TENERIFFE. 55 
is said to have generally finished a bottle of his favourite 
liquor every evening before he went to bed. 
Little as the ancients might have known of the real state and 
situation of the Canary Islands, they had no doubt siifllicient 
information of their happy temperature before they bestowed 
on them the name of the Fortunate Islands. Conceiving them 
to be what they were represented, it is the less surprizing that 
the Roman General Sertorius should have expressed a strong 
desire to pass the remainder of his days in such a retreat, 
removed from the horrors and calamities of wai", and placed 
beyond the tyrant's grasp. " Rain," says Plutarch, " seldom 
" falls on the Fortunate Islands., and Avhen it does it falls 
" moderately ; but they have soft breezes scattering such rich 
" dews, that the soil not only becomes fit for sowing and 
" planting, but spontaneously produces the most excellent 
" fruits in such abundance, that the inhabitants have only to 
" indulge themselves in the full enjoyment of ease. The air 
" is always pleasant and salubrious, through the happy tem- 
" perature and their insensible transition into each other." 
And he concludes his account of them by observing, that 
" these are generall}'^ believed to be the Elysian Fields and 
" the seats of the blessed, which Homer has described in ail 
" the charms of verse." 
This description of Homer, to which Plutarch alludes, 
however beautiful in the original, has probably not suffered 
much by translation, in the hands of our English bard. 
