1832.J C 17 ] 



DR. FRANCIA, THE DICTATOR OF PARAGUAY. 



L'etat c'est moi.NAPOLEON. 



IT has been well remarked by a philosophical historian of our own 

 island, that our estimate of personal merit is relative to the common 

 faculties of mankind. The aspiring efforts of genius and virtue, either 

 in active or speculative life, are measured not so much by their real ele- 

 vation, as by the height to which they ascend above the level of their 

 age and country. 



Of the various distinguished characters whom the South American 

 revolution has dragged forth from the bosom of obscurity, to enact a 

 splendid part in the great drama of their country's independence, none 

 so appositely illustrates the profound observation of Gibbon as the sub- 

 ject of this paper Dr. Jose Gaspard Rodriguez de Francia, the present 

 ruler of Paraguay. 



While the attention of the European world has been fixed with con- 

 centrated gaze on the splendid deeds of a Bolivar on the melancholy 

 fate of an Iturbide or, more recently, on the contemptible career of a 

 Pedro it has remained in singular ignorance of the history of this extra- 

 ordinary man. The faint glimmerings of light that have, from time to 

 time, broken through the impenetrable veil of more than Chinese policy 

 with which he has enshrouded his empire, have been treated as the 

 amplifications of travellers, or the wild fictions of romance. The scepticism 

 of Europe, however, ought not to excite surprise, when we consider 

 that, in South America itself in those countries even situated on the 

 very threshold of his dominions the most contradictory and conflicting 

 notions are entertained relative to this mysterious personage. By some 

 he is looked upon as a philosopher, who, anxious to guard his fellow 

 countrymen from the miseries of revolution, and to introduce civilization 

 among them, had resolved on this system of isolation as the only effectual 

 means of preserving them from the civil war to which all the neighbour- 

 ing states have been successively a prey : others, again, regarded him 

 as an usurper, whose object was to aggrandize himself by the ruin of his 

 country : a third party, remembering the revival of the order of Loyola 

 in Europe the name of which is so intimately connected with that of 

 Paraguay thought that they discovered in Francia an agent of the 

 Jesuits ; while the enemies of South American independence were 

 pleased at the prospect of finding in the dictator a supporter of the fallen 

 power, and a vindicator of its disasters. At one time he was holding the 

 government in the name of the queen-dowager of Portugal ; and, at 

 another, negotiating with Don Pedro, with a view to the coalition of 

 Paraguay with Brazils. In fact, the days of Prester John and the Old 

 Man of the Mountain were revived again in South America. 



Amid this host of fabulous and contradictory reports, the work of 

 MM. Reugger and Lonchainp appeared. They are the first Europeans 

 who have revealed the secrets of this mysterious country, described the 

 actual condition of this new China, and lifted the veil that has so long 

 enshrouded the modern Dionysius. Confined for several years within 

 the lair of the dictator, they had ample opportunities of studying the 



M.M. New Scries. VOL. XIII. No. 73. C 



