80 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



nambuco was plundered, and sortie time after an ele- 

 phant was kept there. 



Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night, 

 smote and swept away the sciences ; to which succeeded 

 the low vulgar buffoonery of a showman. Virgil and 

 Cicero made way for a wild beast from Angola ! and 

 now a guard is on duty at the very gate where, in times 

 long past, the poor were daily fed ! ! ! 



Trust not, kind reader, to the envious remarks which 

 their enemies have scattered far and near ; believe not 

 the stories of those who have had a hand in the sad 

 tragedy. Go to Brazil, and see with thine own eyes 

 the effect of Pombal's short-sighted policy. There vice 

 reigns triumphant, and learning is at its lowest ebb. 

 Neither is this to be wondered at. Destroy the com- 

 pass, and will the vessel find her far distant port ? 

 Will the flock keep together, and escape the wolves, 

 after the shepherds are all slain ? The Brazilians were 

 told, that public education would go on just as usual. 

 They might have asked Government, who so able to 

 instruct our youth, as those whose knowledge is prover- 

 bial 1 who so fit, as those who enjoy our entire confidence? 

 who so worthy, as those whose lives are irreproachable 1 



They soon found that those who succeeded the fathers 

 of the Society of Jesus, had neither their manner nor 

 their abilities. They had not made the instruction of 

 youth their particular study. Moreover, they entered 

 on the field after a defeat, where the officers had all 

 been slain ; where the plan of the campaign was lost ; 

 where all was in sorrow and dismay. ISTo exertions of 

 theirs could rally the dispersed, or skill prevent the 

 fatal consequences. At the present day, the seminary 

 of Olinda, in comparison with the former Jesuits' 



