6 
DISCOVERIES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
retreating before the progress of discovery, yet 
finding still, in the farthest advance which ancient 
knowledge ever made, some remoter extremity to 
which they could fly. 
The first position of the Hesperian gardens ap- 
pears to have been at the western extremity of Li* 
bya, then the farthest boundary, upon that side, of 
ancient knowledge. The spectacle which it often 
presented, a circuit of blooming verdure amid the 
desert, was calculated to make a powerful impres- 
sion on Grecian fancy, and to suggest the idea of 
quite a terrestrial paradise. It excited also the 
image of islands, which ever after adhered to these 
visionary creations. As the first spot became fre* 
quented, it was soon stripped of its fabled beauty. 
So pleasing an idea, however, was not to be easily 
relinquished. Another place was quickly found 
for it ; and every traveller, as he discovered a new 
portion of that fertile and beautiful coast, fondly 
imagined, that he had at length arrived at the long, 
sought-for Islands of the Blest. At length, when 
the continent had been sought in vain, they were 
transferred to the ocean beyond, which the origi- 
nal idea of islands rendered an easy step. Those 
of the Canaries having never been passed, nor even 
fully explored, continued always to be the Fortu- 
nate Islands, not from any peculiar felicity of soil 
and climate, but merely because distance and im- 
perfect knowledge left full scope to poetical fancy. 
