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Corinne; Or, Italy. Volume 1 (of 2)

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Title: Corinne; Or, Italy. Volume 1 (of 2)

Author: Madame de Staël

Commentator: George Saintsbury

Illustrator: R. S. Greig


        
Release date: October 17, 2005 [eBook #16896]
                Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

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[Illustration: The crowd break their ranks as the horses pass.]




CORINNE

OR

ITALY

BY

MME. DE STAËL


WITH INTRODUCTION BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

(_In Two Volumes_)

VOL. I.

_Illustrated_

_by_

H.S. Greig

LONDON: Published by J.M. DENT and COMPANY at
ALDINE HOUSE in Great Eastern Street, E.C.

MDCCCXCIV




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE CROWD BREAK THEIR RANKS AS THE HORSES PASS      _Frontispiece_.

CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL                                      PAGE 33

CORINNE SHOWING OSWALD HER PICTURES                          "  235

[Illustration]




INTRODUCTION.


In Lady Blennerhassett's enthusiastic and encyclopædic book on Madame de
Stael she quotes approvingly Sainte-Beuve's phrase that "with _Corinne_
Madame de Stael ascended the Capitol." I forget in which of his many
dealings with an author who, as he remarks in the "Coppet-and-Weimar"
_causeries_, was "an idol of his youth and one that he never renounced,"
this fancy occurs. It must probably have been in one of his early
essays; for in his later and better, Sainte-Beuve was not wont to give
way to the little flashes and crackles of conceit and epigram which many
Frenchmen and some Englishmen think to be criticism. There was, however,
some excuse for this. In the first place (as one of Charles Lamb's
literal friends would have pointed out), Madame de Stael, like her
heroine, did actually "ascend the Capitol," and received attentions
there from an Academy. In the second, there can be no doubt that
_Corinne_ in a manner fixed and settled the high literary reputation
which she had already attained. Even by her severest critics, and even
now when whatever slight recrudescence of biographical interest may have
taken place in her, her works are little read, _Corinne_ is ranked next
to _De l'Allemagne_ as her greatest production; while as a work of form,
not of matter, as literature of power, not of knowledge, it has at last
a chance of enduring when its companion is but a historical
document--the record of a moment that has long passed away.

The advocates of the _milieu_ theory--the theory which will have it that
you can explain almost the whole of any work of art by examining the
circumstances, history, and so forth of the artist--have a better chance
with _Corinne_ than with many books, though those who disagree with them
(as I own that I do) may retort that this was precisely because Madame
de Stael in literature has little idiosyncracy, and is a receptive, not
a creative, force. The moment at which this book was composed and
appeared had really many of the characteristics of crisis and climax in
the life of the author. She was bidding adieu to youth; and though her
talents, her wealth, her great reputation, and her indomitable
determination to surround herself with admirers still made her a sort of
queen of society, some illusions at least must have been passing from
her. The most serious of her many passions, that for Benjamin Constant,
was coming, though it had not yet come, to an end. Her father, whom she
unfeignedly idolised, was not long dead. The conviction must have been
for some time forcing itself on her, though she did not even yet give up
hope, that Napoleon's resolve not to allow her presence in her still
more idolised Paris was unconquerable. Her husband, who indeed had long
been nothing to her, was dead also, and the fancy for replacing him with
the boy Rocca had not yet arisen. The influence of the actual chief of
her usual herd of lovers, courtiers, teachers, friends (to use whichever
term, or combination of terms, the charitable reader pleases), A.W.
Schlegel, though it never could incline her innately unpoetical and
unreligious mind to either poetry or religion, drove her towards
æsthetics of one kind and another. Lastly, the immense intellectual
excitement of her visits to Weimar, Berlin, and Italy, added its
stimulus to produce a fresh intellectual ferment in her. On the purely
intellectual side the result was _De l'Allemagne_, which does not
concern us; on the side of feeling, tinged with æsthetic philosophy, of
study of the archaic and the picturesque illuminated by emotion--the
result was _Corinne_.

If there had been only one difference between this and its author's
earlier attempt at novel-writing, that difference would have given
_Corinne_ a great advantage. _Delphine_ had been irreverently described
by Sydney Smith, when it appeared a few years earlier, as "this dismal
trash which has nearly dislocated the jaws of every critic with gaping."
The Whigs had not then taken up Madame de Stael, as they did afterwards,
or it is quite certain that Mr Sydney would not have been allowed to
exercise such Britannic frankness. _Corinne_ met with gentler treatment
from his friends, if not from himself. Sir James Mackintosh, in
particular, was full of the wildest enthusiasm about it, though he
admitted that it was "full of faults so obvious as not to be worth
mentioning." It must be granted to be in more than one, or two important
points a very great advance on _Delphine_. One is that the easy and
illegitimate source of interest which is drawn upon in the earlier book
is here quite neglected. _Delphine_ presents the eternal French
situation of the "triangle;" the line of _Corinne_ is straight, and the
only question is which pair of three points it is to unite in an
honourable way. A French biographer of Madame de Stael, who is not only
an excellent critic and an extremely clever writer, but a historian of
great weight and acuteness, M. Albert Sorel, has indeed admitted that
both Léonce, the hero of _Delphine_, who will not make himself and his
beloved happy because he has an objection to divorcing his wife, and
Lord Nelvil, who refuses either to seduce or to marry the woman who
loves him and whom he loves, are equal donkeys with a national
difference. Léonce is more of a "fool;" Lord Nelvil more of a "snob." It
is something to find a Frenchman who will admit that any national
characteristic is foolish: I could have better reciprocated M. Sorel's
candour if he had used the word "prig" instead of "snob" of Lord Nelvil.
But indeed I have often suspected that Frenchmen confuse these two
engaging attributes of the Britannic nature.

A "higher moral tone" (as the phrase goes) is not the only advantage
which _Corinne_ possesses over its forerunner. _Delphine_ is almost
avowedly autobiographical; and though Madame de Stael had the wit and
the prudence to mix and perplex her portraits and her reminiscences so
that it was nearly impossible to fit definite caps on the personages,
there could be no doubt that Delphine was herself--as she at least would
have liked to be--drawn as close as she dared. These personalities have
in the hands of the really great masters of fiction sometimes produced
astonishing results; but no one probably would contend that Madame de
Stael was a born novelist. Although _Delphine_ has many more personages
and much more action of the purely novel kind than _Corinne_, it is
certainly not an interesting book; I think, though I have been
reproached for, to say the least, lacking fervour as a Staelite, that
_Corinne_ is.

But it is by no means unimportant that intending readers should know the
sort of interest that they are to expect from this novel; and for that
purpose it is almost imperative that they should know what kind of
person was this novelist. A good deal of biographical pains has been
spent, as has been already more than once hinted, on Madame de Stael.
She was most undoubtedly of European reputation in her day; and between
her day and this, quite independently of the real and unquestionable
value of her work, a high estimate of her has been kept current by the
fact that her daughter was the wife of Duke Victor and the mother of
Duke Albert of Broglie, and that so a proper respect for her has been a
necessary passport to favour in one of the greatest political and
academic houses of France; while another not much less potent in both
ways, that of the Counts d'Haussonville, also represents her. Still
people, and especially English people, have so many non-literary things
to think of, that it may not be quite unpardonable to supply that
conception of the life of Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baroness of
Stael-Holstein, which is so necessary to the understanding of _Corinne_,
and which may, in possible cases, be wanting.

She was born on the 22nd of April 1766, and was, as probably everybody
knows, the daughter of the Swiss financier, Necker, whom the French
Revolution first exalted to almost supreme power in France, and then
cast off--fortunately for him, in a less tragical fashion than that in
which it usually cast off its favourites. Her mother was Suzanne
Curchod, the first love of Gibbon, a woman of a delicate beauty, of very
considerable mental and social faculties, a kind of puritanical
coquette, but devoted to her (by all accounts not particularly
interesting) husband. Indeed, mother and daughter are said to have been
from a very early period jealous of each other in relation to Necker.
Germaine, as she was generally called, had, unluckily for her, inherited
nothing of her mother's delicacy of form and feature; indeed, her most
rapturous admirers never dared to claim much physical beauty for her,
except a pair of fine, though unfeminine, eyes. She was rather short
than tall; her figure was square-set and heavy; her features, though not
exactly ill-formed, matched her figure; her arms were massive, though
not ill-shaped; and she was altogether distinctly what the French call
_hommasse_. Nevertheless, her great wealth, and the high position of her
father, attracted suitors, some of whom at least may not have overlooked
the intellectual ability which she began very early to display. There
was talk of her marrying William Pitt, but either Pitt's well-known
"dislike of the fair," or some other reason, foiled the project. After
one or two other negotiations she made a match which was not destined to
good fortune, and which does not strike most observers as a very
tempting one in any respect, though it carried with it some exceptional
and rather eccentric guarantees for that position at court and in
society on which Germaine was set. The King of Sweden, Gustavus, whose
family oddity had taken, among less excusable forms, that of a platonic
devotion to Marie Antoinette, gave a sort of perpetual brevet of his
ministry at Paris to the Baron de Stael-Holstein, a nobleman of little
fortune and fair family. This served, using clerical language, as his
"title" to marriage with Germaine Necker. Such a marriage could not be
expected to, and did not, turn out very well; but it did not turn out as
ill as it might have done. Except that M. de Stael was rather
extravagant (which he probably supposed he had bought the right to be)
nothing serious is alleged against him; and though more than one thing
serious might be alleged against his wife, it is doubtful whether either
contracting party thought this out of the bargain. For business reasons,
chiefly, a separation was effected between the pair in 1798, but they
were nominally reconciled four years later, just before Stael's death.

Meanwhile the Revolution broke out, and Madame de Stael, who, as she was
bound to do, had at first approved it, disapproved totally of the
Terror, tried to save the Queen, and fled herself from France to
England. Here she lived in Surrey with a questionable set of _émigrés_,
made the acquaintance of Miss Burney, and in consequence of the
unconventionalities of her relations, especially with M. de Narbonne,
received, from English society generally, a cold shoulder, which she has
partly avenged, or tried to avenge, in _Corinne_ itself. She had already
written, or was soon to write, a good deal, but nothing of the first
importance. Then she went to Coppet, her father's place, on the Lake of
Geneva, which she was later to render so famous; and under the Directory
was enabled to resume residence in Paris, though she was more than once
under suspicion. It was at this time that she met Benjamin Constant, the
future brilliant orator, and author of _Adolphe_, the only man perhaps
whom she ever really loved, but, unluckily, a man whom it was by no
means good to love. For some years she oscillated contentedly enough
between Coppet and Paris. But the return of Bonaparte from Egypt was
unlucky for her. Her boundless ambition, which, with her love of
society, was her strongest passion, made her conceive the idea of
fascinating him, and through him ruling the world. Napoleon, to use
familiar English, "did not see it." When he liked women he liked them
pretty and feminine; he had not the faintest idea of admitting any kind
of partner in his glory; he had no literary taste; and not only did
Madame de Stael herself meddle with politics, but her friend, Constant,
under the Consulate, chose to give himself airs of opposition in the
English sense. Moreover, she still wrote, and Bonaparte disliked and
dreaded everyone who wrote with any freedom. Her book, _De la
Littérature_, in 1800, was taken as a covert attack on the Napoleonic
_régime_; her father shortly after republished another on finance and
politics, which was disliked; and the success of _Delphine_, in 1803,
put the finishing touch to the petty hatred of any kind of rival
superiority which distinguished the Corsican more than any other man of
equal genius. Madame de Stael was ordered not to approach within forty
leagues of Paris, and this exile, with little softening and some
excesses of rigour, lasted till the return of the Bourbons.

Then it was that the German and Italian journeys already mentioned (the
death of M. Necker happening between them and recalling his daughter
from the first) led to the writing of _Corinne_.

A very few words before we turn to the consideration of the book, as a
book and by itself, may appropriately finish all that need be said here
about the author's life. After the publication of _Corinne_ she returned
to Germany, and completed the observation which she thought necessary
for the companion book _De l'Allemagne_. Its publication in 1810, when
she had foolishly kindled afresh the Emperor's jealousy by appearing
with her usual "tail" of worshippers or parasites as near Paris as she
was permitted, completed her disgrace. She was ordered back to Coppet:
her book was seized and destroyed. Then Albert de Rocca, a youth of
twenty-three, who had seen some service, made his appearance at Geneva.
Early in 1811, Madame de Stael, now aged forty-five, married him
secretly. She was, or thought herself, more and more persecuted by
Napoleon; she feared that Rocca might be ordered off on active duty, and
she fled first to Vienna, then to St Petersburg, then to Stockholm, and
so to England. Here she was received with ostentatious welcome and
praises by the Whigs; with politeness by everybody; with more or less
concealed terror by the best people, who found her rhapsodies and her
political dissertations equally boring. Here too she was unlucky enough
to express the opinion that Miss Austen's books were vulgar. The fall
of Napoleon brought her back to Paris; and after the vicissitudes of
1814-15, enabled her to establish herself there for the short remainder
of her life, with the interruption only of visits to Coppet and to
Italy. She died on the 13th July 1817: her two last works, _Dix Années
d'Exil_ and the posthumous _Considérations sur La Révolution Française_,
being admittedly of considerable interest, and not despicable even by
those who do not think highly of her political talents.

And now to _Corinne_, unhampered and perhaps a little helped by this
survey of its author's character, career, and compositions. The
heterogeneous nature of its plan can escape no reader long; and indeed
is pretty frankly confessed by its title. It is a love story doubled
with a guide-book: an eighteenth-century romance of "sensibility"
blended with a transition or even nineteenth-century diatribe of
æsthetics and "culture." If only the first of these two labels were
applicable to it, its case would perhaps be something more gracious than
it is; for there are more unfavourable situations for cultivating the
affections, than in connection with the contemplation of the great works
of art and nature, and it is possible to imagine many more disagreeable
_ciceroni_ than a lover of whichever sex. But Corinne and Nelvil (whom
our contemporary translator[1] has endeavoured to acclimatise a little
more by Anglicising his name further to Nelville), do not content
themselves with making love in the congenial neighbourhoods of Tiber or
Poestum, or in the stimulating presence of the masterpieces of modern
and ancient art. A purpose, and a double purpose, it might almost be
said, animates the book. It aims at displaying "sensibility so
charming"--the strange artificial eighteenth-century conception of love
which is neither exactly flirtation nor exactly passion, which sets
convention at defiance, but retains its own code of morality; at
exhibiting the national differences, as Madame de Stael conceived them,
of the English and French and Italian temperaments; and at preaching the
new cult of æsthetics whereof Lessing and Winckelmann, Goethe, and
Schlegel, were in different ways and degrees the apostles. And it seems
to have been generally admitted, even by the most fervent admirers of
Madame de Stael and of _Corinne_ itself, that the first purpose has not
had quite fair play with the other two. "A little thin," they confess of
the story. In truth it could hardly be thinner, though the author has
laid under contribution an at least ample share of the improbabilities
and coincidences of romance.

Nelvil, an English-Scottish peer who has lost his father, who accuses
himself of disobedience and ingratitude to that father, and who has been
grievously jilted by a Frenchwoman, arrives in Italy in a large black
cloak, the deepest melancholy, and the company of a sprightly though
penniless French _émigré_, the Count d'Erfeuil. After performing
prodigies of valour in a fire at Ancona, he reaches Rome just when a
beautiful and mysterious poetess, the delight of Roman society, is being
crowned on the Capitol. The only name she is known by is Corinne. The
pair are soon introduced by the mercurial Erfeuil, and promptly fall in
love with each other, Corinne seeking partly to fix her hold on Nelvil,
partly to remove his Britannic contempt for Italy and the Italians, by
guiding him to all the great spectacles of Rome and indeed of the
country generally, and by explaining to him at great length what she
understands of the general theory of æsthetics, of Italian history, and
of the contrasted character of the chief European nations. Nelvil on his
side is distracted between the influence of the beauty, genius, and
evident passion of Corinne, and his English prejudices; while the
situation is further complicated by the regulation discovery that
Corinne, though born in Italy of an Italian mother, is, strictly
speaking, his own compatriot, being the elder and lawful daughter of a
British peer, Lord Edgermond, his father's closest friend. Nay more, he
had always been destined to wed this very girl; and it was only after
her father's second marriage with an Englishwoman that the younger and
wholly English daughter, Lucile, was substituted in the paternal schemes
as his destined spouse. He hears, on the other hand, how Corinne had
visited her fatherland and her step-mother, how she had found both
intolerable, and how she had in a modified and decent degree "thrown her
cap over the mill" by returning to Italy to live an independent life as
a poetess, an improvisatrice, and, at least in private, an actress.

It is not necessary to supply fuller argument of the text which follows,
and of which, when the reader has got this length, he is not likely to
let the _dénoûment_ escape him. But the action of _Corinne_ gets rather
slowly under weigh; and I have known those who complained that they
found the book hard to read because they were so long in coming to any
clear notion of "what it was all about." Therefore so much argument as
has been given seems allowable.

But we ought by this time to have laid sufficient foundation to make it
not rash to erect a small superstructure of critical comment on the book
now once more submitted to English readers. Of that book I own that I
was myself a good many years ago, and for a good many years, a harsh and
even a rather unfair judge. I do not know whether years have brought me
the philosophic mind, or whether the book--itself, as has been said, the
offspring of middle-aged emotions--appeals more directly to a
middle-aged than to a young judgment. To the young of its own time and
the times immediately succeeding it appealed readily enough, and
scarcely Byron himself (who was not a little influenced by it) had more
to do with the Italomania of Europe in the second quarter of this
century than Madame de Stael.

The faults of the novel indeed are those which impress themselves (as
Mackintosh, we have seen, allowed) immediately and perhaps excessively.
M. Sorel observes of its companion sententiously but truly, "Si le style
de _Delphine_ semble vieilli, c'est qu'il a été jeune." If not merely
the style but the sentiment, the whole properties and the whole stage
management of _Corinne_ seem out of date now, it is only because they
were up to date then. It is easy to laugh--not perhaps very easy to
abstain from laughing--at the "schall" twisted in Corinne's hair, where
even contemporaries mocked the hideous turban with which Madame de Stael
chose to bedizen her not too beautiful head; at Nelvil's inky cloak; at
the putting out of the fire; at the queer stilted half-Ossianic,
half-German rants put in the poetess's mouth; at the endless mingling of
gallantry and pedantry; at the hesitations of Nelvil; at the agonies of
Corinne. When French critics tell us that as they allow the
good-humoured satire on the Count d'Erfeuil to be just, we ought to do
the same in reference to the "cant Britannique" of Nelvil and of the
Edgermond circle, we can only respectfully answer that we should not
presume to dispute their judgment in the first case, but that they
really must leave us to ours in the second. As a matter of fact, Madame
de Stael's goody English characters, are rather like Miss Edgeworth's
naughty French ones in _Leonora_ and elsewhere--clever generalisations
from a little observation and a great deal of preconceived idea, not
studies from the life.

