fisherman, but I can assure your excellency that in his island he is
respected like a king."

"Indeed!" replied the prince, with an ironical smile. "I must own, to my
great shame, that I have never visited the little island of Nisida. You
will have a boat ready for me to-morrow, and then we will see."

He interrupted himself suddenly, for the king was looking at him; and
calling up the most sonorous bass notes that he could find in the depths
of his throat, he continued with an inspired air, "Genitori genitoque
laus et jubilatio."

"Amen," replied the serving-man in a ringing voice.

Nisida, the beloved daughter of Solomon, the fisherman, was, as we have
said, the loveliest flower of the island from which she derived her name.
That island is the most charming spot, the most delicious nook with which
we are acquainted; it is a basket of greenery set delicately amid the
pure and transparent waters of the gulf, a hill wooded with orange trees
and oleanders, and crowned at the summit by a marble castle. All around
extends the fairy-like prospect of that immense amphitheatre, one of the
mightiest wonders of creation. There lies Naples, the voluptuous syren,
reclining carelessly on the seashore; there, Portici, Castellamare, and
Sorrento, the very names of which awaken in the imagination a thousand
thoughts of poetry and love; there are Pausilippo, Baiae, Puozzoli, and
those vast plains, where the ancients fancied their Elysium, sacred
solitudes which one might suppose peopled by the men of former days,
where the earth echoes under foot like an empty grave, and the air has
unknown sounds and strange melodies.