"and who was killed by Orus, in Egypt, offer still new "traces of the filiation, which subsisted between the "fables of Libya and Mauritania, and those of Egypt, "(whence they were derived to Greece,) respecting "both Hercules and Typhon."- After all, the fable, among the Greeks, of the garden of the Hesperides, may have had a very simple origin, and been derived merely from the fertility of the country, contiguous to the place, where these famous gardens are supposed to have been situated. The province of Cyrenaica, now Kairoän or Kurin, was the most elevated part in the tract of the Nomades, and wonderfully fertile. It contained the first Grecian colony, established in Africa. And how interesting it was, to the Greeks, may be seen, by the detailed history of the establishment, progress, and subjection of it, given by Herodotus (in Melpomene, 145, et seq.) It is not extraordinary, then, that these bowers of delight, wealth, and abundance, should have been placed, by the partial fables of sanguine imagination, in or near this happy region, which appeared to greater advantage, on account of the sterility of some adjacent tracts. There has been some variety among writers, respecting the particular site of the gardens of the Hesperides. -Some place them, where the city of Larach, in the kingdom of Fez, now stands; others, at Bernich, a city of Barca, which tallies better with the fable; others take the province of Susa, in Morocco, for the island wherein the garden was seated.Rudbeck, who has many wild fancies, places the fortunate islands, and the gardens of the Hesperides, in Sweden; which is not surprising, since some learned members would place the garden of Eden in Siberia. Major Rennell, in his excellent work, says" The gardens or orchards of the Hesperides, and the history "belonging "belonging to them, are too well known to be repeated "here. It is, however, satisfactory to know, that the "ancients fixed on a spot that is appropriate, since "there is, at present, a wood there, according to the "testimony of Edrisi: and it being near the sea, on "the one hand, and on the edge of the desert of Baṛca, "on the other, a wood could hardly have been ex"pected, in that situation. "Strabo places the lake of Tritonis, which, he says, "is the same with that of the Hesperides, and which "receives the river Ladon, at Berenice. The lake con❝tained an island, in which was a temple of Kenus. Pliny, also, places these groves and gardens at Bere"nice, at the end of the Syrtis: (Lib. V. ca. 5.) and Solinus places it, in like manner.—Strabo is, however, 66 wrong, in placing the lake Tritonis at the greater "Syrtis, which ought to be at the lesser one. "The Tritonian lake of Lucan, was also at, or near, "the gardens of the Hesperides; but, it may be a doubt, "whether he did not confound it with the lake Tritonis, at the lesser Syrtis.grapher. He was a very bad geo "Bernice is doubtless the same with the ancient Be"renice. It appears from Edrisi, that there is, at pre"sent, a wood, at four miles from the sea, in the plain “of Bernice, at about forty German miles to the south"west of Barca. From his mentioning the wood, a "practice not common with him, one may conclude, "that it had something remarkable about it, or that "trees were not common on that coast. 66 Scylax says, that the gardens or orchards of the "Hesperides, are situated, at 620 stadii, say fifty Ger 66 man miles, from the port of Barca, which is, itself, "five hundred stadii, or about forty German miles, from "the port of Cyrene.. This agrees precisely to Bernice. "He allows no more than two stadii for the length and "breadth of the garden, which formed a square. He "gives a catalogue of the trees in it, which stood so thick, as to entwine with each other; and it is worthy of remark, that the lotus was among them.", Thus far Major Rennell. After all, perhaps, it may be a vain attempt, and a mere waste of labour, to endeavour to give a real definite existence, and assign a local habitation, to what may never have existed, except in the exaggeration of travellers, or the agreeable fictions of poetry; devised to illustrate the extraordinary fertility of that pastoral region. We know what extraordinary fictions were circulated, by the first travellers, who visited America, respecting the wealth of Guiana and El Dorado: and, it is not to be supposed, that ancient voyagers held their invention by stricter reins, than those of modern times. We may, perhaps, be nearest the truth, by supposing, with Dupuis, that the whole story is of Egyptian or Ethiopic origin; since, we know, that the early bards. and philosophers of Greece, visited those regions, and imported thence their theology, and other learning.The fable of the Hesperides, therefore, might have been of Egyptian origin, and had, originally, some mystic and allegorical meaning. It might have been equally destitute, of historical and geographical reality, with that long and circumstantial description, of the vast and fortunate island of Atlantica, which is given by Plato, as he tells us, from the writings of the Egyptians, (see Critias,) which, though extremely minute and circumstantial, is, certainly, wholly a romance, either invented, by Plato himself, or borrowed, as he says, from the Egyptians. And, undoubtedly, there seems to be some affinity between this fable, of the island Atlantica, of Plato, and those which were more generally received, and and popular, concerning the Hesperides, and their garden-their fruit and flocks.-The name of Atlantica, evidently, is derived from Atlas, who was, by all accounts, most nearly allied to the Hesperides. It was situated on the coast of Lybia, near the region assigned as the residence of the Hesperian nymphs; from whence it was supposed to extend, a vast way, towards the coasts of Spain.-It was governed by a race of kings, descended from Atlas-it was blessed with a transcendent degree of salubrity and fertility. In all these particulars, we find a considerable correspondence, between the fable of the poetical philosopher, and those accounts, which poets, by profession, have given us, of the Hesperides. * Plato, Ficini Lugd. 1590, p. 561, B. THE END. DUBLIN: PRINTED BY GRAISBERRY AND CAMPBELL, FOR THE AUTHOR. |