But this (and a great deal more that might be said if it were not
something like petty treason in an introduction-writer thus to play the
devil's advocate against his author) matters comparatively little, and
leaves enough in _Corinne_ to furnish forth a book almost great,
interesting without any "almost," and remarkable as a not very large
shelf-ful in the infinite library of modern fiction deserves remark. For
the passion of its two chief characters, however oddly, and to us
unfashionably, presented, however lacking in the commanding and
perennial qualities which make us indifferent to fashion in the work of
the greatest masters, is _real_. And it is perhaps only after a pretty
long study of literature that one perceives how very little real passion
books, even pretty good books, contain, how much of what at times seems
to us passionate in them owes its appeal to accident, mode, and the
personal equation. Of the highest achievement of art--that which avails
itself of, but subdues, personal thought and feeling in the elaboration
of a perfectly live character--Madame de Stael was indeed incapable. But
in the second order--that which, availing itself of, but not subduing,
the personal element, keeps enough of its veracity and lively force to
enliven a composite structure of character--she has here produced very
noteworthy studies. Corinne is a very fair embodiment of the beauty
which her author would so fain have had; of the youthful ardour which
she had once actually possessed; of the ideas and cults to which she was
sincerely enough devoted; of the instruction and talent which
unquestionably distinguished her. And it is not, I think, fanciful to
discover in this heroine, with all her "Empire" artifice and convention,
all her smack of the theatre and the _salon_, a certain live quiver and
throb, which, as has been already hinted, may be traced to the combined
working in Madame de Stael's mind and heart of the excitements of
foreign travel, the zest of new studies, new scenes, new company, with
the chill regret for lost or passing youth and love, and the chillier
anticipation of coming old age and death. It is a commonplace of
psychology that in shocks and contrasts of this kind the liveliest
workings of the imagination and the emotions are to be expected. If we
once establish the contact and complete the circle, and feel something
of the actual thrill that animated the author, we shall, I think, feel
disposed to forgive Corinne many things--from the dress and attitude
which recall that admirable frontispiece of Pickersgill's to Miss
Austen's _Emma_, where Harriet Smith poses in rapt attitude with
"schall" or scarf complete, to that more terrible portrait of Madame de
Stael herself which editors with remorseless ferocity will persist in
prefixing to her works, and especially to _Corinne_. We shall consent to
sweep away all the _fatras_ and paraphernalia of the work, and to see in
the heroine a real woman enough--loving, not unworthy of being loved,
unfortunate, and very undeserving of her ill fortune. We shall further
see that besides other excuses for the mere guide-book detail, the
enthusiasm for Italy which partly prompted it was genuine enough and
very interesting as a sign of the times--of the approach of a period of
what we may call popularised learning, culture, sentiment. In some
respects _Corinne_ is not merely a guide-book to Italy; it is a
guide-book by prophecy to the nineteenth century.

The minor characters are a very great deal less interesting than Corinne
herself, but they are not despicable, and they set off the heroine and
carry out what story there is well enough. Nelvil of course is a thing
shreddy and patchy enough. He reminds us by turns of Chateaubriand's
René and Rousseau's Bomston, both of whom Madame de Stael of course
knew; of Mackenzie's Man of Feeling, with whom she was very probably
acquainted; but most of no special, even bookish, progenitor, but of a
combination of theoretic deductions from supposed properties of man in
general and Englishman in particular. Of Englishmen in particular Madame
de Stael knew little more than a residence (chiefly in _émigré_ society)
for a short time in England, and occasional meetings elsewhere, could
teach her. Of men in general her experience had been a little
unfortunate. Her father had probity, financial skill, and, I suppose, a
certain amount of talent in other directions; but while he must have had
some domestic virtues he was a wooden pedant. Her husband hardly counted
for more in her life than her _maître d'hôtel_, and though there seems
to have been no particular harm in him, had no special talents and no
special virtues. Her first regular lover, Narbonne, was a handsome,
dignified, heartless _roué_ of the old _régime_. Her second, Benjamin
Constant, was a man of genius, and capable of passionate if inconstant
attachment, but also what his own generation in England called a
thorough "raff"--selfish, treacherous, fickle, incapable of considering
either the happiness or the reputation of women, theatrical in his ways
and language, venal, insolent, ungrateful. Schlegel, though he too had
some touch of genius in him, was half pedant, half coxcomb, and full of
intellectual and moral faultiness. The rest of her mighty herd of male
friends and hangers-on ranged from Mathieu de Montmorency--of whom, in
the words of Medora Trevilian it may be said, that he was "only an
excellent person"--through respectable savants like Sismondi and Dumont,
down to a very low level of toady and tuft-hunter. It is rather
surprising that with such models and with no supreme creative faculty
she should have been able to draw such creditable walking gentlemen as
the Frenchman Erfeuil, the Englishman Edgermond, and the Italian
Castel-Forte; and should not have produced a worse hero than Nelvil. For
Nelvil, whatever faults he may have, and contemptible as his vacillating
refusal to take the goods the gods provide him may be, is, after all, if
not quite a live man, an excellent model of what a considerable number
of the men of his time aimed at being, and would have liked to be. He is
not a bit less life-like than Byron's usual hero for instance, who
probably owes not a little to him.

And so we get to a fresh virtue of _Corinne_, or rather we reach its
main virtue by a different side. It has an immense historical value as
showing the temper, the aspirations, the ideas, and in a way the manners
of a certain time and society. A book which does this can never wholly
lose its interest; it must always retain that interest in a great
measure, for those who are able to appreciate it. And it must interest
them far more keenly, when, besides this secondary and, so to speak,
historical merit, it exhibits such veracity in the portraiture of
emotion, as, whatever be its drawbacks, whatever its little temptations
to ridicule, distinguishes the hapless, and, when all is said, the noble
and pathetic figure of Corinne.

                                                      GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] I am creditor neither to praise nor to blame for this translation,
which is the old English version brought out in the same year as the
original, but corrected by another hand for the present edition in the
pretty numerous points where it was lax or unintelligent in actual
rendering. In the places which I have compared, it seems to me to
present that original very fairly now; and I am by no means sure that an
excessively artificial style like that of the French Empire is not best
left to contemporaries to reproduce. At any rate, a really good new
translation of _Corinne_ would be a task unlikely to be achieved except
by rather exceptional talents working in labour of love: and I cannot
blame the publishers of this issue for not waiting till such a
translator appeared.




Book i.

OSWALD.

[Illustration]




CORINNE.




Chapter i.


Oswald, Lord Nelville, Peer of Scotland, quitted Edinburgh for Italy
during the winter of 1794-5. He possessed a noble and handsome figure,
an abundance of wit, an illustrious name, and an independent fortune,
but his health was impaired by deeply-rooted sorrow, and his physicians,
fearing that his lungs were attacked, had prescribed him the air of the
South. Though indifferent as to the preservation of his life, he
followed their advice. He expected, at least, to find in the diversity
of objects he was about to see, something that might divert his mind
from the melancholy that preyed upon it. The most exquisite of
griefs--the loss of a father--was the cause of his malady; this was
heightened by cruel circumstances, which, together with a remorse
inspired by delicate scruples, increased his anguish, which was still
further aggravated by the phantoms of the imagination. Those who suffer,
easily persuade themselves that they are guilty, and violent grief will
extend its painful influence even to the conscience.

At twenty-five years of age he was dissatisfied with life, his mind
anticipated every thing that it could afford, and his wounded
sensibility no longer enjoyed the illusions of the heart. Nobody
appeared more complacent, more devoted to his friends when he was able
to render them service; but not even the good he performed could afford
him a pleasurable sensation.

He incessantly sacrificed his own taste to that of others; but it was
impossible to explain, upon principles of generosity alone, this total
abnegation of every selfish feeling, most frequently to be attributed to
that species of sadness which no longer permitted him to take any
interest in his own fate. Those indifferent to him enjoyed this
disposition so full of benignity and charm; but those who loved him
perceived that he sought the happiness of others like a man who no
longer expected any himself; and they almost experienced a pain from his
conferring a felicity for which it was impossible to make him a return
in kind.

He was, notwithstanding, of a nature susceptible of emotion, sensibility
and passion; he combined every thing that could evoke enthusiasm in
others and in himself; but misfortune and repentance had taught him to
tremble at that destiny whose anger he sought to disarm by forbearing to
solicit any favour at her hands.

He expected to find in a strict attachment to all his duties, and in a
renunciation of every lively enjoyment, a security against those pangs
that tear the soul. What he had experienced struck fear into his heart;
and nothing this world can afford, could, in his estimation, compensate
the risk of those sufferings; but when one is capable of feeling them,
what mode of life can shelter us from their power?

Lord Nelville flattered himself that he should be able to quit Scotland
without regret, since he resided in it without pleasure; but the
unhappy imagination of the children of sensibility is not so formed: he
did not suspect what ties attached him to those scenes which were most
painful to him,--to the home of his father. There were in this
habitation, chambers, places, which he could not approach without
shuddering, and, nevertheless, when he resolved to quit them, he felt
himself still more solitary. His heart became dried up; he was no longer
able to give vent to his sufferings in tears; he could no longer call up
those little local circumstances which affected him deeply; his
recollections no longer possessed anything of the vivid semblance of
real existence; they were no longer in affinity with the objects that
surrounded him; he did not think less on him whose loss he lamented, but
he found it more difficult to recall his presence.

Sometimes also he reproached himself for abandoning those abodes where
his father had dwelt. "Who knows," said he to himself, "whether the
shades of the departed are allowed to pursue every where the objects of
their affection? Perhaps it is only permitted them to wander about the
spot where their ashes repose! Perhaps at this moment my father regrets
me, while distance prevents my hearing his voice exerted to recall his
son. Alas! while he was living must not a concourse of strange events
have persuaded him that I had betrayed his tenderness, that I was a
rebel to my country, to his paternal will, to everything that is sacred
on earth?"--These recollections excited in Lord Nelville a grief so
insupportable that not only was he unable to confide it to others, but
even dreaded himself to sound it to the bottom. So easily do our own
reflections become to us an irreparable evil.

It costs us more to quit our native country when to leave it we must
traverse the sea; all is solemn in a journey of which ocean marks the
first steps. An abyss seems to open behind you, and to render your
return for ever impossible. Besides, the sublime spectacle which the sea
presents must always make a deep impression on the imagination; it is
the image of that Infinity which continually attracts our thoughts, that
run incessantly to lose themselves in it. Oswald, supporting himself on
the helm, his eyes fixed on the waves, was apparently calm, for his
pride, united to his timidity, would scarcely ever permit him to
discover, even to his friends, what he felt; but he was internally
racked with the most painful emotions.

He brought to mind the time when the sight of the sea animated his youth
with the desire of plunging into her waves, and measuring his force
against her's.--"Why," said he to himself, with the most bitter regret,
"why do I yield so unremittingly to reflection? How many pleasures are
there in active life, in those exercises which make us feel the energy
of existence? Death itself then appears but an event, perhaps glorious,
at least sudden, and not preceded by decline. But that death which comes
without having been sought by courage, that death of darkness which
steals from you in the night all that you hold most dear, which despises
your lamentations, repulses your embrace, and pitilessly, opposes to you
the eternal laws of nature and of time! such a death inspires a sort of
contempt for human destiny, for the impotence of grief, for all those
vain efforts that dash and break themselves upon the rock of necessity."

Such were the sentiments that tormented Oswald; and what particularly
characterised his unhappy situation, was the vivacity of youth united to
thoughts of another age. He entered into those ideas which he conceived
must have occupied his father's mind in the last moments of his life;
and he carried the ardour of twenty-five into the melancholy
reflections of old age. He was weary of every thing, and yet still
regretted happiness, as if her illusions were still within his grasp.
This contrast, quite in hostility with the ordinance of nature, which
gives uniformity and graduation to the natural course of things, threw
the soul of Oswald into disorder; but his manners always possessed
considerable sweetness and harmony, and his sadness, far from souring
his temper, only inspired him with more condescension and goodness
towards others.

Two or three times during the passage from Harwich to Empden the sea put
on the appearance of approaching storm; Lord Nelville counselled the
sailors, restored confidence to the passengers, and when he himself
assisted in working the ship, when he took for a moment the place of the
steersman, there was in all he did, a skill and a power which could not
be considered as merely the effect of the agility of the body,--there
was soul in all that he did.

On his quitting the vessel all the crew crowded around Oswald to take
leave of him; they all thanked him for a thousand little services which
he had rendered them during the voyage, and which he no longer
remembered. Upon one occasion, perhaps, it was a child which had
occupied a large share of his attention; more often an old man, whose
tottering steps he had supported when the wind agitated the ship. Such a
general attention, without any regard to rank or quality, was perhaps
never met with. During the whole day he would scarcely bestow a single
moment upon himself: influenced alike by melancholy and benevolence, he
gave his whole time to others. On leaving him the sailors said to him
with one voice, "My dear Lord, may you be more happy!" Oswald had not
once expressed the internal pain he felt; and the men of another rank,
who had accompanied him in his passage, had not spoken a word to him on
that subject. But the common people, in whom their superiors rarely
confide, accustom themselves to discover sentiments and feelings by
other means than speech: they pity you when you suffer, though they are
ignorant of the cause of your grief, and their spontaneous pity is
unmixed with either blame or advice.




Chapter ii.


Travelling, whatever may be said of it, is one of the saddest pleasures
of life. When you find yourself comfortable in some foreign city it
begins to feel, in some degree, like your own country; but to traverse
unknown realms, to hear a language spoken which you hardly comprehend,
to see human countenances which have no connection either with your past
recollections or future prospects, is solitude and isolation, without
dignity and without repose; for that eagerness, that haste to arrive
where nobody expects us, that agitation, of which curiosity is the only
cause, inspires us with very little esteem for ourselves, till the
moment when new objects become a little old, and create around us some
soft ties of sentiment and habit.

The grief of Oswald was, then, redoubled in traversing Germany in order
to repair to Italy. On account of the war it was necessary to avoid
France and its environs; it was also necessary to keep aloof from the
armies who rendered the roads impracticable. This necessity of occupying
his mind with particulars material to the journey, of adopting, every
day, and almost every instant, some new resolution, was quite
insupportable to Lord Nelville. His health, far from becoming better,
often obliged him to stop, when he felt the strongest desire to hasten
to his journey's end or at least to make a start. He spat blood, and
took scarcely any care of himself; for he believed himself guilty, and
became his own accuser with too great a degree of severity. He no longer
wished for life but as it might become instrumental to the defence of
his country. "Has not our country," said he, "some paternal claims upon
us? But we should have the power to serve it usefully: we must not offer
it such a debilitated existence as I drag along to ask of the sun some
principle of life to enable me to struggle against my miseries. None but
a father would receive me to his bosom, under such circumstances, with
affection increased in proportion as I was abandoned by nature and by
destiny."

Lord Nelville had flattered himself that the continual variety of
external objects would distract his imagination a little from those
ideas by which it was habitually occupied; but that circumstance was far
from producing, at first, this happy effect. After any great misfortune
we must become familiarised anew with everything that surrounds us;
accustom ourselves to the faces that we behold again, to the house in
which we dwell, to the daily habits that we resume; each of these
efforts is a painful shock, and nothing multiplies them like a journey.

The only pleasure of Lord Nelville was to traverse the Tirolese
Mountains upon a Scotch horse which he had brought with him, and which
like the horses of that country ascended heights at a gallop: he quitted
the high road in order to proceed by the most steep paths. The
astonished peasants cried out at first with terror at beholding him thus
upon the very brink of precipices, then clapped their hands in
admiration of his address, his agility, and his courage. Oswald was fond
of this sensation of danger; it supports the weight of affliction, it
reconciles us, for a moment, with that life which we have reconquered,
and which it so easy to lose.




Chapter iii.


In the town of Inspruck, before entering Italy, Oswald heard a merchant
at whose house he had stopped some time, relate the story of a French
emigré called the Count d'Erfeuil, which greatly interested him in his
favour. This man had suffered the entire loss of a very large fortune
with the most perfect serenity; he had, by his talent for music,
supported himself and an old uncle, whom he had taken care of until his
death; he had constantly refused to accept offers of pecuniary
assistance pressingly made to him; he had manifested the most brilliant
valour--a French valour--during the war, and the most invincible gaiety
in the midst of reverses. He was desirous of going to Rome to see a
relation, whose heir he was to be, and wished for a companion, or rather
a friend, in order to render the journey more agreeable to both.

The most bitter recollections of Lord Nelville were connected with
France; nevertheless he was exempt from those prejudices which divide
the two nations; for a Frenchman had been his intimate friend, and he
had found in this friend the most admirable union of all the qualities
of the soul. He, therefore, offered to the merchant who related to him
the story of the Count d'Erfeuil, to take this noble and unfortunate
young man to Italy; and at the end of an hour the merchant came to
inform Lord Nelville that his proposition was accepted with gratitude.
Oswald was happy in being able to perform this service, but it cost him
much to renounce his solitude; and his timidity was wounded at finding
himself, all of a sudden, in an habitual relation with a man whom he did
not know.

The Count d'Erfeuil came to pay a visit to Lord Nelville, in order to
thank him. He possessed elegant manners, an easy politeness, good taste,
and appeared, from the very first introduction, perfectly at his ease.
In his company one would feel astonished at all that he had suffered,
for he supported his fate with a courage approaching to oblivion; and
there was in his conversation a facility truly admirable when he spoke
of his own reverses; but less admirable, it must be confessed, when it
extended to other subjects.

"I owe you infinite obligation, my lord," said the Count d'Erfeuil, "for
rescuing me from this Germany, where I was perishing with _ennui_." "You
are here, nevertheless," replied Lord Nelville, "generally beloved and
esteemed." "I have friends here," replied the Count d'Erfeuil, "whom I
sincerely regret; for we meet in this country the best people in the
world; but I do not know a word of German, and you will agree with me
that it would be too long and fatiguing a task for me to set about
learning it now. Since I have had the misfortune to lose my uncle I do
not know what to do with my time, when I had the care of him it filled
up my day, at present the twenty-four hours weigh heavily upon my
hands." "The delicacy of your conduct towards your uncle," said Lord
Nelville, "inspires everybody with the most profound esteem for your
character, Count." "I have only done my duty," replied the Count
d'Erfeuil; "the poor man had overwhelmed me with kindnesses during my
childhood; I should never have deserted him had he lived a hundred
years! But it is happy for him, however, that he is dead; it would be a
happy thing for me also were I to follow him," added he, laughing; "for
I have not much hope in this world. I used my best endeavours, during
the war, to get killed; but, since fate has spared me, I must only live
as well as I can." "I shall congratulate myself on my arrival here,"
answered Lord Nelville, "if you find yourself comfortable at Rome, and
if--" "Oh, _mon Dieu_," interrupted the Count d'Erfeuil, "I shall find
myself comfortable every where: when we are young and gay every thing
accommodates itself to us. It is not from books, nor from meditation,
that I have derived the philosophy which I possess, but from knowledge
of the world, and trials of misfortune; and you see, my lord, that I
have reason to reckon upon chance, since it has procured me the honour
of travelling with you." In finishing these words the Count d'Erfeuil
saluted Lord Nelville with the best grace in the world, settled the hour
of departure for the following day, and took his leave.

The Count d'Erfeuil and Lord Nelville set out on the morrow. Oswald,
after some expressions of politeness had passed between them, was
several hours without saying a word; but perceiving that this silence
was disagreeable to his companion, he asked him if he anticipated
pleasure from a residence in Italy: "_Mon Dieu_," replied the Count
d'Erfeuil, "I know what I have to expect from that country. I have no
hope of any amusement there: a friend of mine, who had passed six months
at Rome, has assured me there is not a province of France where one may
not find a better theatre and a more agreeable society than at Rome, but
in that ancient capital of the world I shall surely find some Frenchmen
to chat with, and that is all I desire." "You have not attempted to
learn Italian?" interrupted Oswald. "Not at all," replied the Count
d'Erfeuil; "that did not enter into my plan of study." And in saying
this he assumed such a serious air that one would have believed it was a
resolution founded upon grave motives.

"If I may speak my mind to you," continued the Count d'Erfeuil, "as a
nation, I love only the English and the French, one must either be proud
like them or brilliant like us; all the rest is only imitation." Oswald
was silent; the Count d'Erfeuil some moments after resumed the
conversation by the most lively sallies of wit and gaiety. He played
with words and phrases in a very ingenious manner, but neither external
objects nor intimate sentiments were the object of his discourse. His
conversation proceeded, if it may be so expressed, neither from without
nor within; it was neither reflective nor imaginative, and the bare
relations of society were its subject.

He repeated twenty proper names to Lord Nelville, either in France, or
in England, to know if he was acquainted with them, and related upon
this occasion highly seasoned anecdotes with a most graceful turn; but
one would have said, in hearing him, that the only discourse suitable to
a man of taste was, to use the expression, the gossip of good company.

Lord Nelville reflected some time on the character of Count d'Erfeuil;
that singular mixture of courage and frivolity, that contempt of
misfortune, so great if it had cost more efforts, so heroic if it did
not proceed from the same source that renders us incapable of deep
affections. "An Englishman," said Oswald to himself, "would be weighed
down with sadness under similar circumstances.--Whence proceeds the
resolution of this Frenchman? Whence proceeds also his mobility? Does
the Count d'Erfeuil then truly understand the art of living? Is it only
my own disordered mind that whispers to me I am superior to him? Does
his light existence accord better than mine with the rapidity of human
life? And must we shun reflection as an enemy, instead of giving up our
whole soul to it?" Vainly would Oswald have cleared up those doubts; no
one can escape from the intellectual region allotted him; and qualities
are still more difficult to subdue than defects.

