8 
DISCOVERIES OF THE ANCIENTS, 
these fairy spots successively retreating before the 
progress of discovery, yet finding still, in the far- 
thest advance v/hich ancient knowledge ever made, 
some remoter extremity to which they can fly. 
The first position of the Hesperian gardens 
appears to have been at the western extremity of 
Libya, 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 power- 
ful impression on Grecian fancy, and to suggest 
the idea of quite a terrestrial paradise. It excit- 
ed also the image of islands, which ever after ad- 
hered to these visionary creations. As the first 
spot became frequented, it w^as 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 original idea of islands 
rendered an easy step. Those of the Canaries 
having never been passed, nor even fully explor- 
ed, continued always to be the Fortunate Islands, 
not from any peculiar felicity of soil and climate, 
but merely because distance and imperfect know-^ 
