We find at Rome a certain species of mask which is not seen elsewhere: masks formed after the figures of the ancient statues, and which at a distance imitate the most perfect beauty--the women often lose greatly by removing them. But nevertheless this motionless imitation of life, these stalking wax countenances, however pretty they may be, have something terrifying in them. The great nobles make a tolerably grand display of carriages on the last days of the carnival; but the pleasure of this festival is the crowd and the confusion: it seems like a relic of the _Saturnalia_; every class in Rome is mixed together. The most grave magistrates ride with official dignity in the midst of the masks; every window is decorated. The whole town is in the streets: it is truly a popular festival. The pleasure of the people consists neither in the shows nor the feasts that are given them, nor the magnificence they witness. They commit no excess either in drinking or eating: their recreation is to be set at liberty, and to find themselves among the nobility, who on their side are pleased at being among the people. It is especially the refinement and delicacy of amusements as well as the perfection of education, that places a barrier between different classes of people. But in Italy this distinction of rank is not very sensible; the country is more characterised by the natural talent and imagination of all, than by the extraordinary cultivation of the upper classes. There is therefore, pending carnival, a complete confusion of ranks, of manners, and of sentiments: the crowd, the cries, the wit, and the comfits with which they inundate without distinction the carriages as they pass along, confound every mortal together and set the nation pell-mell, as if social order no longer existed. Corinne and Lord Nelville, both buried in thought, arrived in the midst of this tumult. They were at first almost stunned; for nothing appears more singular than this activity of noisy pleasures, when the soul is entirely absorbed in itself. They stopped at the Piazza del Popolo to ascend the amphitheatre near the obelisk, whence is seen the race course. At the moment they got out of their calash, the Count d'Erfeuil perceived them and took Oswald aside to speak to him.