The dominion of society over self-love is scarcely known in the land. The Count d'Erfeuil and Corinne's wonted guests having assembled, the conversation turned on the talent for improvisation, which she had so gloriously displayed at the capitol; and she was asked what she thought of it herself. "It is so rare a thing," said Castel Forte, "to find a person at once susceptible of enthusiasm, and capable of analysis; endowed as an artist, yet gifted with so much self-knowledge, that we ought to implore her revelation of her own secret."--"The faculty of extemporizing," returned Corinne, "is not more extraordinary in southern tongues, than senatorial eloquence or lively repartee in other languages. I should even say that, unfortunately, it is easier for us to breathe impromptu verse than to speak well in prose, from which poetry differs so widely, that the first stanza, by their mere expressions, remove the poet from the sphere of his auditors, and thus command attention. It is not only to the sweetness of Italian, but to the emphatic vibration of its syllables, that we should attribute the influence of poetry amongst us. Italian has a musical charm, which confers delight by the very sound of its words, almost independent of ideas, though nearly all those words are so graphic, that they paint their own significations on the mind; you feel that but in the midst of the arts, and beneath a beauteous sky, could a language so melodious and highly colored, have had birth. It is, therefore, easier in Italy than anywhere else to mislead by speeches, unaided by depth or novelty of thought. Poetry, like all the fine arts, captivates the senses as much as the mind. Nevertheless, I venture to assert, that I never act the improvisatrice, unless beneath some real feeling, or some image which I believe original. I hope that I rely less than others on our bewitching tongue; on which, indeed, one may prelude at random, and bestow a vivid pleasure, solely by the charm of rhythm and of harmony."--"You think, then," said one of her friends, "that this genius for spontaneous verse does injury to our literature? I thought so too, till I heard you, who have entirety reversed my decision."--"I have said," returned Corinne, "that from this facility and abundance must result a vast quantity of indifferent poems; but I rejoice that such fruitfulness should exist in Italy, as I do to see our plains covered with a thousand superfluous productions. I pride in this bounty of Heaven. Above all, I love to find improvisatores among the common people; it shows that imagination of theirs which is hidden in all other circumstances, and only develops itself amongst us. It gives a poetic air to the humblest ranks of society, and spares us from the disgust we cannot help feeling, against what is vulgar in all classes. When our Sicilians, while rowing the traveller in their barks, lend their graceful dialect to an endearing welcome, or sing him a kind