The Three Princes of Serendip The Three Princes of Serendip The Three Princes of Serendip is the English version of the story "Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo" published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. Tramezzino claimed to have heard the story from one , who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Book One of Amir Khusrau's "Hasht-Bihisht" of 1302. The story first came to English via a French translation, and now exists in several out-of-print translations. "Serendip" is the Old Persian name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The story has become known in the English-speaking world as the
Horace Walpole and George Montagu (c.1730-1780) (later a Member of Parliament and Private Secretary to Lord North) the "Triumvirate", a schoolboy confederacy. More important were another group of friends dubbed the "Quadruple Alliance": Walpole, Thomas Gray, Richard West and Thomas Ashton. At Cambridge Walpole came under the influence of Conyers Middleton, an unorthodox theologian. Walpole came to accept the sceptical nature of Middleton's attitude to some essential Christian doctrines for the rest of his life, including a hatred of superstition and bigotry. Walpole ceased to reside at Cambridge at the end of 1738 and left without taking a degree. In 1737 Walpole's