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 c