322 
BENGAZI. 
doubtless, were drawn those brilliant pictures of the Hesperian gar- 
dens, the Fortunate Islands, the Islands of the Blest, which are 
painted in such glowing colours, and form the gayest part of ancient 
mythology. The precise position of these celebrated spots has been 
a subject of eager and doubtful inquiry. The chief difficulty is, that 
there are different points of the continent in which they seem to be 
fixed with almost equal precision. In fact, it seems clearly shewn, 
by some learned writers*, that this variety of position is referrible, 
not to any precise geographical data, but to the operation of certain 
secret propensities that are deeply lodged in the human breast. 
There arises involuntarily in the heart of man a longing after forms 
of being, fairer and happier than any presented by the world before 
him — bright scenes which he seeks and never finds, in the circuit of 
real existence. But imagination easily creates them in that dim 
boundary which separates the known from the unknown world. In 
the first discoverers of any such region, novelty usually produces an 
exalted state of the imagination and passions ; under the influence 
of which every object is painted in higher colours than those of 
nature. Nor does the illusion cease, when a fuller examination 
proves that, in the place thus assigned, no such beings or objects 
exist. The human heart, while it remains possible, still clings to its 
fond chimeras : it quickly transfers them to the yet unknown region 
beyond ; and, when driven from thence, discovers still another more 
remote in which they can take refuge 
* Gossellnand Malte Brun. 