The Count d'Erfeuil paid no attention to Italy, and rendered it almost
impossible for Lord Nelville to bestow a thought upon it; for he
incessantly distracted him from that disposition of mind which excites
admiration of a fine country, and gives a relish for its picturesque
charms. Oswald listened as much as he could to the noise of the wind and
to the murmuring of the waves; for all the voices of nature conveyed
more gratification to his soul than he could possibly receive from the
social conversation indulged in at the foot of the Alps, among the
ruins, and on the borders of the sea.

The sadness which consumed Oswald would have opposed fewer obstacles to
the pleasure which he could have derived from Italy than the gaiety of
Count d'Erfeuil, the sorrows of a sensitive mind will blend with the
contemplation of nature and the enjoyment of the fine arts; but
frivolity, in whatever form it presents itself, deprives attention of
its force, thought of its originality, and sentiment of its profundity.
One of the singular effects of this frivolity was to inspire Lord
Nelville with a great deal of timidity in his intercourse with Count
d'Erfeuil: embarrassment is nearly always on the side of him whose
character is the more serious. Mental levity imposes upon the mind
habitually disposed to meditation, and he who proclaims himself happy,
appears wiser than he who suffers.

The Count d'Erfeuil was mild, obliging, and easy in every thing; serious
only in self love, and worthy of being regarded as he regarded others;
that is to say, as a good companion of pleasures and of perils; but he
had no idea whatever of sharing sorrows: he was wearied to death with
the melancholy of Oswald, and, as much from goodness of heart as from
taste, was desirous of dissipating it.

"What is it you find wanting?" said he to him often; "are you not young,
rich, and if you choose, in good health? for you are only ill because
you are sad. For my part I have lost my fortune, my existence: I know
not in fact what will become of me; nevertheless I enjoy life as if I
possessed all the prosperity that earth can afford." "You are endowed
with a courage as rare as it is honourable," replied Lord Nelville; "but
the reverses which you have experienced are less injurious in their
consequences than the grief which preys upon the heart." "The grief
which preys upon the heart," cried the Count d'Erfeuil; "Oh! it is true,
that is the most cruel of all;--but--but yet we should console ourselves
under it; for a sensible man ought to drive away from his soul every
thing that can neither be useful to others nor to himself. Are we not
here below to be useful first and happy afterwards? My dear Nelville let
us hold to that."

What the Count d'Erfeuil said was reasonable, according to the general
import of the word, for it savoured a good deal of what is usually
called common sense: passionate characters are much more capable of
folly than cool and superficial ones; but so far was the Count
d'Erfeuil's mode of feeling from exciting the confidence of Lord
Nelville that he would gladly have convinced him he was the most happy
of men in order to avoid the pain which his consolation gave him.

However the Count became greatly attached to Lord Nelville: his
resignation and his simplicity, his modesty and his pride, inspired him
with an involuntary respect for his character. He was concerned at the
calm exterior of Oswald; he ransacked his head to bring to recollection
all the most grave sayings which, in his childhood, he had heard from
his aged parents, in order to try their effect upon Lord Nelville; and,
quite astonished at not overcoming his apparent coldness, he said to
himself: "Do I not possess courage, goodness, and openness of
disposition? Am I not beloved in society? What is it then that I want to
make an impression upon this man? There surely must be some
misunderstanding between us which probably arises from his not
understanding French sufficiently well."




Chapter iv.


An unforeseen circumstance greatly increased the sentiment of respect
which the Count d'Erfeuil experienced already, almost without knowing
it, for his travelling companion. The health of Lord Nelville had
obliged him to stop some days at Ancona. The mountains and the sea
render the situation of this city very fine, and the crowd of Greeks who
work in front of their shops seated in the oriental manner, the
diversity of costume of the inhabitants of the Levant, whom one meets in
the streets, give it an original and interesting appearance. The art of
civilization has a continual tendency to render all men alike in
appearance and almost in reality; but the mind and the imagination take
pleasure in the characteristic differences of nations: it is only by
affectation and by calculation that men resemble each other; all that is
natural is varied. The eyes then, at least, derive some little pleasure
from diversity of costume; it seems to promise a new manner of feeling
and of judging.

The Greek, the Catholic, and the Jewish worships exist simultaneously
and peaceably in the city of Ancona. The ceremonies of these several
religions differ widely from each other; but in those various forms of
worship, the same sentiment lifts the soul to heaven--the same cry of
grief, the same need of support.

The catholic church is on the top of a mountain, which dominates the
sea: the roaring of the waves is often mingled with the song of the
priests. The interior of the church is overladen with a crowd of rather
tawdry ornaments; but if one stop beneath the portico of the temple, the
soul is filled with the purest sentiments of religion, heightened by
that sublime spectacle the sea, on whose bosom man has never been able
to imprint the smallest trace. The earth is tilled by him, the mountains
are cut through by his roads, and rivers shut up into canals to
transport his merchandise; but if the waves are furrowed for a moment by
his vessels the billows immediately efface this slight mark of
servitude, and the sea appears again as it was the first day of the
creation.

Lord Nelville had fixed his departure for Rome for the morrow, when he
heard, during the night the most dreadful cries in the city. He hastily
quitted the inn in order to learn the cause, when he beheld a terrible
fire, which proceeded from the port, and climbed from house to house
even to the very top of the city. The flames were mirrored at a distance
in the sea; the wind, which increased their fierceness, also disturbed
their image in the surging waves, which reflected in a thousand ways the
lurid traits of the conflagration.

The inhabitants of Ancona[2], not having among them pumps in good
condition, were obliged to carry water to extinguish the flames, which
they did with great eagerness. Amidst the din of different cries was
heard the clank of chains, from the galley slaves, who were employed in
saving that city which served them for a prison. The different nations
of the Levant, which commerce draws to Ancona, expressed their fear by
the stupor which appeared in their looks. The merchants, on beholding
their warehouses in flames, entirely lost their presence of mind. Alarm
for the loss of fortune affects the common order of men as much as the
fear of death, and does not inspire that energy of the soul, that
enthusiasm which brings resources to our aid.

The cries of sailors have always something doleful and prolonged in
them, and were now rendered still more so by terror. The mariners on the
shores of the Adriatic are clad in a red and brown hooded cloak of most
singular appearance, and from the midst of this vestment emerged the
animated countenances of the Italians, painting fear in a thousand
shapes. The inhabitants, throwing themselves down in the streets,
covered their heads with their cloaks, as if nothing remained for them
now to do but to avoid seeing their disaster; others precipitated
themselves into those flames from which they entertained no hope of
escaping. A thoughtless fury and a blind resignation appeared by turns;
but nowhere was seen that cool deliberation which redoubles our
resources and our strength.

Oswald recollected that there were two English vessels in the harbour
which had on board pumps of the best construction: he ran to the
captain, who accompanied him in a boat to bring away these pumps. The
inhabitants, seeing them enter the boat, exclaimed, "_Ah! strangers you
do well to quit our unhappy city_!" "We shall come back again," said
Oswald. They did not believe him. He returned however, fixed one of the
pumps opposite the first house on fire, near the port, and the other
facing that which was burning in the middle of the street. The Count
d'Erfeuil exposed his life with carelessness, courage, and gaiety; the
English sailors, and the domestics of Lord Nelville, all came to his
aid; for the inhabitants of Ancona remained motionless, hardly
comprehending what these strangers were about, and not expecting the
least success from them.

The bells rang in every quarter, the priests made processions, the women
lamented and prostrated themselves before the images of the saints at
the corners of the streets; but no one thought of those natural means
which God has given to man for his defence. However, when the
inhabitants perceived the happy effect of Oswald's activity; when they
saw that the flames were being extinguished, and that their houses would
be saved, they passed from astonishment to enthusiasm; they thronged
about Lord Nelville, and kissed his hands with such lively eagerness
that he was obliged to appear angry in order to drive away from him all
who might obstruct the rapid succession of orders, and of efforts
necessary to save the city. Every body was arranged under his command;
for, in the least as well as in the greatest circumstances, when danger
presents itself courage assumes its proper station; as soon as men are
possessed with fear they cease to be jealous of one another.

Oswald, however, amid the general din, distinguished some cries more
horrible than the rest, which resounded from the other extremity of the
city. He demanded whence these cries proceeded, and was informed that
they came from the quarter which was allotted for the Jews: the officer
of the police was accustomed to shut the gates of this quarter in the
evening, and, the fire having reached that part of the city, the Jews
had no means of escape.

Oswald shuddered at this idea, and demanded that the gate should be
immediately opened; but some women of the people who heard him threw
themselves at his feet, entreating him to desist.--"_You see very
well_," said they, "_our good angel! that it is certainly on account of
these Jews who reside here that we have suffered this fire, it is they
who bring calamity upon us, and if you set them at liberty all the water
in the sea will not extinguish the flames_." And they besought Oswald to
let the Jews be burnt with as much eloquence and tenderness as if they
were soliciting an act of clemency. This was not the effect of natural
cruelty, but of a superstitious imagination acutely impressed by a great
misfortune; however, Oswald could hardly contain his indignation on
hearing these strange entreaties.

He sent four English sailors with hatchets to break open the gates which
inclosed these unfortunate people, who spread themselves in an instant
through the city, running to their merchandise with that greed of
possession which has something very melancholy in it, when it induces
mortals to risk their lives for worldly wealth. One would say that in
the present state of society the simple blessing of life is esteemed by
man of little value.

There now remained but one house at the top of the city, which the
flames surrounded in such a manner that it was impossible to extinguish
them, and more impossible to enter it. The inhabitants of Ancona had
manifested so little concern for this house, that the English sailors,
not believing it to be inhabited, had dragged their pumps towards the
harbour. Oswald himself, stunned by the cries of those who surrounded
him and solicited his aid, had not paid attention to it. The fire had
extended the latest to that quarter, but had made considerable progress
there. Lord Nelville demanded so impatiently what house that was, that
at length a man informed him it was the madhouse. At this idea his whole
soul was agitated; he turned, but found none of the sailors around him;
the Count d'Erfeuil was not there either, and he would vainly have
addressed himself to the inhabitants of Ancona: they were almost all
occupied in saving their merchandise, and considered it absurd to run
any risk to rescue men, of whom there was not one who was not incurably
mad: "_It is a blessing from Heaven_," said they, "_for them, and for
their relations, that they should die in this manner; without any one
incurring a crime by their death_."

Whilst they held such language as this around Oswald, he proceeded with
the utmost speed towards the madhouse, and the crowd, by whom he was
censured, followed him with a confused sentiment of involuntary
enthusiasm. As Oswald approached the house, he saw, at the only window
which was not surrounded with flames, a number of lunatics, who regarded
the progress of the fire with that horrid kind of smile which either
supposes ignorance of all the ills of life, or so much grief at the
bottom of the soul that death in no shape can terrify it. An
inexpressible shudder seized upon Oswald at this sight; he had felt in
the most dreadful moment of his despair, that his reason was on the
point of being affected, and since that epoch, the aspect of madness
always inspired him with the most sorrowful emotions of pity. He seized
a ladder which he found near the spot, fixed it against the wall, and
entered by the window into an apartment where the unhappy people who
remained in the madhouse were assembled together.

Their insanity was so harmless, that they were suffered to be at large
in the interior of the house with the exception of one, who was chained
in this very room, where the flames already began to appear through the
door, but had not yet consumed the floor. These miserable creatures,
quite degraded by disease and suffering, were so surprised and enchanted
by the appearance of Oswald among them, that they obeyed him at first
without resistance. He ordered them to descend before him, one after
another, by means of the ladder, which the flames might devour in a
moment. The first of these wretched people obeyed without uttering a
word; the accent and the physiognomy of Lord Nelville had entirely
subdued him. A third wished to resist, without suspecting the danger
that he incurred by each moment of delay, and without thinking of the
peril to which he exposed Oswald in detaining him. The people, who felt
all the horrors of his situation, cried out to Lord Nelville to return,
and to let those maniacs get away how they could. But the deliverer
would listen to nothing till he had achieved his generous enterprise.

Of the six lunatics who were in the madhouse, five were already saved;
there now only remained the sixth who was chained. Oswald loosened his
irons, and endeavoured to make him take the same means of escaping as
his companions had done; but it was a poor young man, whose reason was
entirely destroyed, and, finding himself at liberty, after being chained
for two years, he darted about the room with an extravagant joy. This
joy rose to fury, when Oswald tried to make him go out at the window.
Lord Nelville perceiving that it was impossible to prevail upon this
maniac to save himself, though the flames increased around them, seized
him in his arms, in spite of the efforts of the unhappy wretch, who
struggled against his benefactor. He carried him off, without knowing
where he placed his feet, so much was his sight obscured by the smoke;
he leaped from nearly the middle of the ladder, and consigned the
lunatic, who loaded him with curses, to some people whom he made promise
to take care of him.

Oswald, animated by the danger he had just run, his hair dishevelled,
his look so proud yet so mild, struck the crowd who beheld him with
admiration, and almost with fanaticism; the women, above all, expressed
themselves with that imagination which is an almost universal gift in
Italy, and even gives a nobleness to the conversation of the common
people. They threw themselves on their knees before him, and cried,
"_You are surely St Michael, the patron of our city; display thy wings
most holy saint! but do not quit us: deign to ascend the steeple of the
cathedral, that all the city may behold, and pray to thee_." "_My child
is sick_," said one, "_heal him_." "_Tell me_," said another, "_where my
husband is, who has been absent several years_?" Oswald sought a means
of escape. The Count d'Erfeuil arrived, and said to him, pressing his
hand, "My dear Nelville, we ought to share all things with our friends;
it is unkind of you thus to monopolise all the danger." "Release me from
these people," said Oswald to him, in a low voice. A moment of darkness
favoured their flight, and both of them went in haste to get post
horses.

Lord Nelville experienced, at first, some pleasure from the good action
he had just performed, but with whom could he enjoy it now that his best
friend was no more? How unhappy is the lot of orphans! The most
fortunate events, as well as the most painful, make them feel alike the
solitude of the heart. How is it possible, in effect, ever to replace
that affection which is born with us, that intelligence, that sympathy
of blood, that friendship prepared by heaven between the child and the
father? We may still, it is true, find an object of love; but one in
whom we can confide our whole soul is a happiness which can never be
found again.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Ancona is now pretty nearly in the same predicament that it was
then.




Chapter v.


Oswald pursued his journey through the Marches of Ancona, and the
Ecclesiastical States, without any thing attracting his observation, or
exciting his interest: this was occasioned as well by the melancholy
habit of his soul, as by a certain natural indolence, from which he was
only to be aroused by strong passions. His taste for the arts had not
yet unfolded itself; he had never dwelt but in France, where society is
all in all, and in London, where political interests absorb almost every
other: his imagination, concentrated in his sufferings, had not yet
learnt to take pleasure in the wonders of nature and the masterpieces of
art.

The Count d'Erfeuil traversed every town with the "Traveller's Guide" in
his hand, and had at once the double pleasure of losing his time in
seeing every thing, and of declaring, that he had seen nothing which
could excite admiration in any person acquainted with France. The
_ennui_ of Count d'Erfeuil discouraged Oswald; he, besides, entertained
prejudices against the Italians and against Italy: he did not yet
penetrate the mystery of this nation or of this country;--a mystery
which must be comprehended by the imagination, rather than by that
faculty of judgment which is particularly developed by an English
education.

The Italians are much more remarkable for what they have been, and for
what they might be than for what they actually are. The deserts which
surround the city of Rome, that land which, fatigued with glory, seems
to hold in contempt the praise of being productive, presents but an
uncultivated and neglected country to him who considers it with regard
to utility. Oswald, accustomed from his infancy to the love of order and
public prosperity, received, at first, unfavourable impressions in
traversing those deserted plains which announce the approach to that
city formerly the queen of the world: he blamed the indolence of the
inhabitants and that of their rulers. Lord Nelville judged of Italy as
an enlightened administrator, the Count d'Erfeuil as a man of the world:
thus the one from reason, and the other from levity, were not sensible
of that effect which the country about Rome produces upon the
imagination, when it is impressed with the recollections, the
sympathies, the natural beauties and the illustrious misfortunes which
spread over these regions an undefinable charm.

The Count made ludicrous lamentations on the environs of Rome. "What,"
said he, "no country house, no carriage, nothing that announces the
vicinity of a great city? Heavens! what a melancholy prospect!" In
approaching Rome, the postillions cried, with transport, "_See! See,
there is the dome of St Peter's_!" It is thus that the Neapolitans shew
mount Vesuvius, and the sea excites the same emotions of pride in the
inhabitants of the coast. "One would have thought they had seen the dome
of _Les Invalides_;" cried the Count d'Erfeuil. This comparison, more
patriotic than just, destroyed the impression which Oswald might have
received on beholding this magnificent wonder of human creation. They
entered Rome, not on a fine day--not on a fine night--but on a gloomy
evening, which tarnished and confounded every object. They traversed the
Tiber without remarking it; they arrived at Rome by the Porta del Popolo
which conducts immediately to the Corso, to the largest street of the
modern city, but to that part of Rome which possesses the least
originality, because it resembles more the other cities of Europe.

Crowds were walking in the streets; the puppet shows and the charlatans
were formed in groups in the square, where stands the column of
Antoninus. All the attention of Oswald was captivated by the objects
nearest to him. The name of Rome no longer vibrated through his soul; he
felt nothing but that isolation which oppresses the heart when we enter
a strange city, when we behold that multitude of people to whom our
existence is unknown, and who have no interest in common with us. Those
reflections, so sad for every man, are still more so for the English,
who are accustomed to live among themselves, and who with difficulty
enter into the manners of other nations. In the vast caravansary of Rome
everything is foreign, even the Romans seem to inhabit there not as the
possessors, _but like pilgrims who repose beneath the ruins_[3]. Oswald,
oppressed with painful sensations, shut himself up at home, and went not
out to see the city. He was very far from thinking that this country,
which he entered under such sadness and dejection of spirits, would soon
become for him a source of so many new ideas and enjoyments.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] This reflection is taken from a letter on Rome, by M. de Humboldt,
brother of the celebrated Traveller, and Prussian Minister at Rome. It
is difficult to find anywhere a man whose conversation and writings
bespeak more knowledge and ideas.




Book ii.

CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL.

[Illustration]




Chapter i.


Oswald awoke in Rome. His first looks were saluted by the brilliancy of
an Italian sun, and his soul was penetrated with a sentiment of love and
gratitude towards that Power which seemed manifested in its resplendent
beams. He heard the bells of the different churches of the city; the
firing of cannon at intervals announced some great solemnity. He
demanded the cause of it, and was informed that that morning was to be
crowned, at the Capitol, the most celebrated woman in Italy. Corinne,
poetess, writer, _improvisatrice_, and one of the greatest beauties of
Rome. He made some enquiries respecting this ceremony consecrated by the
names of Petrarch and of Tasso, and all the answers that he received
strongly excited his curiosity.

There is certainly nothing more contrary to the habits and opinions of
an Englishman, than this great publicity given to the destiny of a
woman; but even foreigners are affected, at least for a moment, with
that enthusiasm which is inspired in the Italians by all those talents
that belong to the imagination, and they forget the prejudices of their
country amidst a nation so warm in the expression of its feelings. The
common people of Rome reason with taste upon their statues, pictures,
monuments and antiquities; and literary merit, carried to a certain
pitch, excites in them a national interest.

Oswald quitted his lodgings to repair to the public square, where he
heard everybody speaking of the genius and talents of Corinne. The
streets through which she was to pass had been decorated; the people,
who rarely assemble together except to pay their homage to fortune or
power, were, upon this occasion, almost in a tumult to behold a female
whose mind was her only claim to distinction. In the actual state of the
Italians the field of glory is only open to them in the fine arts, and
they possess a sensibility for genius in that department, which ought to
give birth to great men, if applause alone were sufficient to produce
them, if the stress of vigorous life, great interests and an independent
existence were not necessary to nourish thought.

