FOOTNOTE: 

[4] The language which is felt in the depth of the soul.

Chapter iii.

Corinne arose when the Prince Castel-Forte had ceased speaking; she thanked him by an inclination of the head so dignified yet so gentle, that it expressed at once the modesty and joy so natural at having received praise according to her heart’s desire.  It was the custom that every poet crowned at the Capitol should recite or extemporise some piece of poetry, before the destined laurel was placed on his head.  Corinne ordered her lyre to be brought to her—­the instrument of her choice—­which greatly resembled the harp, but was however more antique in form and more simple in its sounds.  In tuning it she was seized with uncommon timidity, and it was with a trembling voice that she asked to know the subject imposed on her. “The glory and happiness of Italy!” cried all around her with a unanimous voice.  “Very well,” replied she already fired with enthusiasm, already supported by her genius, “the glory and happiness of Italy;” and feeling herself animated by the love of her country she commenced the most charming strains, of which prose can give but a very imperfect idea.

* * * * *

The Improvisation of Corinne, at the Capitol.

“Italy, empire of the sun!  Italy, mistress of the world!  Italy, the cradle of letters, I salute thee!  How often has the human race been subjected to thee, tributary to thy arms, to thy art and to thy sky.

“A deity quitted Olympus to take refuge in Ausonia; the aspect of this country recalled the virtues of the golden age;—­man appeared there too happy to be supposed guilty.

“Rome conquered the universe by her genius, and became sovereign by liberty.  The Roman character was imprinted everywhere, and the invasion of the Barbarians, in destroying Italy obscured the whole world.

“Italy appeared again with the divine treasures which the fugitive Greeks brought back to her bosom; heaven revealed its laws to her; the daring of her children discovered a new hemisphere; she again became sovereign by the sceptre of thought, but this laurelled sceptre only produced ingratitude.

“Imagination restored to her the universe which she had lost.  The painters and the poets created for her an earth, an Olympus, a hell, and a heaven; and her native fire, better guarded by her genius than by the Pagan deity, found not in Europe a Prometheus to ravish it from her.

“Why am I at the Capitol?  Why is my humble forehead about to receive the crown which Petrarch, has worn, and which remained suspended on the gloomy cypress that weeps over the tomb of Tasso?—­Why, if you were not so enamoured of glory, my fellow-countrymen, that you recompense its worship as much as its success?

“Well, if you so love this glory which too often chooses its victims among the conquerors which it has crowned, reflect with pride upon those ages which beheld the new birth of the arts.  Dante, the modern Homer, the hero of thought, the sacred poet of our religious mysteries, plunged his genius into the Styx to land in the infernal regions, and his mind was profound as the abyss which he has described.