BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS. 



177 



which unfortunately intervenes. On this head, an eloquent 

 Peruvian writer, Father Torrejon, has observed : " They 

 spring up as near to the sun which illumines, as they are re- 

 mote from the one which commands ; and the distance either 

 denies them its influence, or it is weakened by the obliquity of 

 the rays. It is for this reason that many plants, which, if fa- 

 voured by a greater proximity, would be as loftily elevated, 

 as majestically crowned, are now condemned to wither and 

 decay." 



We forbear to record the very flattering encomiums which 

 foreign writers have bestowed on the academy of St. Mark, 

 and on the genius of the natives of Peru. Laying aside, 

 therefore, every spirit of party, and of national pride, we shall 

 conclude with the words of Fadrique Turio Ceriol, in his work 

 on the education of a prince : Each country has its virtues 

 and its vices. It has its good and bad men ; its learned and 

 unlearned ; its acute and torpid ; its skilful and unskilful ; its 

 loyal and disloyal." 



BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS. 



On tracing the moral system of Peru, down to the epoch 

 of the conquest, it will be found that those who made the ear- 

 liest settlements, amid the horrors of war, the attractions of 

 riches, and the bad example of a few dissolute adventurers by 



the country where they know it is to be had, applying it to their own purposes, 

 even when the proprietors are present, and still more so when at the great distance 

 of the Indies. The manuscripts are thrown aside as waste paper, and the wretched 

 authors consigned to oblivion." 



A a whom 