Oswald walked the streets of Rome, waiting the arrival of Corinne. At
every instant he heard her name accompanied with some anecdote
concerning her, which implied the possession of all those talents that
captivate the imagination. One said that her voice was the most touching
in Italy; another, that nobody played tragedy like her; somebody else,
that she danced like a nymph, and designed with as much taste as
invention: all said that nobody had ever written or improvised such fine
verses, and that, in habitual conversation she possessed by turns, a
grace and an eloquence which charmed every mind. Disputes were entered
into as to what city of Rome had given her birth; but the Romans
maintained, warmly, that she must have been born in Rome to speak
Italian in such purity as she did. No one was acquainted with her family
name. Her first work had appeared five years before, and only bore the
name of Corinne; nobody knew where she had lived, nor what she had been
before that time: she was, however, nearly twenty-six years of age. This
mystery and publicity both at the same time, this woman of whom
everybody spoke, but whose real name was known to nobody, appeared to
Lord Nelville one of the wonders of the singular country he had just
come to live in. He would have judged very severely of such a woman in
England, but he did not apply the usual etiquette of society to Italy,
and the coronation of Corinne inspired him beforehand with that interest
to which an adventure of Ariosto would give birth.

Very fine and brilliant music preceded the arrival of the triumphal
procession. Any event, whatever it may be, which is announced by music,
always produces emotion. A great number of Roman Lords, and some
foreigners, preceded the car of Corinne. "_That is the train of her
admirers!_" said a Roman. "_Yes_," replied the other, "_she receives the
incense of everybody; but she grants nobody a decided preference: she is
rich and independent; it is even believed, and certainly her appearance
bespeaks it, that she is a woman of illustrious birth who desires to
remain unknown_." "_Be it as it may_," replied a third, "_she is a
goddess wrapt in a cloud_." Oswald looked at the man who spoke thus, and
every thing about him indicated that he belonged to the most obscure
rank in society; but in the south people so naturally make use of
poetical expressions, that one would say they were inhaled with the air
and inspired by the sun.

At length way was made through the crowd for the four white horses that
drew the car of Corinne. Corinne was seated in this car which was
constructed upon an antique model, and young girls, dressed in white,
walked on each side of her. Wherever she passed an abundance of perfumes
was thrown into the air; the windows, decorated with flowers and scarlet
tapestry, were crowded with spectators; every body cried, "_Long live
Corinne!_" "_Long live Genius and Beauty!_" The emotion was general but
Lord Nelville did not yet share it, and though he had observed in his
own mind that in order to judge of such a ceremony we must lay aside
the reserve of the English and the pleasantry of the French, he did not
share heartily in the _fête_ till at last he beheld Corinne.

[Illustration: _Corinne at the Capitol._]

She was dressed like the Sybil of Domenichino; an Indian shawl twisted
about her head, and her hair of the finest jet black, entwined with this
shawl; her dress was white, with blue drapery from her bosom downwards,
and her costume was very picturesque, at the same time without departing
so much from established modes as to savour of affectation. Her attitude
on the car was noble and modest: it was easily perceived that she was
pleased with being admired, but a sense of timidity was mingled with her
joy, and seemed to ask pardon for her triumph. The expression of her
physiognomy, of her eyes, of her smile, interested all in her favour,
and the first look made Lord Nelville her friend, even before that
sentiment was subdued by a warmer impression. Her arms were of dazzling
beauty; her shape, tall, but rather full, after the manner of the
Grecian statues, energetically characterised youth and happiness; and
there was something inspired in her look. One might perceive in her
manner of greeting and returning thanks for the applause which she
received, a kind of disposition which heightened the lustre of the
extraordinary situation in which she was placed. She gave at once the
idea of a priestess of Apollo advancing towards the temple of the Sun,
and of a woman of perfect simplicity in the common relations of life. To
conclude, in her every motion there was a charm which excited interest,
curiosity, astonishment and affection. The admiration of the people
increased in proportion as she advanced towards the Capitol--that spot
so fertile in memories. The beauty of the sky, the enthusiasm of these
Romans, and above all Corinne, electrified the imagination of Oswald. He
had often, in his own country, seen statesmen carried in triumph by the
people, but this was the first time he had been a witness of the
honours paid to a woman--a woman illustrious only by the gifts of
genius. Her chariot of victory was not purchased at the cost of the
tears of any human being, and no regret, no terror overshadowed that
admiration which the highest endowments of nature, imagination,
sentiment and mind, could not fail to excite.

Oswald was so absorbed in his reflections, so occupied by novel ideas,
that he did not remark the antique and celebrated places through which
the car of Corinne passed. It was at the foot of the flight of steps
which leads to the Capitol, that the car stopped, and at that moment all
the friends of Corinne rushed forward to offer her their hands. She
chose that of the prince Castel-Forte, the most esteemed of the Roman
nobility, for his intellect and for his disposition: every one approved
the choice of Corinne, and she ascended the steps of the Capitol whose
imposing majesty seemed to receive, with kind condescension, the light
footsteps of a woman. A new flourish of music was heard at the moment of
Corinne's arrival, the cannon resounded and the triumphant Sybil entered
the palace prepared for her reception.

At the lower end of the hall in which she was received were placed the
senator who was to crown her, and the conservators of the senate; on one
side all the cardinals and the most distinguished women of the country;
on the other the men of letters of the academy of Rome; and at the
opposite extremity the hall was occupied by a part of the immense crowd
who had followed Corinne. The chair destined for her was placed a step
below that of the senator. Corinne, before she seated herself in it,
made a genuflection on the first step, agreeably to the etiquette
required in this august assembly. She did it with so much nobleness and
modesty, so much gentleness and dignity, that Lord Nelville in that
moment felt his eyes moist with tears: he was astonished at his own
tenderness, but in the midst of all her pomp and triumph it seemed to
him that Corinne had implored, by her looks, the protection of a
friend--that protection which no woman, however superior, can dispense
with; and how sweet, said he within himself, would it be to become the
support of her to whom sensibility alone renders that support necessary.

As soon as Corinne was seated the Roman poets began to read the sonnets
and odes which they had composed for the occasion. They all exalted her
to the skies, but the praises which they lavishly bestowed upon her did
not draw any characteristic features of distinction between her and
other women of superior talents. They were only pleasing combinations of
images, and allusions to mythology, which might, from the days of Sappho
to those in which we live, have been addressed indiscriminately to any
woman who had rendered herself illustrious by her literary talents.

Already Lord Nelville felt hurt at this manner of praising Corinne; he
thought, in beholding her, that he could at that very instant draw a
portrait of her, more true, more just, more characteristic--a portrait
in fact that could only belong to Corinne.




Chapter ii.


The Prince Castel-Forte then rose to speak, and his observations upon
the merits of Corinne excited the attention of the whole assembly. He
was about fifty years of age, and there was in his speech and in his
deportment much deliberate ease and dignity. The assurances which Lord
Nelville received from those about him, that he was only the friend of
Corinne, excited, in his lordship's mind, an interest for the portrait
which he drew of her, unmixed with any other emotion. Without such a
security a confused sentiment of jealousy would have already disturbed
the soul of Oswald.

The Prince Castel-Forte read some unpretentious pages of prose which
were particularly calculated to display the genius of Corinne. He first
pointed out the peculiar merit of her work, and said that that merit
partly consisted of her profound study of foreign literature: she
united, in the highest degree, imagination, florid description and all
the brilliancy of the south, with that knowledge, that observation of
the human heart, which falls to the share of those countries where
external objects excite less interest.

He extolled the elegant graces and the lively disposition of Corinne--a
gaiety which partook of no improper levity, but proceeded solely from
the vivacity of the mind and the freshness of the imagination. He
attempted to praise her sensibility, but it was easily perceived that
personal regret mingled itself with this part of his speech. He lamented
the difficulty which a woman of her superior cast experienced of meeting
with the object of which she has formed to herself an ideal portrait--a
portrait clad with every endowment the heart and mind can wish for. He
however took pleasure in painting the passionate sensibility which the
poetry of Corinne inspired, and the art she possessed of seizing every
striking relation between the beauties of nature and the most intimate
impressions of the soul. He exalted the originality of Corinne's
expressions, those expressions which were the offspring of her character
and manner of feeling, without ever permitting any shade of affectation
to disfigure a species of charm not only natural but involuntary.

He spoke of her eloquence as possessing an irresistible force and energy
which must the more transport her hearers the more they possessed within
themselves true intellectual sensibility. "Corinne," said he, "is
indubitably the most celebrated woman of our country, and nevertheless
it is only her friends who can properly delineate her; for we must
always have recourse, in some degree, to conjecture, in order to
discover the genuine qualities of the soul. They may be concealed from
our knowledge by celebrity as well as obscurity, if some sort of
sympathy does not assist us to penetrate them." He enlarged upon her
talent for extemporisation, which did not resemble any thing of that
description known in Italy. "It is not only to the fecundity of her mind
that we ought to attribute it;" said he; "but to the deep emotion which
every generous thought excites in her. She cannot pronounce a word that
recalls such thoughts without enthusiasm, that inexhaustible source of
sentiments and of ideas animating and inspiring her." The Prince
Castel-Forte also made his audience sensible of the beauties of a style
always pure and harmonious. "The poetry of Corinne," added he, "is an
intellectual melody which can alone express the charm of the most
fugitive and delicate impressions."

He praised the conversation of his heroine in a manner that easily made
it perceived he had experienced its delight. "Imagination and
simplicity, justness and elevation, strength and tenderness, are
united," said he, "in the same person to give incessant variety to all
the pleasures of the mind: we may apply to her, this charming verse of
Petrarch:

     _Il parlar che nell' anima si sente._[4]

and, I believe, in her will be found that grace so much boasted of,
that oriental charm which the ancients attributed to Cleopatra.

"The places I have visited with her, the music we have heard together,
the pictures she has pointed out to me, the books she has made me
comprehend, compose the universe of my imagination. There is in all
these objects a spark of her life; and if I were to exist at a distance
from her I would wish at least to be surrounded by those objects,
certain as I am of finding nowhere else that trace of fire, that trace
of herself in fact, which she has left in them. Yes," continued he (and
at that moment his eyes fell by chance upon Oswald), "behold Corinne; if
you can pass your life with her, if that double existence which it is in
her power to give can be assured to you for a long time; but do not
behold her if you are condemned to quit her; you will seek in vain as
long as you live that creative soul which shares and multiplies your
sentiments and your thoughts; you will never behold her like again."

Oswald started at these words, his eyes fixed themselves upon Corinne,
who heard them with an emotion that was not inspired by self-love, but
which was allied to the most amiable and delicate feelings. The Prince
Castel-Forte was much affected for a moment, and then resumed his
speech. He spoke of Corinne's talent for music, for painting, for
declamation and for dancing: In all these talents, he said, she was
entirely herself, not confined to any particular manner, or to any
particular rule, but expressing in various languages the same powers of
the imagination, and the same witchery of the fine arts under all their
different forms.

"I do not flatter myself," said the Prince Castel-Forte in concluding,
"that I have been able to paint a lady of whom it is impossible to form
an idea without having heard her; but her presence is, for us at Rome,
as one of the benefits of our brilliant sky and our inspired nature.
Corinne is the tie that unites her friends together; she is the moving
principle and the interest of our life. We reckon upon her goodness; we
are proud of her genius; we say to strangers, 'Behold her! She is the
image of our beautiful Italy; she is what we should be without the
ignorance, the envy, the discord and the indolence to which our fate has
condemned us.' We take pleasure in contemplating her as an admirable
production of our climate and of our fine arts,--as a scion shooting out
of the past, as a prophecy of the future. When foreigners insult this
country, whence has issued that intelligence which has shed its light
over Europe; when they are without pity for our defects, which arise out
of our misfortunes, we will say to them: 'Behold Corinne! 'Tis our
desire to follow her footsteps; we would endeavour to become, as men,
what she is as woman, if man like woman could create a world in his own
heart; and if our genius, necessarily dependent upon social relations
and external circumstances, could be kindled by the torch of poetry
alone.'"

The moment the Prince Castel-Forte left off speaking unanimous applause
was heard on all sides, and though towards the conclusion of his speech
he indirectly blamed the present state of the Italians, all the nobles
of the state approved of it; so true it is that we find in Italy that
sort of liberality which does not lead men to alter institutions, but
which pardons in superior minds a tranquil opposition to existing
prejudices. The reputation of Prince Castel-Forte was very great in
Rome. He spoke with a rare sagacity, which is a remarkable gift in a
nation who exhibit more intellect in their conduct than in their
conversation. He did not in his worldly concerns shew that address which
often distinguishes the Italians, but he took delight in thought, and
did not dread the fatigue of meditation. The happy inhabitants of the
south sometimes shrink from this fatigue, and flatter themselves that
imagination will do everything for them, as their fertile soil produces
fruit without cultivation assisted only by the bounty of the sky.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] The language which is felt in the depth of the soul.




Chapter iii.


Corinne arose when the Prince Castel-Forte had ceased speaking; she
thanked him by an inclination of the head so dignified yet so gentle,
that it expressed at once the modesty and joy so natural at having
received praise according to her heart's desire. It was the custom that
every poet crowned at the Capitol should recite or extemporise some
piece of poetry, before the destined laurel was placed on his head.
Corinne ordered her lyre to be brought to her--the instrument of her
choice--which greatly resembled the harp, but was however more antique
in form and more simple in its sounds. In tuning it she was seized with
uncommon timidity, and it was with a trembling voice that she asked to
know the subject imposed on her. "_The glory and happiness of Italy!_"
cried all around her with a unanimous voice. "Very well," replied she
already fired with enthusiasm, already supported by her genius, "_the
glory and happiness of Italy_;" and feeling herself animated by the love
of her country she commenced the most charming strains, of which prose
can give but a very imperfect idea.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The Improvisation of Corinne, at the Capitol._

"Italy, empire of the sun! Italy, mistress of the world! Italy, the
cradle of letters, I salute thee! How often has the human race been
subjected to thee, tributary to thy arms, to thy art and to thy sky.

"A deity quitted Olympus to take refuge in Ausonia; the aspect of this
country recalled the virtues of the golden age;--man appeared there too
happy to be supposed guilty.

"Rome conquered the universe by her genius, and became sovereign by
liberty. The Roman character was imprinted everywhere, and the invasion
of the Barbarians, in destroying Italy obscured the whole world.

"Italy appeared again with the divine treasures which the fugitive
Greeks brought back to her bosom; heaven revealed its laws to her; the
daring of her children discovered a new hemisphere; she again became
sovereign by the sceptre of thought, but this laurelled sceptre only
produced ingratitude.

"Imagination restored to her the universe which she had lost. The
painters and the poets created for her an earth, an Olympus, a hell, and
a heaven; and her native fire, better guarded by her genius than by the
Pagan deity, found not in Europe a Prometheus to ravish it from her.

"Why am I at the Capitol? Why is my humble forehead about to receive the
crown which Petrarch, has worn, and which remained suspended on the
gloomy cypress that weeps over the tomb of Tasso?--Why, if you were not
so enamoured of glory, my fellow-countrymen, that you recompense its
worship as much as its success?

"Well, if you so love this glory which too often chooses its victims
among the conquerors which it has crowned, reflect with pride upon those
ages which beheld the new birth of the arts. Dante, the modern Homer,
the hero of thought, the sacred poet of our religious mysteries, plunged
his genius into the Styx to land in the infernal regions, and his mind
was profound as the abyss which he has described.

"Italy in the days of her power was wholly revived in Dante. Animated by
a republican spirit, warrior as well as poet, he breathed the flame of
action among the dead; and his shadows have a more vivid existence than
the living here below.

"Terrestrial remembrances pursue them still; their aimless passions
devour one another in the heart; they are moved at the past which seems
to them less irrevocable than their eternal future.

"One would say that Dante, banished from his country, has transported
into imaginary regions the pangs which devoured him. His shades
incessantly demand news from the scene of mortal existence, as the poet
himself eagerly enquires after his native country; and hell presents
itself to him in the form of exile.

"All, in his eyes, are clothed in the costume of Florence. The ancient
dead whom he invokes, seem to be born again as completely Tuscan as
himself. It was not that his mind was limited--it was the energy of his
soul, that embraced the whole universe within the circle of his
thoughts.

"A mystical chain of circles and of spheres conducts him from hell to
purgatory, from purgatory to paradise. Faithful historian of his vision,
he pours a flood of light upon the most obscure regions, and the world
which he creates in his triple poem is as complete, as animated and as
brilliant as a planet newly-discovered in the firmament.

"At his voice the whole earth assumes a poetical form, its objects,
ideas, laws and phenomena, seem a new Olympus of new deities; but this
mythology of the imagination is annihilated, like paganism, at the
aspect of paradise, of that ocean of light, sparkling with rays and with
stars, with virtues and with love.

"The magic words of our great poet are the prism of the universe; all
its wonders are there reflected, divided, and recomposed; sounds imitate
colours, and colours are blended in harmony; rhyme, sonorous or bizarre,
rapid or prolonged, is inspired by this poetical divination; supreme
beauty of art! triumph of genius! which discovers in nature every secret
in affinity with the heart of man.

"Dante hoped from his poem the termination of his exile; he reckoned on
Fame as his mediator; but he died too soon to receive the palm of his
country. Often is the fleeting life of man worn out in adversity! and if
glory triumph, if at length he land upon a happier shore, he no sooner
enters the port than the grave yawns before him, and destiny, in a
thousand shapes, often announces the end of life by the return of
happiness.

"Thus unfortunate Tasso, whom your homage, Romans, was to console for
all the injustice he had suffered; Tasso, the handsome, the gentle, the
heroic, dreaming of exploits, feeling the love which he sang, approached
these walls as his heroes did those of Jerusalem--with respect and
gratitude. But on the eve of the day chosen for his coronation, Death
claimed him for its terrible festival: Heaven is jealous of earth, and
recalls her favourites from the treacherous shores of Time!

"In an age more proud and more free than that of Tasso, Petrarch was,
like Dante, the valorous poet of Italian independence. In other climes
he is only known by his amours,--here, more severe recollections
encircle his name with never-fading honour; for it is known that he was
inspired by his country more than by Laura herself.

"He re-animated antiquity by his vigils; and, far from his imagination
raising any obstacle to the most profound studies, its creative power,
in submitting the future to his will, revealed to him the secrets of
past ages. He discovered how greatly knowledge assists invention; and
his genius was so much the more original, since, like the eternal
forces, he could be present at all periods of time.

"Ariosto derived inspiration from our serene atmosphere, and our
delicious climate. He is the rainbow which appeared after our long wars;
brilliant and many-hued, like that herald of fine weather, he seems to
sport familiarly with life; his light and gentle gaiety is the smile of
nature and not the irony of man.

"Michael Angelo, Raphael, Pergolese, Galileo, and you, intrepid
travellers, greedy of new countries, though nature could offer nothing
finer than your own, join your glory also to that of the poets. Artists,
scholars, philosophers! you are, like them, the children of that sun
which by turns developes the imagination, animates thought, excites
courage, lulls us into a happy slumber, and seems to promise everything,
or cause it to be forgotten.

"Do you know that land where the Orange-trees bloom, which the rays of
heaven make fertile with love? Have you heard those melodious sounds
which celebrate the mildness of the nights? Have you breathed those
perfumes which are the luxury of that air, already so pure and so mild?
Answer, strangers; is nature in your countries so beautiful and so
beneficent?

"In other regions, when social calamities afflict a country, the people
must believe themselves abandoned by the Deity; but here we ever feel
the protection of heaven; we see that he interests himself for man, that
he has deigned to treat him as a noble being.

"It is not only with vine branches, and with ears of corn, that Nature
is here adorned; she prodigally strews beneath the feet of man, as on
the birthday of a sovereign, an abundance of useless plants and flowers,
which, destined to please, will not stoop to serve.

"The most delicate pleasures nourished by nature are enjoyed by a nation
worthy of them--a nation who are satisfied with the most simple dishes;
who do not become intoxicated at the fountains of wine which plenty
prepares for them;--a nation who love their sun, their arts, their
monuments, their country, at once antique and in the spring of youth;--a
nation that stand equally aloof from the refined pleasures of luxury, as
from the gross and sordid pleasures of a mercenary people."

