There is also the Fountain of the Amorini--so daintily lovely that the fact that it is incomplete is hardly noticed. The little Loves still firmly grasp their frogs and dolphins, but the vase they once carried on their heads is gone. 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. [Illustration] The Villa Borghese was created by Cardinal Scipione Borghese during the sixteen years that his uncle held the keys of St. Peter, under the title of Paul V. The Pope assisted him in every way, for Paul V’s chief pleasure consisted in advancing and aggrandizing his family. Marc Antonio Borghese, a second nephew of his, became the founder of the family in Rome, and Cardinal Scipione had as commanding an influence over the Pope as had ever been known. Paul V found his model in Paul III, and so well did he emulate the founder of the Farnese fortunes that by the close of his pontificate the Borghese had become the wealthiest and most powerful family that had ever arisen in Rome. Cardinal Scipione’s annual income alone was one hundred and fifty thousand scudi--about one hundred and sixty thousand dollars--and Paul V destroyed the ruins of the Baths of Constantine so as to build for him what is now called the Rospigliosi Palace. Their habits, charities, possessions were all but regal. 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. Paul V’s pontificate came to an end in 1621, and in 1645 Mr. 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 1645; 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. 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.