On the right of the Gate is the handsome entrance of the beautiful Villa Borghese, most liberally thrown open to the public on every day except Monday, when the Villa Doria is open.
"The entrance to the Villa Borghese is just outside the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architecture, a minute's walk will transport the visitor from the small uneasy lava stones of the Roman pavement, into broad, gravelled carriage drives, whence a little further stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion. A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and populace, stranger and native, all who breathe the Roman air, find free admission, and come hither to taste the languid enjoyment of the day-dream which they call life.
"The scenery is such as arrays itself to the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honoured are they, seem to have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe anymore than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It has already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gauls' last assault upon the walls of Rome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assume attitudes of evident repose. They lean over the green turf in ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger of interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grow near enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a more venerable quietude than that which sleeps among their sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that which gladdens the gentle bloom which these leafy patriarchs strive to diffuse over the swelling and subsiding lawns.
"In other portions of the grounds the stone pines lift their dense clumps of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they look like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off that you scarcely know which tree has made it.
"Again, there are avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more open spots are all a-bloom, early in the season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-coloured, and violets that betray themselves by their rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes fail to meet your own. Daisies, too, are abundant, but larger than the modest little English flower, and therefore of small account.
"These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the neglect that leaves nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since man seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way and makes herself at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, bestowed long ago, and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing into deformity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancient Faun were other than a mere creation of old poetry, and could reappear anywhere, it must be in such a scene as this.
"In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble basons, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there with careless artifice, stand old altars, bearing Roman inscriptions. Statues, grey with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite porticoes and arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, as if this were the thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there.
"What a strange idea—what a needless labour—to construct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a scene, such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in the neighbourhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations and ages, during which growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought kindly together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now.
"The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty being thrown away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks arm-in-arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond the scope of man's actual possessions."—Transformation.
"Oswald et Corinne terminèrent leur voyage de Rome par la Villa-Borghèse, celui de tous les jardins et de tous les palais romains où les splendeurs de la nature et des arts sont rassemblées avec le plus de goût et d'éclat. On y voit des arbres de toutes les espèces et des eaux magnifiques. Une réunion incroyable de statues, de vases, de sarcophages antiques, se mêlent avec la fraîcheur de la jeune nature du sud. La mythologie des anciens y semble ranimée. Les naïades sont placées sur le bord des ondes, les nymphes dans les bois dignes d'elles, les tombeaux sous les ombrages élyséens; la statue d'Esculape est au milieu d'une île; celle de Vénus semble sortir des ondes; Ovide et Virgile pourraient se promener dans ce beau lieu; et se croire encore au siècle d'Auguste. Les chefs-d'œuvre de sculpture que renferme le palais, lui donnent une magnificence à jamais nouvelle. On aperçoit de loin à travers les arbres, la ville de Rome et Saint-Pierre, et la campagne, et les longues arcades, débris des aqueducs qui transportaient les sources des montagnes dans l'ancienne Rome. Tout est là pour la pensée, pour l'imagination, pour la rêverie.