace the Muses upwards to their spring,"

by exploring the windings of the romantic valley in se