The humble edifice stood at no great distance from the water, in the skirts of the town, and in such a situation as to enable its occupant to look out upon the loveliness of the inner basin, and, through a vista cut by the element between islands, even upon the lake-like scenery of the outer harbour.

The scientific vista opening to the eye of man is impressive and appalling.

About his chequered sides I wind, And leave his brooks and meads behind, And groves, and grottoes where I lay, And vistas shooting beams of day: Wide and wider spreads the vale, As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains roundunhappy fate!

Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed: In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed, But verging to decline, its splendours rise, Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise; While, scourged by famine from the smiling land