"Here sensations are confounded with ideas; life is drawn in all its
fulness from the same spring, and the soul, like the air, inhabits the
confines of earth, and of heaven. Genius is untrammelled because here
reverie is sweet: its holy calm soothes the soul when perturbed,
lavishes upon it a thousand illusions when it regrets a lost purpose,
and when oppressed by man nature is ready to welcome it."

"Thus is our country ever beneficent, and her succouring hand heals
every wound. Here, even the pangs of the heart receive consolation, in
admiring a God of kindness, and penetrating the secrets of his love; the
passing troubles of our ephemeral life are lost in the fertile and
majestic bosom of the immortal universe."

Corinne was interrupted, for some moments, by a torrent of applause.
Oswald alone took no share in the noisy transports that surrounded him.
He had leaned his head upon his hand, when Corinne said: "_Here, even
the pangs of the heart receive consolation_;" and had not raised it
since. Corinne remarked it, and soon, from his features, the colour of
his hair, his costume, his lofty figure, from his whole manner in short,
she knew him for an Englishman: she was struck with his mourning habit,
and the melancholy pictured in his countenance. His look, at that moment
fixed upon her, seemed full of gentle reproaches; she guessed the
thoughts that occupied his mind, and felt the necessity of satisfying
him, by speaking of happiness with less confidence, by consecrating some
verses to death in the midst of a festival. She then resumed her lyre,
with this design, and having produced silence in the assembly, by the
moving and prolonged sounds which she drew from her instrument, began
thus:

"There are griefs however which our consoling sky cannot efface, but in
what retreat can sorrow make a more sweet and more noble impression upon
the soul than here?

"In other countries hardly do the living find space sufficient for their
rapid motions and their ardent desires; here, ruins, deserts and
uninhabited palaces, afford an asylum for the shades of the departed. Is
not Rome now the land of tombs?

"The Coliseum, the obelisks, all the wonders which from Egypt and from
Greece, from the extremity of ages, from Romulus to Leo X. are assembled
here, as if grandeur attracted grandeur, and as if the same spot was to
enclose all that man could secure from the ravages of time; all these
wonders are consecrated to the monuments of the dead. Our indolent life
is scarcely perceived, the silence of the living is homage paid to the
dead; they endure and we pass away.

"They only are honoured, they are still celebrated: our obscure
destinies serve only to heighten the lustre of our ancestors: our
present existence leaves nothing standing but the past; it will exact no
tribute from future recollections! All our masterpieces are the work of
those who are no more, and genius itself is numbered among the
illustrious dead.

"Perhaps one of the secret charms of Rome, is to reconcile the
imagination with the sleep of death. Here we learn resignation, and
suffer less pangs of regret for the objects of our love. The people of
the south picture to themselves the end of life in colours less gloomy
than the inhabitants of the north. The sun, like glory, warms even the
tomb.

"The cold and isolation of the sepulchre beneath our lovely sky, by the
side of so many funereal urns, have less terrors for the human mind. We
believe a crowd of spirits is waiting for our company; and from our
solitary city to the subterranean one the transition seems easy and
gentle.

"Thus the edge of grief is taken off; not that the heart becomes
indifferent, or the soul dried up; but a more perfect harmony, a more
odoriferous air, mingles with existence. We abandon ourselves to nature
with less fear--to nature, of whom the Creator has said: 'Consider the
lilies of the field; they toil not neither do they spin: yet I say unto
you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these.'"

Oswald was so ravished with these last strains, that he gave the most
lively testimonies of his admiration; and, upon this occasion, the
transports of the Italians themselves did not equal his. In fact, it was
to him more than to the Romans, that the second improvisation of Corinne
was directed.

The greater part of the Italians have, in reading poetry, a kind of
singing monotony, called _cantilene_, which destroys all emotion[5]. It
is in vain that the words vary--the impression remains the same; since
the accent, more essential than even the words, hardly varies at all.
But Corinne recited with a variety of tone, which did not destroy the
sustained charm of the harmony;--it was like several different airs
played on some celestial instrument.

The tones of Corinne's voice, full of sensibility and emotion, giving,
effect to the Italian language, so pompous and so sonorous, produced
upon Oswald an impression entirely novel. The English prosody is uniform
and veiled, its natural beauties are all of a sombre cast; its colouring
has been formed by clouds, and its modulation by the roaring of the sea;
but when Italian words, brilliant as an Italian festival, resonant like
those instruments of victory, which have been compared to scarlet among
colours; when these words, bearing the stamp of that joy which a fine
climate spreads through every heart, are pronounced in a moving voice,
their lustre softened, their strength concentrated, the soul is affected
in a manner as acute as unforeseen. The intention of nature seems
baffled, her benefits of no use, her offers rejected, and the expression
of pain, in the midst of so many enjoyments, astonishes and affects us
more deeply than the grief which is sung in those northern languages
which it seems to inspire.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] We must expect from this censure upon the Italian mode of
declamation, the celebrated Monti, who recites verses as well as he
composes them. It is really one of the greatest dramatic pleasures that
can be experienced, to hear him recite the Episode of Ugolin, of
Francesca da Rimini, the Death of Clorinda, &c.




Chapter iv.


The Senator took the crown of myrtle and laurel which he was to place on
the head of Corinne. She removed the shawl which graced her forehead,
and all her ebon hair fell in ringlets about her shoulders. She advanced
with her head bare, and her look animated by a sentiment of pleasure and
gratitude which she sought not to conceal. She a second time bent her
knee, to receive the crown; but she displayed less agitation and tremor
than at first; she had just spoken; she had just filled her mind with
the most noble thoughts, and enthusiasm conquered diffidence. She was
no longer a timid woman, but an inspired priestess who joyfully
consecrated herself to the worship of genius.

As soon as the crown was placed on the head of Corinne all the
instruments were heard in those triumphant airs which fill the soul with
the most sublime emotion. The sound of kettle-drums, and the flourish of
trumpets, inspired Corinne with new feelings--her eyes were filled with
tears--she sat down a moment, and covered her face with her
handkerchief. Oswald, most sensibly affected, quitted the crowd, and
advanced to speak to her, but was withheld by an invincible
embarrassment. Corinne looked at him for some time, taking care
nevertheless, that he should not observe the attention she paid him; but
when the Prince Castel-Forte came to take her hand, in order to conduct
her to the car, she yielded to his politeness with an absent mind; and,
while she permitted him to hand her along, turned her head several
times, under various pretexts, to take another view of Oswald.

He followed her, and at the moment when she descended the steps
accompanied by her train, she made a retrograde movement, in order to
behold him once more, when her crown fell off. Oswald hastened to pick
it up; and in restoring it to her, said in Italian, that an humble
mortal like himself might venture to place at the feet of a goddess that
crown which he dared not presume to place on her head[6]. Corinne
thanked Lord Nelville in English, with that pure national accent--that
pure insular accent, which has scarcely ever been successfully imitated
on the continent. What was the astonishment of Oswald in hearing her! He
remained at first immovably fixed to the spot where he was, and feeling
confused he leaned against one of the lions of basalt at the foot of
the stairway descending from the Capitol. Corinne viewed him again,
forcibly struck with the emotion he betrayed; but she was dragged away
towards the car, and the whole crowd disappeared long before Oswald had
recovered his strength and his presence of mind.

Corinne, till then, had enchanted him as the most charming of
foreigners--as one of the wonders of that country he had come to visit;
but her English accent recalled every recollection of his native
country, and in a manner naturalised all the charms of Corinne. Was she
English? Had she passed several years of her life in England? He was
lost in conjecture; but it was impossible that study alone could have
taught her to speak thus--Corinne and Lord Nelville must have lived in
the same country. Who knows whether their families were not intimate?
Perhaps even, he had seen her in his infancy! We often have in our
hearts, we know not what kind of innate image of that which we love,
which may persuade us that we recognise it in an object we behold for
the first time.

Oswald had cherished many prejudices against the Italians; he believed
them passionate, but changeable, and incapable of any deep and lasting
affection. Already the language of Corinne at the Capitol had inspired
him with a different idea. What would be his fortune, then, if he could
at once revive the recollections of his native country, and receive by
imagination a new existence,--live again for the future without
forgetting the past!

In the midst of his reveries, Oswald found himself upon the bridge of St
Angelo, which leads to the castle of the same name, or rather to the
tomb of Adrian, which has been converted into a fortress. The silence of
the place, the pale waves of the Tiber, the moon-beams which shed their
mild radiance upon the statues placed on the bridge, and gave to those
statues the appearance of white spectres steadfastly regarding the
current of the waters, and the flight of time which no longer concerned
them; all these objects led him back to his habitual ideas. He put his
hand upon his breast, and felt the portrait of his father which he
always carried there; he untied it, contemplated the features, and the
momentary happiness which he had just experienced, as well as the cause
of that happiness, only recalled, with too severe a remembrance, the
sentiment which had already rendered him so guilty towards his father:
This reflection renewed his remorse.

"Eternal recollection of my life!" cried he: "Friend so offended, yet so
generous! Could I have believed that any pleasurable sensation would so
soon have found access to my heart? It is not thou, best and most
indulgent of men,--it is not thou who reproachest me with them--it was
thy wish that I should be happy, and, in spite of my errors, that is
still thy desire: but at least, may I not misconceive thy voice, if thou
speak to me from heaven, as I have misconceived it upon earth!"

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Lord Nelville seems to have alluded to this beautiful distich of
Propertius:

     "Ut caput in Magnis ubi non est ponere signis,
     Ponitur hîc imos ante corona pedes."




Book iii.

CORINNE

[Illustration]




Chapter i.


The Count d'Erfeuil was present at the ceremony of the Capitol: He came
the next day to Lord Nelville, and said to him, "My dear Oswald, shall I
take you this evening to see Corinne?" "How!" interrupted Oswald; "are
you acquainted with her, then?" "No," replied the Count d'Erfeuil; "but
so celebrated a lady is always flattered when people express a desire to
see her; and I have written to her this morning to request permission to
visit her in the evening accompanied by you." "I could have wished,"
replied Oswald blushing, "that you had not named me in this manner
without my consent." "Do not be angry with me," replied the Count
d'Erfeuil, "for having spared you some tiresome formalities: Instead of
going to an ambassador, who would have taken you to a cardinal, who
would have conducted you to a lady, who would have introduced you to
Corinne, I present you--you present me, and we shall both of us be very
well received I have no doubt."

"I am less confident on that subject than you," replied Lord Nelville,
"and certainly not without reason. I am afraid that this forward request
may have displeased Corinne." "Not at all, I assure you," said the Count
d'Erfeuil; "she has too much good sense for that; and her answer is
extremely polite." "How! she has answered you," replied Lord Nelville;
"and what has she said to you, my dear Count?" "Ah, my dear Count?"
said M. d'Erfeuil, laughing, "you change your note then, since you know
that Corinne has answered me; however, _I love you, and all is
pardoned_. I will confess to you then, modestly, that in my note I had
spoken of myself more than of you, and that, in her answer she seems to
have named you first, but I am never jealous of my friends." "Indeed,"
replied Lord Nelville, "I do not think that either you or I have any
reason to flatter ourselves with being agreeable to Corinne; and as to
me, all that I desire is sometimes to enjoy the society of so
extraordinary a lady: so adieu till this evening, since you have
arranged it so." "You will accompany me then?" said the Count d'Erfeuil.
"Well, yes, I will," answered Lord Nelville with visible embarrassment.
"Why then," continued the Count, "find fault with what I have done? You
finish as I have begun, but however, I must allow you the honour of
being more reserved than I, provided you lose nothing by it. Corinne is
certainly a charming lady, she is graceful and witty; I could not
comprehend what she said very well, because she spoke Italian; but I
would venture to lay a wager, from only seeing her, that she knows
French very well: however, we shall judge of that in the evening. She
leads a very singular life; she is rich, young, and independent; yet no
one can tell, to a certainty, whether she has lovers or not. It appears
certain, notwithstanding, that, at present she gives a preference to no
one; indeed," added he, "it may be the case that she has not been able
to find in this country a man worthy of her: that would not astonish me
at all."

The Count held this kind of discourse some time longer without being
interrupted by Lord Nelville. He said nothing that was discourteous; but
he always wounded the delicate feelings of Oswald by speaking with too
much boldness or too much levity upon what interested him. There is a
certain tact that even wit and knowledge of the world will not teach; so
that, without being wanting in the most perfect politeness, we may often
wound the heart.

Lord Nelville was very much agitated the whole day in thinking of the
visit he was to make in the evening; but he drove away from him as much
as he could the reflections which disturbed him, and endeavoured to
persuade himself that he might find pleasure in a sentiment, without
permitting it to decide the fate of his life. False security! for the
soul receives no pleasure from anything which it deems transient.

Oswald and the Count arrived at Corinne's house, which was situated in
the _Quartiere di Trastevere_, a little beyond the castle of St Angelo.

The view of the Tiber gave an additional embellishment to this house,
which was ornamented, internally, with the most perfect elegance. The
saloon was decorated with copies, in plaster, of the best statues in
Italy--Niobe, Laocoon, Venus de Medicis, and the Dying Gladiator. In the
apartment where Corinne received company were instruments of music,
books, and furniture not more remarkable for its simplicity than for its
convenience, being merely arranged so as to render the conversation
easy, and to draw the circle more closely together. Corinne had not yet
made her appearance when Oswald arrived; while waiting for her he walked
about the apartment with much eager curiosity, remarking in every
particular a happy medley of all that is most agreeable in the English,
French and Italian nations; the love of literature, the taste for
society, and a passion for the fine arts.

Corinne at length appeared; her costume was still picturesque without
being over-studied. Her hair was ornamented with antique cameos and she
wore a necklace of coral: her politeness was noble and easy: in
beholding her in the familiar circle of her friends, you might discover
in her the goddess of the Capitol, notwithstanding she was perfectly
simple and natural in everything. She first saluted the Count d'Erfeuil,
her eyes fixed upon Oswald; and then, as if she repented this piece of
falsehood, she advanced towards the latter--and it might be remarked
that in addressing him by the title of Lord Nelville, that name seemed
to produce a singular effect upon her, and twice she repeated it with a
faltering voice, as if it recalled some affecting remembrances.

At length, in the most graceful manner, she thanked Lord Nelville, in
Italian, for his obliging behaviour on the preceding day in picking up
her crown. Oswald answered by expressing the admiration with which she
inspired him, and gently complained of her not speaking to him upon this
occasion in English: "Am I more an alien to you to-day," added he, "than
I was yesterday?" "No certainly," replied Corinne; "but when people
have, like me, for several years, been in the habit of speaking two or
three different languages, they are apt to employ that which will best
convey the sentiments they wish to express." "Surely," said Oswald,
"English is your natural language, that which you speak to your friends,
that--" "I am an Italian," interrupted Corinne--"pardon me, my lord, but
I think I discover in you that national pride which often characterises
your countrymen. In this country we are more modest; we are neither
pleased with ourselves like the French, nor proud of ourselves like the
English: we only ask a little indulgence of foreigners, and as we have
long ceased to be considered a nation, we are guilty of sometimes being
wanting, as individuals, in that dignity which is not allowed us as a
people. But when you are acquainted with the Italians, you will see
that they possess in their character, some traces of ancient greatness,
some rare traces which, though now effaced, may appear again in happier
times. I will speak English to you sometimes, but not always: Italian is
dear to me; for I have endured much," added she, "to reside in Italy."

The Count d'Erfeuil politely reproached Corinne with having entirely
forgotten him, by expressing herself in languages he did not understand.
"Lovely Corinne," said he to her, "pray talk French; indeed you are
worthy of such an accomplishment." Corinne smiled at this compliment,
and began to speak French, with great purity and much facility, but with
an English accent. Lord Nelville and the Count d'Erfeuil were equally
astonished, but the Count, who believed he might say anything, provided
it was done with grace, and who imagined that impoliteness consisted in
the form, and not the substance, asked directly of Corinne, the reason
of this singularity. She was at first a little discomposed at this
sudden interrogation; but recovering her presence of mind, she said to
the Count--"Apparently, Sir, I have learnt French of an Englishman?" He
renewed his questions smilingly, but with much earnestness. Corinne more
and more embarrassed, said to him at last, "For these four years past,
Sir, since I have settled at Rome, none of my friends, none of those
who, I am sure, are most interested on my account have questioned me
concerning my destiny; they easily perceived that it was painful to me
to speak on the subject."

Those words put an end to the questions of the Count; but Corinne was
afraid she had offended him, and as he appeared to be very intimately
connected with Lord Nelville, she feared still more, without asking
herself the reason of such fear, that he might speak disadvantageously
of her to his friend; and therefore she set about taking much pains to
please him.

The Prince Castel-Forte arrived at this moment, with several Romans,
friends of his and of Corinne. They were men of an amiable mind and
lively disposition, very prepossessing in their appearance, and so
easily animated by the conversation of others that it was a great
pleasure to converse with them, so exquisitely did they appear to feel
every thing that was worthy of being felt. The indolence of the Italians
prevents them from displaying in company, or often in any way whatever,
all the wit they possess. The greater part of them do not even cultivate
in retirement, the intellectual faculties that nature has given them;
but they enjoy with transport, that which comes to them without trouble.

Corinne possessed a very gay turn of wit; she perceived the ridiculous
with the keen sense of a French woman, and coloured it with the
imagination of an Italian; but in every instance it was mingled with
goodness of heart; nothing was ever seen in her, either premeditated or
hostile; for, in every thing, it is coldness that offends--and
imagination on the contrary, is always accompanied with good-nature.

Oswald discovered a grace in Corinne which was entirely new to him. One
great and terrible circumstance of his life was connected with the
remembrance of a very amiable and intelligent French woman; but Corinne
resembled her in nothing--her conversation was a mixture of every kind
of intellectual endowment, enthusiasm for the fine arts, and knowledge
of the world; refinement of ideas, and depth of sentiment; in short, all
the charms of a vivacious and rapid mind were observable in her, without
her thoughts ever being on that account incomplete, or her reflections
superficial. Oswald was at once surprised and charmed, uneasy and
transported; he was unable to comprehend how one person alone could
combine all the qualifications of Corinne. He asked himself whether the
union of all these qualities was the effect of an inconsistent or a
superior character; whether it was by the force of universal feeling, or
because she forgot every thing successively, that she passed thus,
almost in the same instant, from melancholy to gaiety, from profundity
to grace--from conversation the most astonishing, by the knowledge and
the ideas it displayed, to the coquetry of a woman who seeks to please,
and desires to captivate; but there was, even in that coquetry, such
perfect nobleness that it imposed as much respect as the most severe
reserve.

The Prince Castel-Forte was very much taken up with Corinne, and the
sentiments of all his party were manifested towards her by attention and
the most delicate and assiduous respect; and the habitual worship with
which they surrounded her, made every day of her life a sort of
festival. Corinne felt herself happy in being thus beloved; but it was
that sort of happiness which we feel in living in a mild climate,
hearing nothing but harmonious sounds, and receiving, in short, nothing
but agreeable impressions. The serious and profound passion of love was
not painted on her countenance, where every emotion of her soul was
expressed by a most bright and mobile physiognomy. Oswald beheld her in
silence; his presence animated Corinne, and inspired her with the desire
of pleasing. However, she sometimes checked herself in those moments
when her conversation was the most brilliant, astonished at the calm
exterior of Oswald, not knowing whether he approved her or blamed her
secretly, or whether his English ideas would permit him to applaud this
display of talents in a woman.

Oswald was too much captivated by the charms of Corinne, to call to
mind his old opinions upon that obscurity which became women; but he was
inquiring of himself, whether it were possible to be beloved by her;
whether any man could expect to concentrate in himself so many rays of
light. In fact, he was at the same time dazzled and disturbed; and
although, at his departure, she invited him, very politely, to come and
see her again, he suffered a whole day to pass without availing himself
of the invitation, experiencing a sort of terror from the sentiment by
which he felt himself impelled.

