Who could tell, but that their families might have been related? perhaps he had even seen her in his childhood. There is often in the heart some innate image of the beings we are to love that lends to our first sight of them almost an air of recognition. Oswald had believed the Italians, though impassioned, too vacillating for deep or constant affection. Already had the words of Corinne given him a totally distinct view of their character. What then must he feel should he thus at once revive the remembrance of his home, and receive a new-born life, for future enjoyment, without being weaned from the past? In the midst of these reveries he found himself on the bridge of St. Angelo, which leads to the castle of that name, or rather to Adrian's tomb, which has been converted into a fortress. The silence of the scene, the pale waves of the Tiber, the moonbeams that lit up the statues, till they appeared like pallid phantoms, steadfastly watching the current of time, by which they could be influenced no more; all these objects recalled him to his habitual train of thought; he laid his hand on his breast, and felt the portrait of his father, which he always wore; he drew it forth, and gazed on it, while the cause of the felicity he had just enjoyed but too strongly reminded him of all that long since had tempted his rebellion against his parent. "Ever haunting memory!" he cried, with revived remorse, "too wronged and too forgiving friend! could I have believed myself capable of feeling so much pleasure thus soon after thy loss? but it is not thine indulgent spirit which rebukes me; thou wouldst have me happy in spite of my faults; or may I not mistake thy mandates now uttered from above, I, who misunderstood them while thou wert yet on earth?" [1] Lord Nevil must have alluded to the beautiful lines of Propertius,-- "Ut caput in magnis ubi non est ponere signis; Ponitur hic imos antè corona pedes." BOOK III. CORINNE. CHAPTER I.