DECLINE OF PANAMA. 



155 



become greater than ever : but such greatness 

 must now be shared with many competitors ; and 

 its pre-eminence can never be acknowledged 

 again ; because the policy by which it was ag- 

 grandized at the expence of other cities cannot 

 by any possibility be revived. If ever Panama 

 recover its former wealth, it must be by fair and 

 active competition, and she may then, without in- 

 justice as heretofore, indulge in that luxurious 

 and tasteful splendour which displays itself in 

 fine public edifices, and of which there remain 

 more genuine traces here than even in Lima, 

 the city of the kings,*" with all its tinsel and 

 pretension. 



The finest ruin at Panama is that of the Je- 

 suits' College, a large and beautiful edifice, which 

 liowever was never finished ; yet the melancholy 

 interest which it inspires is rather augmented 

 than diminished by that circumstance ; for it re- 

 minds us not only of the destruction of the great 

 order which founded it, but also of the total decay 

 of Spanish taste and wealth, which accompanied 

 that event. The college is a large quadrangu- 

 lar building, which had been carried to the 



