322 BENGAZI.

doubtless, were drawn those brilliant pictures of the Hesperian gardens, 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.