Book i.

OSWALD.

[Illustration]




CORINNE.




Chapter i.


Oswald, Lord Nelville, Peer of Scotland, quitted Edinburgh for Italy
during the winter of 1794-5. He possessed a noble and handsome figure,
an abundance of wit, an illustrious name, and an independent fortune,
but his health was impaired by deeply-rooted sorrow, and his physicians,
fearing that his lungs were attacked, had prescribed him the air of the
South. Though indifferent as to the preservation of his life, he
followed their advice. He expected, at least, to find in the diversity
of objects he was about to see, something that might divert his mind
from the melancholy that preyed upon it. The most exquisite of
griefs--the loss of a father--was the cause of his malady; this was
heightened by cruel circumstances, which, together with a remorse