7.The garden of Alcinous, the Phï¾µacian king, was said to be situated in an island of that name, by some considered Corfu, in the Ionian sea, and by others an Asiatic island. It is minutely described by Homer in the Odyssey, and may be compared to the garden of an ordinary farm-house in point of extent and form; though in respect to the variety of fruits, vegetables, and flowers cultivated, it was far inferior. It is said to have embraced the front of the palace; to have contained something less than four acres, surrounded by a hedge, (the first, as Harte remarks, which we read of in history, ) and to have been interspersed with three or four sorts of fruit trees, some beds of culinary vegetables, and some borders of flowers; it contained two fountains or wells, the one for the use of the garden, and the other for the palace.