Sometimes he compared this sentiment with the fatal error of the first
moments of his youth, but immediately banished such a comparison from
his mind--for then it was a perfidious art that had overcome him; but
who could doubt the truth of Corinne? Was that peculiar charm she
possessed the effect of magic, or of poetical inspiration? Was she an
Armida, or a Sappho? Was there any hope of captivating so lofty and
brilliant a genius! It was impossible to decide; but at least it was
easily seen, that not society, but heaven itself, could have formed this
extraordinary being, and that her mind could no more be imitated, than
her character feigned. "Oh, my father!" said Oswald, "if you had known
Corinne what would you have thought of her?"




Chapter ii.


The Count d'Erfeuil came in the morning, according to custom, to see
Lord Nelville, and reproaching him for not having been to see Corinne
the day before, said, "Had you come, you would have been very happy."
"Why so?" replied Oswald. "Because yesterday I discovered, to a
certainty, that you have greatly interested her." "Still this levity,"
interrupted Lord Nelville; "know that I neither can nor will endure it."
"Do you call levity," said the Count, "the promptitude of my
observation? Am I less in the right, because more quickly so? You were
made to live in the happy time of the Patriarchs, when the age of man
was five centuries; but mind, I give you notice that four of them at
least are lopped off in our days." "Be it so," answered Oswald, "and
what discovery have you made by these rapid observations?"--"That
Corinne loves you. Yesterday, when I arrived at her house, she received
me very kindly, to be sure; but her eyes were fixed on the door, to see
whether you followed me. She tried for a moment to talk of something
else; but as she is a lady of a very ingenuous and natural disposition,
she asked me, quite frankly, why you had not come with me? I blamed you
very much; I said that you were a very odd, gloomy sort of creature; but
you will excuse my relating all that I said over and above in your
praise."

"'He is very sad,' said Corinne; 'he must certainly have lost some one
very dear to him. Whom is he in mourning for?' 'His father, Madam,' said
I; 'though it is more than a year since he lost him; and as the law of
nature obliges us all to survive our parents, I imagine there is some
other secret cause for so long and deep a melancholy.' 'Oh!' replied
Corinne, 'I am very far from thinking that griefs, similar in
appearance, are felt alike by all men. I am very much tempted to believe
that the father of your friend, and your friend himself, are exceptions
from the general rule.' Her voice was very tender, my dear Oswald, when
she said these words." "Are these," replied Oswald, "your proofs of that
interest you spoke of?" "In truth," replied the Count d'Erfeuil, "these
are quite enough, according to my way of thinking, to convince a man
that he is beloved by a lady; but since you wish for better, you shall
have them; I have reserved the strongest for the last. Prince
Castel-Forte arrived, and related your adventure at Ancona, without
knowing that he was speaking of you: he related it with much fire and
imagination, as well as I could judge from the two lessons of Italian I
have taken; but there are so many French words in the foreign languages,
that we comprehend them, almost all, without even knowing them. Besides,
the countenance of Corinne would have explained to me what I did not
understand. One might read in it so visibly the agitation of her heart!
She did not breathe, for fear of losing a single word; and when she
asked if he knew the name of this generous and intrepid Englishman, such
was her anxiety, that it was easy to judge how much she dreaded to hear
pronounced any other name than yours.

"Prince Castel-Forte said he did not know the gentleman's name; and
Corinne, turning quickly towards me, cried, 'Is it not true, Sir, that
it was Lord Nelville?' 'Yes, Madam,' answered I, 'it was he, himself;'
and Corinne then melted in tears. She had not wept during the story;
what was there then more affecting in the name of the hero than in the
recital itself?" "She wept!" cried Nelville, "Ah!--why was I not there?"
Then, checking himself all of a sudden, he cast down his eyes, and his
manly countenance was expressive of the most delicate timidity: he
hastened to resume the conversation, for fear that the Count might
disturb his secret joy by observing it. "If the adventure of Ancona
deserves to be related," said Oswald, "'tis to you, also, my dear Count,
that the honour of it belongs." "It is true," answered d'Erfeuil,
laughing, "that they mentioned an amiable Frenchman, who was along with
you, my lord; but no one save myself paid attention to this parenthesis
in the narration. The lovely Corinne prefers you; she believes you,
without doubt, the more faithful of the two: perhaps she may be
mistaken; you may even cause her more grief than I should; but women are
fond of pain, provided it is a little romantic; so you will suit her."

Lord Nelville suffered from every word of the Count, but what could he
say to him? He never argued; he never listened attentively enough to
change his opinion; his words, once uttered, gave him no farther
concern, and the best way was to forget them, if possible, as soon as he
himself did.




Chapter iii.


Oswald arrived in the evening at Corinne's, with a sentiment entirely
new; he thought that he was expected. What enchantment there is in that
first gleam of intercourse with the object of our love!--before
remembrance enters into partnership with hope--before words have
expressed our sentiments,--before eloquence has painted what we feel,
there is in these first moments, something so indefinite, a mystery of
the imagination, more fleeting than happiness, it must be owned, but
also more celestial.

Oswald, on entering the apartment of Corinne, felt more timid than ever.
He saw that she was alone, and that circumstance almost gave him pain:
he could have wished to see her longer in the midst of society; he could
have wished to be convinced, in some manner, of her preference, instead
of finding himself all of a sudden engaged in a conversation which might
make Corinne cool towards him, if, as was certain, he should appear
embarrassed, and cold in consequence of that embarrassment.

Whether Corinne perceived this disposition of Oswald, or whether it was
that a similar disposition produced in her a desire to animate the
conversation in order to remove restraint, she asked his Lordship
whether he had seen any of the monuments of Rome. "No," answered Oswald.
"What did you do with yourself yesterday, then?" replied Corinne
smiling. "I passed the whole day at home," said Oswald. "Since I have
been at Rome, Madam, my time has been divided between solitude and you."
Corinne wished to introduce the subject of his behaviour at Ancona; she
began by these words: "Yesterday I learnt--" then she stopped and said,
"I will speak to you of that when the company comes." There was a
dignity in the manners of Lord Nelville that intimidated Corinne; and,
besides, she feared, lest in reminding him of his noble conduct, she
should betray too much emotion; conceiving that emotion would be less
when they were no longer alone. Oswald was deeply touched with the
reserve of Corinne, and the frankness with which she testified, without
thinking, the motives of that reserve; but the more he was affected the
less was he able to express what he felt.

He arose all of a sudden, and advanced towards the window; then he felt
that Corinne would be unable to explain the meaning of this movement,
and more disconcerted than ever, he returned to his place without saying
anything. There was in the conversation of Corinne more confidence than
in that of Oswald; nevertheless, she partook of the embarrassment which
he exhibited; and in her absence of mind, seeking to recover her
countenance, she placed her fingers upon the harp which was standing by
her side, and struck some chords, without connection or design. These
harmonious sounds, by increasing the emotion of Oswald, seemed to
inspire him with more boldness. He could now look at Corinne, and who
but must have been struck, in beholding her, with that divine
inspiration which was painted in her eyes! Encouraged at the same moment
by that mild expression which veiled the majesty of her looks, he would
then perhaps have spoken, but was prevented by the entrance of Prince
Castel-Forte.

It was not without pain that he beheld Nelville _tête-à-tête_ with
Corinne, but he was accustomed to dissimulate his feelings. This habit,
which is often found in the Italians united with great vehemence of
sensation, was in him rather the result of indolence and of natural
gentleness. He was content not to be the first object of Corinne's
affections; he was no longer young; he possessed great intelligence,
considerable taste for the arts, an imagination sufficiently animated to
diversify life without disturbing it, and such a desire to pass all his
evenings with Corinne, that if she were to be married he would conjure
her husband to let him come every day, to see her as usual, and upon
this condition he would not have been very unhappy at seeing her united
to another. The grief of the heart is not found in Italy complicated
with the sufferings of vanity, so that we find there, men either
passionate enough to stab their rival through jealousy, or men modest
enough to take willingly the second rank in the favour of a lady whose
conversation is agreeable to them; but rarely will be found any who for
fear of being thought despised, would refuse to preserve any sort of
connection which they found pleasing. The empire of society over
self-esteem is almost null in this country.

The Count d'Erfeuil and the company that met every evening at Corinne's
house being assembled, the conversation turned upon the talent for
improvisation which their heroine had so gloriously displayed at the
Capitol, and they went so far as to ask her own opinion of it. "It is
something so rare," said Prince Castel-Forte, "to find any one at once
susceptible of enthusiasm and of analysis, gifted as an artist and
capable of observing herself, that we must intreat her to reveal to us
the secrets of her genius." "The talent for improvisation," replied
Corinne, "is not more extraordinary in the languages of the south, than
the eloquence of the tribune, or the brilliant vivacity of conversation
in other tongues. I will even say that, unfortunately it is with us more
easy to make verses _impromptu_ than to speak well in prose. The
language of poetry is so different from that of prose, that from the
first verses the attention is commanded by the expressions themselves,
which, if I may so express it, place the poet at a distance from his
auditors. It is not only to the softness of the Italian language, but
much more to its strong and pronounced vibration of sonorous syllables,
that we must attribute the empire of poetry amongst us. There is a kind
of musical charm in Italian, by which the bare sound of words, almost
independently of the ideas, produces pleasure; besides, these words have
almost all something picturesque in them; they paint what they express.
You feel that it is in the midst of the arts, and under an auspicious
sky that this melodious, and highly-coloured language has been formed.
It is therefore more easy in Italy than any where else, to seduce with
words, without profundity of thought or novelty of imagery. Poetry, like
all the fine arts, captivates the senses, as much as the intellect. I
dare venture to say, however, that I have never improvised without
feeling myself animated by some real emotion, some idea which I believed
new, therefore I hope that I have trusted less than others to our
bewitching language. It is possible, if I may say so, to prelude at
random, and convey a lively pleasure by the charm of rhythm and of
harmony alone."

"You believe then," interrupted one of the friends of Corinne, "that the
talent for improvisation injures our literature; I thought so once
myself, but hearing you, madam, has made me entirely alter that
opinion." "I have said," replied Corinne, "that there resulted from this
facility, this literary abundance, a quantity of inferior poetry; but I
am as pleased with this fecundity, which exists in Italy, as I am with
seeing our fields covered with a thousand superfluous products. This
liberality of nature makes me proud. I am particularly pleased with the
improvisations of the lower classes of the people; it discovers their
imagination to us, which is concealed everywhere else, and is only
developed amongst us. They give a poetical character to the lowest
orders of society, and spare us the contempt which we cannot help
feeling for every thing that is vulgar. When our Sicilians, conveying
travellers in their vessels, so delicately and politely felicitate them
in their pleasing dialect, and wish them in verse a sweet and long
adieu, one would say the pure breeze of heaven and of the sea produces
the same effect upon the imagination of men as the wind on the Æolian
harp, and that poetry, like the chords of that instrument, is the echo
of nature. One thing makes me attach an additional value to our talent
for improvisation, and that is, that it would be almost impossible in a
society disposed to mockery. It requires the good humour of the south,
or rather of those countries where people love to amuse themselves
without taking pleasure in criticising that which affords them
amusement, to encourage poets to venture on so perilous an enterprise.
One jeering smile would be sufficient to destroy that presence of mind
necessary for a sudden and uninterrupted composition: your audience must
become animated with you, and inspire you with their applause."

"But madam," said Oswald at last, who till then had kept silence without
having for a moment ceased to behold Corinne, "to which of your poetical
talents do you yourself give the preference? To the work of inflection,
or of momentary inspiration?" "My lord," answered Corinne, with a look
that expressed the highest interest and the most delicate sentiment of
respectful consideration, "it is you that I would wish to make the judge
of that; but if you ask me to examine my own thoughts upon this subject,
I would say that improvisation is to me as an animated conversation. I
do not confine myself to any particular subject, I yield entirely to the
impression produced on me by the attention of my hearers, and it is to
my friends, in this instance, that I owe the greatest part of my talent.
Sometimes the impassioned interest with which I am inspired by a
conversation in which we have spoken of some great and noble question
that relates to the moral existence of man, his destiny, his end, his
duties and his affections; sometimes this interest elevates me above my
strength, makes me discover in nature, in my own heart, bold truths,
expressions full of life, that solitary reflection would not have given
birth to. I then believe myself acted upon by a supernatural enthusiasm,
and feel that what is speaking within me is greater than myself. Often I
quit the rhythm of poetry to express my thoughts in prose; sometimes I
quote the finest verses of the different languages I am acquainted with.
These divine verses, with which my soul is penetrated, have become my
own. Sometimes also I finish upon my lyre by chords, by simple and
national airs, the sentiments and thoughts which have escaped me in
speaking. In a word, I feel myself a poet, not only when a happy choice
of rhymes and harmonious syllables, or a happy combination of images
dazzles my auditors, but when my soul is elevated to the highest degree
and looks down with contempt upon every thing that is selfish and base:
in short, when a noble action appears most easy to me, it is then that
my poetry is in its greatest perfection. I am a poet when I admire, when
I despise, when I hate, not from personal feeling, not on my own
account, but for the dignity of human nature and the glory of the
world."

Corinne then perceiving how the conversation had carried her away,
blushed a little, and turning towards Lord Nelville said to him, "you
see, my lord, I cannot touch upon any of those subjects that affect me
without experiencing that sort of shock which is the source of ideal
beauty in the arts, of religion in solitary minds, of generosity in
heroes, and of disinterestedness among men. Pardon me, my lord, although
such a woman resemble but little those whom your nation approves." "Who
could resemble you?" replied Lord Nelville; "can we make laws for one
who is without her like?"

The Count d'Erfeuil was absolutely enchanted, notwithstanding he had not
understood all that Corinne had said; but her gestures, the sound of her
voice, and her pronunciation, charmed him.--It was the first time that
any grace which was not French had produced an effect upon him. But
indeed the great celebrity of Corinne at Rome put him a little in the
way of what he should think of her, and in his admiration of this
extraordinary lady he did not drop the good custom of letting himself be
guided by the opinion of others.

He quitted Corinne's house along with Lord Nelville, and said to him on
their way home, "allow, my dear Oswald, that I may lay claim to some
merit for not having paid my court to so charming a lady." "But,"
observed Nelville, "it seems, according to general opinion, that she is
not easy to please in that respect." "It is said so," replied the Count,
"but I can hardly believe it. A single woman of independent means who
leads nearly the life of an artist ought not to be so difficult to
captivate." Lord Nelville was wounded by this reflection. The Count,
whether he did not perceive it, or whether he wished to pursue the train
of his own ideas, continued thus:

"I do not mean to say, however, that if I entertained much faith in a
lady's virtue, I might not as readily believe in that of Corinne as in
that of any other. She has certainly a thousand times more expression in
her look, and vivacity in her arguments than would be necessary in your
country, or even in ours, to excite suspicion of the rigidness of a
lady's virtue; but she is a person of so superior a mind, such profound
knowledge, and such fine tact, that the ordinary rules by which we judge
a woman cannot apply to her. In fact, would you believe it,
notwithstanding the openness of her disposition, and the freedom of her
conversation, she really imposes reserve upon me. It was my wish,
yesterday, with all due respect to her predilection for you, to say a
few words, at random, upon my own account: they were words that take
their chance; if they are heard, well and good; if not, well and good
still; and do you know Corinne gave me such cold looks that I was quite
disconcerted. It is, however, singular that one should feel any timidity
in the company of an Italian, a poet, an artist, every thing, in short,
that ought to produce quite a contrary effect." "Her name is unknown,"
observed Nelville, "but her manners would make one believe that her
birth is illustrious." "Ah! it is in romances," said the Count, "that we
see the finest part of a character concealed, but in real life people
are more disposed to exhibit all that is most honourable in their life,
and even a little more than all." "Yes," interrupted Oswald, "in some
societies where people think of nothing but the effect they can produce
upon one another; but in one whose existence is internal there may be
mysteries in circumstances, as there are secrets in thought, and he only
who would espouse Corinne might be able to know them." "Espouse
Corinne!" interrupted the Count, bursting out laughing, "truly that idea
never occurred to me! Take my advice, my dear Nelville, if you wish to
do foolish things let them be such as will admit of reparation; but as
for marriage, you must always consider propriety. I appear frivolous in
your eyes, nevertheless I wager that in the conduct of life I shall be
more reasonable than you." "I believe so too," answered Lord Nelville,
and said not another word.

In effect, he might have told the Count d'Erfeuil that there is often a
great deal of egotism in frivolity, and that such egotism can never
betray people into those errors of sentiment in which we always
sacrifice our own personal considerations to those of others! Frivolous
characters are very likely to acquire address in the pursuit of their
own interests; for in all that is called the political science of
private, as well as of public life, people succeed oftener by those
qualities which they have not than by those which they possess. Absence
of enthusiasm, absence of opinion, absence of sensibility, a little
understanding, combined with this negative treasure, and social life,
that is to say, fortune and rank, may be acquired or supported well
enough. The pleasantries of the Count however pained Lord Nelville; he
blamed them, but nevertheless they continually occupied his thoughts.




Book iv.

ROME.

[Illustration]




Chapter i.


A fortnight passed away, during which Lord Nelville dedicated himself
entirely to the society of Corinne. He quitted his lodgings but to go
and visit her--he saw nothing--he sought nothing but her; and, without
ever mentioning his passion, he made her sensible of it at every moment
of the day. She was accustomed to the lively and flattering homage of
the Italians; but Oswald's dignity of manners, his apparent coldness,
and the sensibility which he betrayed in spite of himself, produced a
more powerful effect upon her imagination.--Never did he relate a
generous action, never did he speak of a misfortune, without his eyes
being filled with tears; but he always endeavoured to conceal his
emotion. He inspired Corinne with a sentiment of respect such as she had
not felt for a long time before. No wit, however sparkling, could dazzle
her; but she was deeply interested by elevation and dignity of
character. Lord Nelville joined to these qualities, a nobleness in his
expressions, an elegance in the least actions of his life, which formed
a striking contrast to the negligence and familiarity of the greater
part of the Roman nobility.

Though the tastes of Oswald were in some respects different from those
of Corinne, they mutually understood each other in a most wonderful
manner. Nelville conjectured the impressions of Corinne with perfect
sagacity, and Corinne discovered, in the slightest alteration of
Nelville's countenance, what passed in his mind. Accustomed to the
stormy demonstrations of passion that characterise the Italians, this
timid but proud attachment, this passion, incessantly proved, but never
avowed, spread a new charm over her existence: she felt as if encircled
with a calmer and purer atmosphere, and every instant of the day
inspired her with a sentiment of happiness which she loved to enjoy
without accounting for it.

One morning Prince Castel-Forte visited her--he appeared sorrowful--she
asked him the cause of his sorrow. "This Scotsman," said he to her, "is
about to deprive us of your affections; and who knows even, whether he
will not rob us of you entirely?" Corinne was silent for some moments,
and then answered, "I assure you he has not even once told me that he
loved me." "You are, notwithstanding, convinced of it," answered Prince
Castel-Forte; "his conduct is sufficiently eloquent, and even his
silence is a powerful means of interesting you.--What can language
express that you have not heard? What kind of praise is there that has
not been offered you? What species of homage is there that you are not
accustomed to receive? But there is something concealed in the character
of Lord Nelville which will never allow you to know him entirely as you
know us. There is no person in the world whose character is more easy
than yours to become acquainted with; but it is precisely because you
shew yourself without disguise that mystery and reserve have a pleasing
ascendancy over you. That which is unknown, be it what it may,
influences you more strongly than all the sentiments which are
manifested to you." Corinne smiled; "You believe then, my dear Prince,"
said she, "that my heart is ungrateful, and my imagination capricious.
Methinks however that Lord Nelville possesses and displays qualities
sufficiently remarkable to render it impossible that I can flatter
myself with having discovered them." "He is, I agree," answered Prince
Castel-Forte, "proud, generous and intelligent; with much sensibility
too, and particularly melancholy; but I am very much deceived, or there
is not the least sympathy of taste between you. You do not perceive it
while he is under the charm of your presence, but your empire over him
would not hold if he were absent from you. Obstacles would fatigue him;
his soul has contracted by the grief which he has experienced, a kind of
discouragement, which must destroy the energy of his resolutions; and
you know, besides, how much the English in general are enslaved to the
manners and habits of their country."

