H o m e ks Life and Writings.
89
' and high Living ; was remarkable for its Fer- Sect. ' tility, and distinguished (quodamfertili acpecuXI. ' liari Nitore) by a peculiar Air of Plenty and ' r~~J
- Splendour: This it possessed long before it
was known by the Romans ; insomuch that the Ease and Affluence of the Princes of Tarjhifh or Tartejfus had passed into a Proverb in the Time of Anacreon My Wijh, were Wipes to be got, Is not for Cornucopia'* Store ; Nor o'er Tartessus be my Lot, To reign a hundred Tears or more. Where the Poet probably alludes to Arganthonius, King of Tartejsus, who entertained the Phocean Merchants, and is said to have lived CXX, or CL, or, as others say, CLXXX, and the Poets, CCC Years. Th e Author of the Life of Obregon gives, from his own Experience, a lively Picture of the Affluence and Beauty of this delicious Land. c The fruitful Plains of Andaluzia, says he, so
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Ibld. (b) 276. is)
267 (^)
celebrated by the Ancients as theELYsiAN 276Fields, and the Place of Rest of happy Souls departed—I viewed this Spot of Earth, than which, either for Fertility of Soil, or Benignity of the Climate, or Beauty of Land and Water, I never saw finer in Europe : So great was the Pleasure which the Sight of it gave me, and such was the Fragrancy which
' im-