BENGAZI. 323 
Thus we find these fairy spots successively retreating before the 
progress of discovery ; yet finding still, in the farthest advance which 
ancient knowledge ever made, some remoter extremity to which they 
can fly. 
“ The first position of the Hesperian gardens” (continues our 
author) “ 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 powerful impression 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 frequented, 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 con- 
tinent 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 ex- 
plored, continued always to be the Fortunate Islands, not from any 
peculiar fehcity of soil and climate, but merely because distance and 
imperfect knowledge left full scope to poetical fancy *. Hence we 
find Horace painting their felicity in the most glowing colours, and 
* Strabo, 1. — Plutarch in Sertorio — Herat. 4. od. 8. v. 27. Epod. 16. Pliny 6 — 6. 
C. 31-2. 
S T 2 
