Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 129 



the Hefperides were almoft equally celebrated. 

 Turner has painted them, and Milton fpread the 

 appropriate mift of poetry over thefe Ma/capo^ 



wjcroi, 



" Happy ifles, 



Like thofe Hefperian gardens famed of old, 

 Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales, 

 Thrice happy ifles!" 1 



and amplified them in the beautiful imagery of 

 " Comus," 980-1011. 



The Gardens of Alcinous are another proverbial 

 Paradife. Alcinous was the juft and rich King of 

 the Phaeacians in Corcyra, devoted to gardening. 

 " Quid bifera Alcinoi laudem pomaria?" fays 

 Statius ; 2 while " to give apples to Alcinous " was 

 much like fending coals to Newcaftle with us. 

 Virgil ufes thefe gardens as a fynonym for 

 orchards on account of the fruit which Alcinous 

 grew, " pomaque et Alcinoi filvae" (" Georg.," ii. 

 87). All the Latin poets drew their allufions to 

 thefe gardens from Homer. We extract his 

 account of them from the excellent tranflation of 

 the " OdyfTey " by Butcher and Lang ("Odyfley," 

 vii. 112-131). Thus the reader obtains a literal 

 rendering free from fuch verbiage as Pope flings 

 over the pafTage : " The reddening apple ripens 

 here to gold ;" or " Here the blue fig with lufcious 

 juice o'erflows;" and the like. "Without the 

 courtyard, hard by the door, is a great garden of 

 four plough-gates, and a hedge runs round on 

 either fide. And there grow tall trees blofToming, 

 pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with 

 1 " Par. Loft," iii. 567. 2 " Silv.," i. 3, 81. 



K 



