ay possible, those objects which people
cannot dispense with seeing at Rome; for who has ever quitted it without
having contemplated the Apollo Belvedere and the pictures of Raphael?
This guarantee, weak as it was, that Oswald should not leave her,
pleased her imagination. Is there not an element of pride some one will
ask, in endeavouring to retain the object of our love by any other means
than the real sentiment itself? I really do not know; but the more we
love, the less we trust to the sentiment we inspire; and whatever may be
the cause which secures the presence of the object who is dear to us, we
always embrace it joyfully. There is often much vanity in a certain
species of boldness, and if charms, generally admired, like those of
Corinne, possess a real advantage, it is because they permit us to place
our pride to the account of the sentiment we feel rather than to that
which we inspire.

Corinne and Nelville began their observations by the most remarkable of
the numerous churches of Rome--they are all decorated with ancient
magnificence; but something gloomy and fantastical is mingled with that
beautiful marble and those festival ornaments which have been taken from
the Pagan temples. Pillars of porphyry and granite were so numerous in
Rome that they have lavishly distributed them, scarcely considering them
of any value. At St John Lateran, that church so famous for the
councils that have been held in it, are found such a quantity of marble
pillars that many of them have been covered with a cement of plaster to
make pilasters, so indifferent have they become to these riches from
their multitude.

Some of these pillars were in the tomb of Adrian, others at the Capitol;
these latter still bear on their capitals the figures of the geese which
saved the Roman people. Some of these pillars support Gothic, and others
Arabian ornaments. The urn of Agrippa conceals the ashes of a Pope; for
even the dead have yielded place to other dead, and the tombs have
almost as often changed their masters as the abodes of the living.

Near St John Lateran is the holy stair-case, transported, it is said,
from Jerusalem to Rome. It may only be ascended kneeling. Caesar himself,
and Claudius also, mounted on their knees the stair-case which conducted
to the Temple of the Capitoline Jove. On one side of St John Lateran is
the font where it is said that Constantine was baptised.--In the middle
of the square is seen an obelisk, which is