but, in the course of long travels, I never met with so abundant and lucid a current as the Fibrenus; the length of the stream considered, which does not exceed four miles and a half. It flows with great rapidity, and is about thirty or thirty-five feet in width near the Ciceronian isles. It is generally fifteen and even twenty in depth; ‘largus et exundans,’ like the genius of him who had so often trodden its banks. The water even in the intensest heats, still retains its icy coldness; and, although the thermometer was above 80° in the shade, the hand, plunged for a few seconds into the Fibrenus, caused a complete numbness(402).” Near to the house, the Fibrenus was divided into equal streams by a little island, which was fringed with a few plane-trees, and on which stood a portico(403), where Cicero often retired to read or meditate, and composed some of his sublimest harangues. Just below this islet, each branch of the stream rushed by a sort of cascade, into the cerulean Liris(404), on which the Fibrenus bestowed additional freshness and coolness, and after this union received the name of the more noble river(405). The epithet _taciturnus_, applied to the Liris by Horace, and _quietus_, by Silius Italicus, must be understood only of the lower windings of its course. No river in Italy is so noisy as the Liris about Arpino and Cicero’s villa; for the space of a mile and a half after receiving the Fibrenus, it formed no less than six cascades, varying in height from three to twenty feet(406). This spot, embellished with all the ornaments of hills and valleys, and wood and water-falls, was one of Cicero’s most favourite retreats. When Atticus first visited it, he was so charmed, that, instead of wondering as before that it was such a favourite residence of his friend, he expressed his surprise that he ever retired elsewhere(407); declaring, at the same time, his contempt of the marble pavements, arched ceilings, and artificial canals of magnificent villas, compared with the tranquillity and natural beauties of Arpinum. Cicero, indeed, appears at one time to have thought of the island, formed by the Fibrenus, as the place most suitable for the monument which he intended to raise to his beloved daughter Tullia(408).