t were to extend as far as here:--such was the superb plan of
Michael Angelo; he expected, at least, that it would be so finished
after his death; but the men of our days no longer think of posterity.
When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule every thing except
money and power is destroyed." "It is you who will revive that
sentiment," cried Lord Nelville. "Who ever experienced the happiness I
enjoy? Rome shewn by you, Rome interpreted by imagination and genius,
_Rome, that is a world animated by sentiment, without which the world
itself is a desert_[9]. Ah, Corinne! what will succeed to these days,
more happy than my heart and my fate permit!" Corinne answered him with
sweetness: "All sincere affections proceed from heaven, Oswald! Why
should it not protect what it inspires? To that Power belongs our fate."

At that moment St Peter's appeared to them, the greatest building that
man has ever raised; for the pyramids of Egypt themselves are inferior
to it in height. "Perhaps," said Corinne, "I ought to have shewn you the
finest of our buildings last, but that is not my system. It is my
opinion that to beget a sensibility for the fine arts, we must begin by
beholding objects that inspire a deep and lively admiration. This
sentiment once felt, reveals, if I may so express myself, a new sphere
of ideas, and renders us afterwards more capable of loving, and of
judging, what even in an inferior order recalls the first impression we
have received. All those gradations, those prudent methods, one tint
after another, to prepare for great effects, are not to my taste; we
cannot arrive at the sublime by degrees; infinite distances separate it
even from that which is only beautiful." Oswald felt an altogether
extraordinary emotion on arriving opposite St Peter's. It was the first
time that the work of man had produced upon him the same effect as one
of the wonders of nature. This is the only work of art, now on our
earth, possessing that kind of grandeur which characterises the
immediate works of the creation. Corinne enjoyed the astonishment of
Oswald. "I have chosen," said she, "a day when the sun is in all its
lustre, to shew you this edifice. I have in reserve for you a still more
exquisite, more religious pleasure, when you shall contemplate it by
moonlight: but you must first witness the most brilliant intellectual
feast--the genius of man adorned with the magnificence of nature."

The square of St Peter is surrounded