At these words Corinne was silent and sighed. Painful reflections on the
first events of her life were retraced in her mind; but in the evening
she saw Oswald again, more her slave than ever; and all that remained in
her mind of the conversation of Prince Castel-Forte was the desire of
fixing Lord Nelville in Italy by making him enamoured of the beauties of
every kind with which that country abounds. It was with this intention
that she wrote to him the following letter. The freedom of the life
which is led in Rome excused this proceeding, and Corinne in particular,
though she might be reproached with too much openness and enthusiasm,
knew how to preserve dignity with independence, and modesty with
vivacity.

                   _Corinne to Lord Nelville_.
                                                     _Dec. 15th, 1794._

"I do not know, my lord, whether you will think me too confident in
myself, or whether you will do justice to the motives which may excuse
that confidence. Yesterday I heard you say that you had not yet seen
Rome, that you were neither acquainted with the masterpieces of our fine
arts, nor those ancient ruins which teach us history by imagination and
sentiment, and I have conceived the idea of presuming to offer myself as
your guide in this journey through a course of centuries.

"Without doubt, Rome could easily present a great number of scholars
whose profound erudition might be much more useful to you, but if I can
succeed in inspiring you with a love for this retreat, towards which I
have always felt myself so imperiously attracted, your own studies will
finish the rude draft which I shall have begun.

"Many foreigners come to Rome as they would go to London or to Paris, to
seek the dissipation of a great city; and if they dared confess they
were bored at Rome, I believe the greater part would confess it; but it
is equally true that here may be found a charm that never tires. Will
you pardon me, my lord, a wish that this charm were known to you.

"It is true that here you must forget all the political interests in the
world, but when these interests are not united to sacred sentiments and
duties they chill the heart. Here too you must renounce what would be
called the pleasures of society, but these pleasures almost invariably
wither up the imagination. In Rome you may enjoy an existence at once
solitary and animated, which freely develops all that Heaven has
implanted in us. I repeat it, my lord; pardon this love of my country,
which begets a desire to make it beloved by such a man as you; and do
not judge, with the severity of an Englishman, those testimonies of
good-will which an Italian hopes she may give you without sinking either
in her own estimation or in yours.

                                                              CORRINE."


In vain would Oswald have endeavoured to conceal the exquisite pleasure
he received from this letter; he caught a glimpse of a confused future
of enjoyment and happiness: imagination, love, enthusiasm, all that is
divine in the soul of man, appeared to him united with the project of
seeing Rome with Corinne. For, this time he did not reflect; this time
he set out the very instant to visit Corinne, and by the way he
contemplated the sky, he enjoyed the charm of the weather, life sat
lightly on him. His griefs and his fears were lost in the clouds of
hope; his heart, so long oppressed by sadness, palpitated and leaped
with joy; he feared, it is true, that so happy a disposition of mind
might not last; but the very idea that it was fleeting gave to this
fever of enjoyment more force and activity.

"What, are you come already?" said Corinne, seeing Lord Nelville enter;
"Ah, thanks!" and she stretched forth her hand. Oswald seized it, and
imprinted his lips on it with the warmest tenderness; nor did he suffer
now that timidity which often mingled itself with his most agreeable
impressions, and caused him sometimes to endure, in the company of those
he loved best, the most bitter and painful feelings. The intimacy had
commenced between Oswald and Corinne since they had parted; it was the
letter of Corinne which had established it: they were satisfied with
each other, and mutually felt the most tender gratitude.

"This morning then," said Corinne, "I will shew you the Pantheon and St
Peter's: I had, indeed, some hope," added she smiling, "that you would
accept my offer to make the tour of Rome with you, so my horses are
ready. I have expected you; you have arrived; 'tis very well, let us set
out." "Astonishing woman!" said Oswald; "Who then, art thou? Whence hast
thou derived so many opposite charms, which it would seem ought to
exclude each other;--sensibility, gaiety, profound reflection, external
grace, freedom, and modesty? Art thou an illusion? art thou some
supernatural blessing, destined to make happy the life of him who is
fortunate enough to meet with thee?" "Ah!" replied Corinne, "if I have
it in my power to do you any service you must not think I will ever give
up the merit of it." "Take care," said Oswald, seizing Corinne's hand
with emotion; "take care what service it is you are about to render me.
For these two years the iron hand of affliction has closed up my heart;
if your sweet presence has afforded me relief; if, while with you, I
breathe again, what will become of me when once more abandoned to my
destiny?--What will become of me?" "Let us leave to time and to chance,"
interrupted Corinne, "to decide whether this impression of a day, which
I have produced upon you, will be longer than a day in its duration. If
there be a mutual sympathy between our souls, our mutual affection will
not be transient. Be that as it may, let us go and admire together all
that can elevate our mind and our sentiments; we shall thus taste some
moments of happiness."

In finishing these words Corinne went down stairs, and Nelville followed
her, astonished at her answer. It seemed to him that she admitted the
possibility of a half sentiment,--a momentary attraction. In short, he
thought he perceived something like levity in the manner in which she
had expressed herself, and he was hurt at it.

He placed himself, without saying a word, in Corinne's carriage; who,
guessing his thoughts, said to him, "I do not believe that the heart of
man is so formed that he must always feel either no love at all or the
most invincible passion. There are beginnings of sentiment which a more
profound examination may dissipate. We flatter and then undeceive
ourselves, and even the enthusiasm of which we are susceptible, if it
renders the enchantment more rapid, may also cause coldness to succeed
the more quickly." "You have, then, reflected deeply on the tender
passion," said Oswald with bitterness. Corinne blushed at this word, and
was silent for some moments; then resuming the conversation, with a
striking mixture of frankness and dignity, "I do not believe," said she,
"that a woman of sensibility has ever arrived at the age of twenty-six
years, without having known the illusion of love; but if never having
been happy, if never having met the object who could merit all the
affections of my heart, be any claim to interest in the bosom of man, I
have a claim to yours." These words, and the accent with which Corinne
pronounced them, dissipated a little, the cloud which had spread over
the soul of Lord Nelville; nevertheless he said to himself: "She is the
most fascinating of women, but an Italian; and hers is not that timid,
innocent heart, to herself unknown, which the young English lady that my
father destined for me must possess."

The name of this young English lady was Lucilia Edgermond, daughter to
the best friend of Lord Nelville's father; but she was too young when
Oswald quitted England for him to marry her, or even foresee, with
certainty, what she would one day become.




Chapter ii.


Oswald and Corinne went first to the Pantheon, which is now called _St
Mary of the Rotunda_. In every part of Italy Catholicism has inherited
something of Paganism, but the Pantheon is the only ancient Temple of
Rome which is preserved entire, the only one where may be remarked in
its _ensemble_ the beauty of the architecture of the ancients, and the
particular character of their worship. Oswald and Corinne stopped in the
square of the Pantheon to admire the portico of this Temple and the
pillars that support it.

Corinne made Nelville observe that the Pantheon was constructed in such
a manner as to appear greater than it was. "The church of St Peter,"
said she, "will produce quite a different effect upon you; you will
believe it at first less stupendous than it is in reality. This
illusion, so favourable to the Pantheon, comes, as I am assured, from
there being more space between the pillars, and the air playing freely
around it; but principally from your not perceiving any of that detailed
ornament with which St Peter's is overladen. It is thus that the ancient
poets only designed large masses, and left the imagination of the hearer
to fill up the intervals, and supply the developments; but we moderns in
all things say too much."

"This Temple," continued Corinne, "was consecrated by Agrippa, the
favourite of Augustus, to his friend, or rather to his master. However,
the master had the modesty to refuse the dedication of the Temple, and
Agrippa was obliged to dedicate it to all the gods in Olympus, in order
to take the place of Power, the god of the earth. There was a car of
bronze on the top of the Pantheon, on which were placed the statues of
Augustus and of Agrippa. On each side of the portico these same statues
were placed in another form, and on the pediment of the Temple is still
to be read: '_Consecrated by Agrippa_.' Augustus gave his name to the
age in which he lived because he made that age an epoch of the human
mind. The masterpieces of every kind produced by his contemporaries form
the rays of glory that encircle his head. He knew how to honour the men
of genius who cultivated letters, and he has found his recompense in
posterity."

"Let us enter the temple," said Corinne. "You see it remains uncovered,
almost the same as it was formerly. They say that this light, proceeding
from the top, was the emblem of that God who was superior to all the
other deities. The Pagans have always been fond of symbolic images. It
seems, in effect, that this language is more fitting than speech to
religion. The rain often falls upon this marble court, but the rays of
the sun also enter to enlighten devotion. What serenity! What an air of
festivity is remarkable in this edifice! The Pagans have deified life,
and the Christians have deified death. Such is the spirit of the two
worships, but the Roman Catholic religion here, however, is less sombre
than in the northern countries. You will observe it when we visit St
Peter's. Inside the sanctuary of the Pantheon are the busts of our most
celebrated artists, they adorn the niches where were placed the gods of
the ancients.--As, since the destruction of the empire of the Cæsars, we
have hardly ever had political independence in Italy, you do not find
here either statesmen or great commanders. It is the genius of
imagination which constitutes our own glory; but do you not think, my
lord, that a people who honour talents in this manner ought to merit a
nobler fate?" "I am very severe towards nations," answered Oswald; "I
always believe that they deserve their fate let it be what it may."
"That is hard," replied Corinne; "perhaps after a longer residence in
Italy you will experience a sentiment of compassion towards this unhappy
country, which nature seems to have decorated as a victim; but, at
least, you will remember that the dearest hope of us artists, of us
lovers of glory, is to obtain a place here. I have already fixed upon
mine," said she pointing to a niche still vacant. "Oswald! who knows
whether you will not come again to this same enclosure when my bust
shall be placed there? Then--"

Oswald interrupted her quickly and said, "In the shining splendour of
youth and beauty can you talk thus to one whom misfortune and suffering
have already bent towards the grave?" "Ah!" replied Corinne, "the storm
may in a moment snap asunder those flowers that now have their heads
upreared in life and bloom. Oswald, dear Oswald!" added she; "why should
you not be happy? Why--" "Never interrogate me," replied Lord Nelville,
"you have your secrets--I have mine, let us mutually respect each
other's silence. No--you know not what emotion I should feel were I
obliged to relate my misfortunes." Corinne was silent, and her steps in
leaving the temple were slower, and her looks more thoughtful.

She stopped beneath the portico:--"There," said she to Lord Nelville,
"was a most beautiful urn of porphyry, now transferred to St John of
Lateran; it contained the ashes of Agrippa, which were placed at the
foot of the statue that he had raised to himself. The ancients took so
much care to soften the idea of dissolution that they knew how to strip
it of every thing that was doleful and repulsive. There was, besides, so
much magnificence in their tombs that the contrast was less felt between
the blank of death and the splendours of life. It is true that the hope
of another world being less vivid among the Pagans than amongst
Christians, they endeavoured to dispute with death the future
remembrance which we place, without fear, in the bosom of the Eternal."

Oswald sighed and was silent. Melancholy ideas have many charms when we
have not been ourselves deeply wretched, but when grief in all its
asperity has seized upon the soul, we no longer hear without shuddering
certain words which formerly only excited in us reveries more or less
pleasing.




Chapter iii.


On the way to St Peter's the bridge of St Angelo is passed, and Corinne
and Lord Nelville crossed it on foot. "It was on this bridge," said
Oswald, "that, in returning from the Capitol, I for the first time
thought deeply of you." "I did not flatter myself," replied Corinne,
"that the coronation at the Capitol would have procured me a friend, but
however, in the pursuit of fame it was always my endeavour to make
myself beloved.--What would fame be to woman without such a hope?" "Let
us stop here a few minutes," said Oswald. "What remembrance of past ages
can produce such welcome recollections as this spot, which brings to
mind the day when first I saw you." "I know not whether I deceive
myself," replied Corinne; "but it seems to me that we become more dear
to one another in admiring together those monuments which speak to the
soul by true grandeur. The edifices of Rome are neither cold nor dumb,
they have been conceived by genius, and consecrated by memorable events.
Perhaps, Oswald, it is even necessary that we should be enamoured of
such a character as yours, in order to derive such pleasure from feeling
with you all that is noble and fine in the universe." "Yes," replied
Lord Nelville; "but in beholding you, and listening to your
observations, I feel no want of other wonders." Corinne thanked him in a
bewitching smile.

On their way to St Peter's they stopped before the castle of St Angelo.
"There," said Corinne, "is one of those edifices whose exterior is most
original; this is the tomb of Adrian, which, changed into a fortress by
the Goths, bears the double character of its first and second
destination. Built for the dead, an impenetrable enclosure surrounds it;
and, nevertheless, the living have added something hostile to it by the
external fortifications, which form a contrast with the silence and
noble inutility of a funereal monument. On the top is seen an angel of
bronze with a naked sword[7], and in the interior the most cruel prisons
are contrived. Every event of Roman history, from Adrian to our time, is
connected with this monument. It was here that Belisarius defended
himself against the Goths, and, almost as barbarous as they who attacked
him, threw at his enemy the beautiful statues that adorned the interior
of the edifice[8]. Crescentius, Arnault de Brescia, Nicolas Rienzi,
those friends of Roman liberty who so often mistook memories for hopes,
defended themselves for a long time in this imperial tomb. I love these
stones which are connected with so many illustrious facts. I love this
luxury of the master of the world--a magnificent tomb. There is
something great in the man who, possessing every enjoyment, every
terrestrial pomp, is not dismayed from making preparations for his death
a long time before hand. Moral ideas and disinterested sentiments fill
the soul when it in a manner breaks through the boundaries of mortality.

"It is from here that we ought to perceive St Peter's. The pillars
before it were to extend as far as here:--such was the superb plan of
Michael Angelo; he expected, at least, that it would be so finished
after his death; but the men of our days no longer think of posterity.
When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule every thing except
money and power is destroyed." "It is you who will revive that
sentiment," cried Lord Nelville. "Who ever experienced the happiness I
enjoy? Rome shewn by you, Rome interpreted by imagination and genius,
_Rome, that is a world animated by sentiment, without which the world
itself is a desert_[9]. Ah, Corinne! what will succeed to these days,
more happy than my heart and my fate permit!" Corinne answered him with
sweetness: "All sincere affections proceed from heaven, Oswald! Why
should it not protect what it inspires? To that Power belongs our fate."

At that moment St Peter's appeared to them, the greatest building that
man has ever raised; for the pyramids of Egypt themselves are inferior
to it in height. "Perhaps," said Corinne, "I ought to have shewn you the
finest of our buildings last, but that is not my system. It is my
opinion that to beget a sensibility for the fine arts, we must begin by
beholding objects that inspire a deep and lively admiration. This
sentiment once felt, reveals, if I may so express myself, a new sphere
of ideas, and renders us afterwards more capable of loving, and of
judging, what even in an inferior order recalls the first impression we
have received. All those gradations, those prudent methods, one tint
after another, to prepare for great effects, are not to my taste; we
cannot arrive at the sublime by degrees; infinite distances separate it
even from that which is only beautiful." Oswald felt an altogether
extraordinary emotion on arriving opposite St Peter's. It was the first
time that the work of man had produced upon him the same effect as one
of the wonders of nature. This is the only work of art, now on our
earth, possessing that kind of grandeur which characterises the
immediate works of the creation. Corinne enjoyed the astonishment of
Oswald. "I have chosen," said she, "a day when the sun is in all its
lustre, to shew you this edifice. I have in reserve for you a still more
exquisite, more religious pleasure, when you shall contemplate it by
moonlight: but you must first witness the most brilliant intellectual
feast--the genius of man adorned with the magnificence of nature."

The square of St Peter is surrounded by pillars--those at a distance of
a light, and those near of a massive structure. The ground, which is
upon a gentle ascent up to the portico of the church, still adds to the
effect which it produces. An obelisk, 80 feet high, stands in the middle
of the square, but its height appears as nothing in presence of the
cupola of St Peter's. The form of an obelisk alone has something in it
that pleases the imagination; its summit is lost in the air, and seems
to lift the mind of man to heaven. This monument, which was constructed
in Egypt to adorn the baths of Caligula, and which Sixtus Quintus caused
to be transported to the foot of the temple of St Peter, this
cotemporary of so many centuries, which have spent their fury upon it in
vain, inspires us with a sentiment of respect; man, sensible of his own
fleeting existence, cannot contemplate without emotion that which
appears to be immutable. At some distance on each side of the obelisk
are two fountains, whose waters form a perpetual and abundant cascade.
This murmuring of waters, which we are accustomed to hear in the open
country, produces, in this enclosure, an entirely new sensation; but
this sensation is quite in harmony with that to which the aspect of a
majestic temple gives birth.

Painting and sculpture, imitating generally the human figure or some
object existing in nature, awaken in our soul perfectly clear and
positive ideas; but a beautiful architectural monument has not any
determinate meaning, if it may be so expressed, so that we are seized,
in contemplating it, with that kind of aimless reverie, which leads us
into a boundless ocean of thought. The sound of fountains harmonises
with all these vague and deep impressions; it is uniform as the edifice
is regular.

     "Eternal motion, and eternal rest,"

are thus blended with each other. It is particularly in a spot like this
that Time seems stript of his power, for he appears no more able to dry
up the fountains than to shake these immovable stones. The waters, which
spout in sheaves from these fountains, are so light and cloudlike that
on a fine day the rays of the sun produce on them little rainbows,
formed of the most beautiful colours.

"Stop here a moment," said Corinne to Lord Nelville, when they had
already reached the portico of the church; "stop a little before you
lift up the curtain which covers the door of the temple. Does not your
heart beat as you approach this sanctuary? And do not you feel at the
moment of entrance all that excites expectation of a solemn event?"
Corinne herself lifted up the curtain and held it to let Nelville pass;
she displayed so much grace in this attitude that the first look of
Oswald was to admire her as she stood, and for some moments she
engrossed his whole observation. However, he proceeded into the temple,
and the impression which he received beneath these immense arches was so
deep, and so solemn, that love itself was no longer able to fill his
soul entirely. He walked slowly by the side of Corinne, both preserving
silence. Indeed here every thing seemed to command silence; the least
noise re-echoes to such a distance that no language seems worthy of
being repeated in an abode which may almost be called eternal! Prayer
alone, the voice of calamity, produces a powerful emotion in these vast
regions; and when beneath these immense domes you hear some old man
dragging his feeble steps along the polished marble, watered with so
many tears, you feel that man is imposing even by the infirmity of his
nature which subjects his divine soul to so many sufferings; and that
Christianity, the worship of suffering, contains the true guide for the
conduct of man upon earth.

Corinne interrupted the reverie of Oswald, and said to him, "You have
seen Gothic churches in England and in Germany; you must have remarked
that they have a much more gloomy effect than this church. There was
something mysterious in the Catholicism of the northern nations; ours
speaks to the imagination by external objects. Michael Angelo said on
beholding the cupola of the Pantheon, 'I will place it in the air;' and,
in effect, St Peter's is a temple built upon a church. There is some
connection between the ancient religions and Christianity, in the effect
which the interior of this edifice produces upon the imagination. I
often come and walk here to restore to my soul that serenity which it
sometimes loses: the sight of such a monument is like continual and
sustained music, which waits to do you good when you approach; and
certainly we must reckon among the claims of our nation to glory, the
patience, the courage and the disinterestedness of the heads of the
church, who have devoted one hundred and fifty years, so much money, and
so much labour, to the completion of an edifice which they who built it
could not expect to enjoy[10]. It is even a service rendered to the
public morals to present a nation with a monument which is the emblem of
so many noble and generous ideas." "Yes," answered Oswald; "here the
arts possess grandeur, and imagination and invention are full of genius;
but how is the dignity of man himself protected here! What
institutions! what feebleness in the greater part of the governments of
Italy! and, nevertheless, what subjugation in the mind!" "Other
nations," interrupted Corinne, "have borne the yoke the same as we, and
have lacked the imagination to dream of another fate.

     'Servi siam sì, ma servi ognor frementi.'

     '_Yes! we are slaves, but slaves ever quivering with hope,_'

says Alfieri, the most bold of our modern writers. There is so much soul
in our fine arts that perhaps one day our character will be equal to our
genius.

