The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 174: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

148 THE COURT OF LONDON didly illuminated to celebrate some grand festive occasion, so did the Prince of Wales now begin to catch glimpses of far- off fires, which gradually developed their vastness and their lurid brilliancy to his view as the demon hurried him on to- ward that appalling destination. At length it appeared to the gaze of the horrified prince that he was approaching an illimitable tract of country all flooded with liquid flames, as the fields of the earth are inundated with water. Pesti- lential odours filled his nostrils with a sulphurous smell, and his throat grew parched, as if he had been swallowing ashes. A sense of consuming heat came rapidly upon him at the same time and he knew that he was being borne headlong on to- ward the endless burning lake of hell. But suddenly the demon stopped short, and his sable arms placed the prince upon the summit of a pillar shooting up from some unfathomable depth below, a black marble pil- lar, on which his Royal Highness was left by the fiend to balance himself as well as he might, with the intuitive con- viction that if he fell it would be to encounter destruc- tion. ‘“‘ Behold my kingdom! ”’ exclaimed the prince of darkness, addressing the prince of the earth in that sonorous voice which now seemed to roll in undulating waves of sound throughout all space. ‘‘ Upon the earth, immense is the line of demarcation which selfishness, egotism, and usurpation have traced between the high-born and the humble, the pampered few and the toiling many. But in my kingdom all are equal, and those distinctions disappear. In yon fiery lake, kings are suffering by the side of beggars, popes and bishops are writhing in the same pit with thieves and vaga- bonds. But if there be places in my realms where tortures are more exquisitely keen than elsewhere, if there be spots where the fire burns more intensely and serpents bite more sharply than in others, then do I reserve those scenes of ex- celling anguish for the souls of men who have occupied the highest places upon the earth. And now behold the wonders and the horrors of my kingdom.” With these words, the fiend waved his mighty arm, the sweeping effect of which was as if a strong wind suddenly agitated the sooty darkness that filled the air above the lake of fire; and it seemed to the prince as if he tottered and shook upon the summit of the colossal pinnacle where he CORNICLOO© S (CO)