The Original, by T Walker

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The scene around the house was lovely, the air cool and fragrant, the repast simple but refined, and without any state. The Vizier was in the best possible humour, and Seid, pleased with so acute and polished a hearer, rose above himself, till at last Hassan, suddenly bursting into a fit of laughter, cried out? Pardon me, but I can resist no longer. Then rising up, he gravely added? I have extreme satisfaction in this opportunity of presenting to his highness the Vizier the philosopher Seid Ali. The surprise of the two was great, and the pleasure mutual. Hassan then related the history of the whole affair, and it will easily be supposed that from that time ample justice was done to the merits of his friend, and would have been done to his own, but his reply to the Vizier's intimation was, Whatever your goodness intends for me, bestow on Seid. He deserves every thing, and I want nothing. . THE ALBUNEAN LAKE. To the left of the road from Rome to Tivoli and nearer the latter, lies the Albunean Lake, insignificant as to extent, but interesting from its classical associations. The water resembles warm soapsuds, and sends forth a most noisome sulphureous vapour. Islets of weeds sometimes detach themselves from the sides, and are said to present a remarkable appearance as they are moved about on the constantly bubbling surface. Virgil describes the lake as shaded by a sacred grove, and as having a communication with the infernal regions. This fiction must have been readily believed in the days of heathen poetry; for Sir William Gell, in his Topography of Rome and its Vicinity, observes, the rocky crust of the margin probably covers an unfathomable abyss, for a stone thrown into the lake occasions in its descent so violent a discharge of carbonic acid gas, and f...