liant sun sheds its lustre on this melancholy spectacle.
The marshy and unwholesome parts in the north are announced by their
repulsive aspect; but in the more fatal countries of the south, nature
preserves a serenity, the deceitful mildness of which is an illusion to
travellers. If it be true that it is very dangerous to sleep in crossing
the Pontine marshes, their invincible soporific influence in the heat of
the day is one of those perfidious impressions which we receive from
this spot. Lord Nelville constantly watched over Corinne. Sometimes she
leant her head on Theresa who accompanied them; sometimes she closed her
eyes, overcome by the languor of the air. Oswald awakened her
immediately, with inexpressible terror; and though he was naturally
taciturn, he was now inexhaustible in subjects of conversation, always
well supported and always new, to prevent her from yielding to this
fatal sleep. Ah! should we not pardon the heart of a woman the cruel
regret which attaches to those days when she was beloved, when her
existence was so necessary to that of another, when at every moment she
was supported and protected? What isolation must succeed this season of
delight! How happy are they whom the sacred hand of Hymen has conducted
from love to friendship, without one painful moment having embittered
their course!

Oswald and Corinne, after the anxious passage of the marshes, at length
arrived at Terracina, on the sea coast, near the confines of the kingdom
of Naples. It is there that the south truly begins; it is there that it
receives travellers in all its magnificence. Naples, _that happy
country_, is, as it were, separated from the rest of Europe by the sea
which surrounds it and by that dangerous district which must be passed
in order to arrive at it. One would say that nature, wishing to secure
to herself this charming abode, has designedly made all access to it
perilous. At Rome we are not yet in the south; we have there a foretaste
of its sweets, but its enchantment only truly begins in the territory of
Naples. Not far from Terracina is the promontory fixed upon by the poets
as the abode of Circe: and behind Terracina rises Mount Anxur, where
Theodoric, king of the Goths, had placed one of those strong castles
with which the northern warriors have covered the earth. There are few
traces of the invasion of Italy by the barbarians; or at least, where
those traces consist in devastation, they are confounded with the