"Behold," continued Corinne, "those statues placed on the tombs, those
pictures in mosaic--patient and faithful copies of the masterpieces of
our great artists. I never examine St Peter's in detail, because I do
not wish to discover those multiplied beauties which disturb in some
degree the impression of the whole. But what a monument is that, where
the masterpieces of the human mind appear superfluous ornaments! This
temple is like a world by itself; it affords an asylum against heat and
cold; it has its own peculiar season--a perpetual spring, which the
external atmosphere can never change. A subterraneous church is built
beneath this temple;--the popes, and several foreign potentates, are
buried there: Christina after her abdication--the Stuarts since the
overthrow of their dynasty. Rome has long afforded an asylum to exiles
from every part of the world. Is not Rome herself dethroned? Her aspect
affords consolation to kings, fallen like herself.

     'Cadono le citta, cadono i regni,
     E l'uom, d'esser mortal, par che si sdegni.'

     '_Cities fall. Empires disappear,
     and yet man is angry at being mortal!_'

"Place yourself here," said Corinne to Lord Nelville, "near the altar
in the middle of the cupola; you will perceive through the iron grating,
the church of the dead, which is beneath our feet, and lifting up your
eyes, their ken will hardly reach the summit of the vault. This dome,
viewing it even from below, inspires us with a sentiment of terror; we
imagine that we see an abyss suspended over our head. All that is beyond
a certain proportion causes man, limited creature as he is, an
invincible dread. That which we know is as inexplicable as that which is
unknown, but then we are accustomed to our habitual darkness, whilst new
mysteries terrify us and disturb our faculties.

"All this church is ornamented with antique marble, and its stones know
more than we concerning the ages that are past. There is the statue of
Jupiter, which has been converted into St Peter, by adding the nimbus to
the head. The general expression of this temple perfectly characterises
the mixture of gloomy tenets with brilliant ceremonies; a depth of
sadness in ideas, but the softness and vivacity of the south in external
application; severe intentions, but mild interpretations; the Christian
theology, and the images of Paganism; in a word, the most admirable
union of splendour and majesty that man can infuse into his worship of
the deity.

"The tombs, decorated by the wonders of the fine arts, do not present
death under a formidable aspect. It is not altogether like the ancients,
who engraved dances and games upon their sarcophagi; but the mind is
abstracted from the contemplation of a coffin by the masterpieces of
genius. They recall immortality, even upon the altar of death; and the
imagination animated by the admiration which they inspire, does not
feel, as in the north, silence and cold, the immutable guardians of
sepulchres." "Without doubt," said Oswald, "we wish death to be
surrounded by sadness; and even before we were enlightened by
Christianity our ancient mythology, our Ossian, made lamentations and
dirges concomitants of the tomb. Here one wishes to forget and to enjoy.
I know not whether I should be desirous of such a benefit from your fine
sky." "Do not believe, however," replied Corinne, "that our character is
light, or our mind frivolous; it is only vanity that causes frivolity.
Indolence may introduce some intervals of sleep, or of forgetfulness
into our lives, but it neither wears out nor dries up the heart; and
unfortunately for us we may be aroused from this state by passions more
deep, and more terrible than those of souls habitually active."

In finishing these words, Corinne and Lord Nelville approached the door
of the church. "Another glance towards this immense sanctuary," said she
to Nelville: "See how little man appears in presence of religion, even
when we are reduced to consider only its material emblem! See what
immobility, what eternity, mortals can give to their works, whilst they
themselves pass away so rapidly, and only survive themselves by their
genius! This temple is an image of the infinite, and there is no limit
to the sentiments to which it gives birth--to the ideas which it
revives--to the immense quantity of years which it recalls to our
reflection, either of past or future ages; and on quitting its walls we
seem to pass from celestial thoughts to worldly interests, from the
eternity of religion to the atmosphere of time."

When they were outside the church Corinne pointed out to Nelville Ovid's
Metamorphoses, which were represented on the gates in basso-relievo. "We
are not scandalised in Rome," said she to him, "with the images of
Paganism when they have been consecrated by the fine arts. The wonders
of genius always make a religious impression on the soul, and we make an
offering to the Christian religion of all the masterpieces which other
modes of worship have inspired." Oswald smiled at this explanation.
"Believe me, my lord," continued Corinne, "there is much sincerity in
the sentiments of nations who possess a very lively imagination. But
to-morrow if you choose I will conduct you to the Capitol. I have, I
hope, many other walks to propose to you. When they are finished will
you go? Will you--" She stopped, fearing she had said too much. "No
Corinne," replied Oswald; "no, I will never renounce that gleam of
happiness which my guardian angel, perhaps, causes to shine upon me from
the height of heaven."

FOOTNOTES:

[7] A Frenchman in the late war, commanded the Castle of St Angelo; the
Neapolitan troops summoned him to capitulate; he answered that the
fortress should be surrendered when the Angel of Bronze should sheathe
his sword.

[8] These facts are to be found in the _History of the Italian Republics
of the Middle Ages_, by M. Simonde, of Geneva. This history will
certainly be considered as an authority; for we perceive, in reading it,
that its author is a man of profound sagacity, as conscientious as he is
energetic in his manner of relating and describing.

[9]
     "Eine Welt zwar bist du o Rom; doch ohne die Liebe,
     Wäre die Welt nicht die Welt, wäre denn Rom auch nicht Rom."

These two verses are from Goëthe, the German poet, the philosopher, the
man of letters, whose originality and imagination are most remarkable.

[10] The Church of St Peter is said to be one of the chief causes of the
Reformation, inasmuch as it cost the Popes so much money that they had
recourse to the multiplication of indulgences in order to build it.




Chapter iv.


The next day Oswald and Corinne set out with more confidence and
serenity. They were friends travelling together;--they began to say
_we_. Ah! how touching is that _we_ when pronounced by love! How
timidly, yet how vividly expressed, is the declaration which it
contains! "We will go to the Capitol then," said Corinne. "Yes, we will
go there," replied Oswald. Simplicity was in his words--softness and
tenderness in his accent. "From the height of the Capitol, such as it is
now," said Corinne, "we can easily perceive the seven hills; we will
survey them all, one after another; there is not one of them which does
not preserve in it some traces of history."

Corinne and Lord Nelville took what was formerly called the _Via Sacra_
or Triumphal Way. "'Tis this way that your car passed," said Oswald to
Corinne. "Yes," answered she; "this ancient dust might be astonished at
bearing such a car; but since the Roman republic, so many criminal
traces have been imprinted on it that the sentiment of respect which it
inspires is much weakened." They then arrived at the foot of the steps
of the present Capitol. The entrance to the ancient Capitol was through
the Forum. "I could wish," said Corinne, "that these steps were the same
that Scipio mounted, when, repelling calumny by glory, he entered the
temple to return thanks to the gods for the victories which he had
gained. But these new steps, this new Capitol, has been built upon the
ruins of the old, in order to receive the peaceable magistrate who bears
in himself alone the immense title of Roman Senator, formerly an object
of respect to the whole universe. Here we have no longer any thing but
names; yet their harmony, their ancient dignity, inspire us with a
pleasing sensation, mingled with regret. I asked a poor woman, whom I
met the other day, where she lived? '_At the Tarpeian Rock_,' answered
she. This word, however stripped of the ideas which formerly attached to
it, still vibrates upon the imagination."

Oswald and Corinne stopped to contemplate the two lions of basalt at the
foot of the steps[11]. They came from Egypt. The Egyptian sculptors were
more happy in seizing the figure of animals than that of man. These
lions of the Capitol are nobly peaceful, and their physiognomy is the
true image of tranquillity in strength.

     "A guisa di leon, quando si posa."
                                    DANTE.

     "_In the manner of the lion, when he reposes._"

Not far from these lions is a statue of Rome, mutilated, which the
modern Romans have placed there, without thinking that they were thus
giving the most perfect emblem of their city as it now is. This statue
has neither head nor feet, but the body and the drapery which still
remain have something of their ancient beauty. At the top of the steps
are two colossal figures which represent as it is believed Castor and
Pollux; then the trophies of Marius; then two milliary columns which
served for the admeasurement of the Roman universe; and the equestrian
statue of Marcus Aurelius, noble and calm in the midst of these several
recollections. Thus, the whole Roman history is here emblematically
represented: The heroic age by the Dioscuri; the republic by the lions;
the civil wars by Marius; and the golden age of the emperors by Marcus
Aurelius.

Advancing towards the modern Capitol, we see to the right and to the
left two churches, built on the ruins of the temples of the Feretrian
and Capitoline Jupiter. Before the vestibule is a fountain, over which
preside two rivers, the Nile and the Tiber, with the she-wolf of
Romulus. The name of the Tiber is not pronounced like that of inglorious
rivers; it is one of the pleasures of the Romans, to say, "_Conduct me
to the borders of the Tiber; let us cross the Tiber._" In pronouncing
these words they seem to invoke history and to re-animate the dead. In
going to the Capitol, by way of the Forum, we find, to the right, the
Mamertine prisons.--These prisons were at first constructed by Ancus
Martius, and were then employed for ordinary criminals. But Servius
Tullius caused more horrid ones to be dug under ground for state
criminals, as if such prisoners were not those who deserve most
consideration, since their errors might be united with sincerity.
Jugurtha and the accomplices of Cataline perished in these prisons. It
is also said that St Peter and St Paul have been incarcerated in them.
On the other side of the Capitol is the Tarpeian Rock, and at the foot
of this rock we find at the present time a hospital, called The Hospital
of Consolation. It seems that thus in Rome the severe spirit of
antiquity and the mildness of Christianity meet each other throughout
the ages, and present themselves to our sight as well as to our
reflection.

When Oswald and Corinne had reached the top of the tower of the Capitol,
she showed him the Seven Hills; the city of Rome bounded at first by
Mount Palatine, then by the walls of Servius Tullius, which enclose the
Seven Hills; lastly by the walls of Aurelian, which still serve as an
enclosure to the greatest part of Rome. Corinne recalled to mind the
verses of Tibullus and Propertius[12], who are proud of the weak
beginnings whence has sprung the mistress of the world. Mount Palatine
was in itself the whole of Rome for some time, but afterwards the palace
of the Emperors filled the space which had before sufficed for a nation.
A poet, in the time of Nero, made the following epigram upon this
occasion.[13] _Rome will soon be only a palace. Go to Veii Romans, if
this palace does not now occupy Veii itself._

The Seven Hills are infinitely less elevated than formerly when they
deserved the name of the Steep Mountains. Modern Rome is raised forty
feet above the ancient city. The valleys which separated the hills are
almost filled up by time with the ruins of edifices; but what is more
singular yet, a heap of broken vases has raised two new hills;[14] and
we almost discover an image of modern times, in this progress, or rather
this wreck of civilisation, levelling mountains with valleys, effacing
in the moral as well as the physical world all those beautiful
inequalities produced by nature.

Three other hills,[15] not comprised in the seven famous ones, give
something picturesque to the city of Rome, which perhaps is the only
city that of itself, and in its own boundaries, offers the most
magnificent points of observation. It presents such a remarkable mixture
of ruins, edifices, fields and deserts, that we may contemplate Rome on
all sides, and always find a striking picture in the opposite
perspective.

Oswald could never feel tired of viewing the traces of ancient Rome from
the elevated point of the Capitol to which Corinne had conducted him.
The reading of history, and the reflections which it excites, produce a
less powerful effect upon the soul than those heaps of stones, those
ruins mingled with new habitations. So strongly do our eyes carry
conviction to the mind, that after having beheld these ruins of Rome we
believe the history of the ancient Romans as if we had been cotemporary
with them. The recollections of the mind are acquired by study; the
recollections of the imagination are born of a more immediate and
intimate impression, which gives body to thought, and renders us, if I
may so express it, witnesses of what we have learnt. Undoubtedly one is
vexed sometimes at those modern buildings which intrude themselves among
the venerable spoils of antiquity. But a portico by the side of a humble
cottage, pillars, between which appear the little windows of a church, a
tomb affording an asylum to a whole rustic family, produce an
indescribable mixture of great and simple ideas, a newly-discovered
pleasure which inspires a continual interest. The greater part of our
European cities have externally a common and prosaic appearance; and
Rome, oftener than any other, presents the melancholy aspect of misery
and degradation; but all of a sudden a broken column, a bas-relief
half-destroyed, stones knit together in the indestructible manner of the
ancient architects, remind us that there is in man an eternal power, a
divine spark, which he must never cease to excite in himself and revive
in others.

This Forum, whose enclosure is so narrow in compass, and which has
witnessed so many astonishing things, is a striking proof of the moral
greatness of man. When the universe, in the latter times of Rome, was
subjected to inglorious masters, we find whole centuries, of which
history has scarcely preserved any events; and this Forum, this little
space in the centre of a city, at that time very circumscribed, whose
inhabitants were fighting all around them for their territory, has it
not occupied by the memories which it recalls, the most sublime geniuses
of every age! Honour then, eternal honour, to nations, courageous and
free, since they thus captivate the admiration of posterity!

Corinne observed to Lord Nelville that there were very few remains of
the Republican age to be found at Rome. The aqueducts, the canals formed
under ground, for the distribution of water, were the only luxury of the
Republic and the kings who preceded it. They have only left us useful
edifices: tombs raised to the memory of their great men, and some
temples of brick, which still subsist. It was not until after the
conquest of Sicily that the Romans for the first time made use of marble
for their monuments; but it is sufficient to behold places where great
actions have occurred, to experience an indefinable emotion. It is to
this disposition of the soul that we must attribute the religious power
of pilgrimages. Celebrated countries of every kind, even when stripped
of their great men and of their monuments, preserve their effect upon
the imagination. What struck our sight no longer exists, but the charm
of recollection remains.

This Forum no longer presents us with any trace of that famous Tribune,
from which the Roman people were governed by eloquence. Three pillars
remain of a temple, raised by Augustus in honour of Jupiter Tonans, when
the thunderbolt fell at his feet without striking him, and an arch
which the senate raised to Septimus Severus in reward of his exploits.
The names of his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, were inscribed on the
fronton of the arch; but when Caracalla had assassinated Geta he caused
his name to be erased, and some traces of the cancelled letters are
still to be seen. At some distance is a temple to Faustina, a monument
of the blind weakness of Marcus Aurelius; a temple to Venus which, in
the time of the republic, was consecrated to Pallas--and farther on, the
ruins of a temple dedicated to the Sun and Moon, built by the Emperor
Adrian, who was jealous of Apollodorus, the famous Grecian architect,
and put him to death for having found fault with the proportions of his
edifice.

On the other side of the square we behold the ruins of some monuments
consecrated to nobler and purer aims. The pillars of a temple which is
believed to have been that of Jupiter Stator, who prevented the Romans
from ever flying before their enemies. A pillar remaining of the Temple
of Jupiter Guardian, placed, we are told, not far from the abyss into
which Curtius precipitated himself. Pillars also of a temple, raised,
some say, to Concord, others to Victory. Perhaps these two ideas are
confounded by conquering nations, who probably think no real peace can
exist till they have subdued the universe! At the extremity of Mount
Palatine is a beautiful triumphal arch, dedicated to Titus, for the
conquest of Jerusalem. We are informed that the Jews who are at Rome
never pass under this arch, and a little path is shewn which they take
to avoid it. It is to be wished, for the honour of the Jews, that this
anecdote may be true; long recollections suit long misfortunes.

Not far from thence is the arch of Constantine, embellished with some
bas-reliefs taken away from the forum of Trajan, by the Christians, who
wished to adorn the monument consecrated to the _founder of repose_; so
they called Constantine. The arts at this epoch were already on the
decline, and they stripped the past to honour new exploits. These
triumphal gates, which are seen at Rome, give perpetuity as much as man
can give it, to the honours paid to glory. There was a place upon their
summits destined for flute and trumpet players, in order that the victor
when passing might be intoxicated at the same time by music and praise,
and taste at the same moment all the most exalted emotions.

Facing these triumphal arches are the ruins of the temple of Peace built
by Vespasian; it was so decorated with brass and with gold, internally,
that when consumed by fire, the streams of burning metal that flowed
from it extended even to the Forum. Lastly, the Coliseum, the most
beautiful ruin of Rome, terminates this noble enclosure, which embraces
all history in its compass. This superb edifice, of which only the
stones remain, stript of the gold and the marble, served as an
amphitheatre for the combats of the gladiators, with wild beasts. It was
thus that the Roman people were amused and deceived by strong emotions,
when natural sentiments could no longer soar. The entrance to the
Coliseum is by two doors, one consecrated to the victors, and by the
other were carried out the dead: strange contempt for the human race,
which made the life or death of man dependent upon the pastime of a
public spectacle! Titus, the best of emperors, dedicated the Coliseum to
the Roman people,--and these admirable ruins bear such fine traits of
magnificence and genius, that we are led into an illusion on the subject
of true greatness, and tempted to grant that admiration to the
masterpieces of art, which is only the due of monuments consecrated to
generous institutions.

Oswald did not indulge in that admiration which Corinne felt in
contemplating these four galleries; these four edifices, rising one
upon another; this medley of pomp and barbarism, which at once inspires
respect and compassion. He beheld in these scenes nothing but the luxury
of the master, and the blood of the slaves, and felt indignant at the
arts which, regardless of their aim, lavish their gifts upon whatever
object they may be destined for. Corinne endeavoured to combat this
disposition:--"Do not," said she, to Lord Nelville, "carry the rigour of
your principles of morality and justice into the contemplation of the
Italian monuments; they, for the most part, recall, as I have told you,
rather the splendour, the elegance of taste of ancient forms, than the
glorious epoch of Roman virtue. But do you not find some traces of the
moral greatness possessed by the first ages, in the gigantic luxury of
the monuments which have succeeded them? Even the degradation of the
Roman people still commands respect: the mourning of her liberty covers
the world with wonders, and the genius of ideal beauty seeks to console
man for the true and real dignity which he has lost. Behold those
immense baths, open to all those who were willing to taste oriental
voluptuousness--those circuses destined for the elephants which were
brought there to combat with tigers, and those aqueducts which in a
moment converted the amphitheatre into a lake, where galleys too fought
in their turn, and crocodiles appeared where lions were seen
before:--such was the luxury of the Romans when luxury was their pride!
Those obelisks which were brought from Egypt, stolen from African
shades, in order to adorn the Roman sepulchres; that population of
statues which formerly existed in Rome cannot be looked upon in the same
light as the useless pageantry of the Asiatic despots: it is the Roman
genius which conquered the world, and to which the arts have given an
external form. There is something supernatural in this magnificence,
and its poetical splendour makes us forget its origin and its aim."

The eloquence of Corinne excited the admiration of Oswald without
convincing him; he sought for some moral sentiment in all this, without
which all the magic of the arts could not satisfy him. Corinne then
recollected that in this very amphitheatre the persecuted Christians
died victims of their perseverance, and showing Lord Nelville the altars
which are raised in honour of their ashes, as well as the path of the
cross, which is trodden by penitents, at the foot of the most
magnificent wrecks of worldly grandeur, asked him if the ashes of
martyrs conveyed no language to his heart? "Yes," cried he, "I deeply
admire the triumph of the soul and of the will over the pains of death.
A sacrifice, whatever it may be, is nobler and more difficult than all
the flights of the soul and of thought.--An exalted imagination may
produce miracles of genius, but it is only in devoting ourselves to our
opinion or to our sentiments that we are truly virtuous;--it is then
alone that a celestial power subdues the mortal man in us."

This language, so noble and so pure, yet gave uneasiness to Corinne. She
looked at Nelville--then cast down her eyes--and though, at that moment,
he took her hand and pressed it against his heart, she shuddered at the
idea that such a man could sacrifice others or himself to the worship of
opinions, of principles, or of duties, which he might have chosen.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Mineralogists affirm that these lions are not of basalt, because
the volcanic stone to-day known under that name could not have existed
in Egypt; but as Pliny calls the Egyptian stone out of which these lions
have been carved, basalt, and as Winckelmann, the historian of the arts,
also retains this appellation, I have deemed myself justified in using
it in its primitive acceptation.

[12]
     "Carpite nunc, taur

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