TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



149 



a colonial administration of two hundred years' 

 standing, for him already to apply with the same 

 energy that distinguishes the European, to the se- 

 rious occupations of industry, arts, and science, 

 which consolidate the happiness, and the internal 

 strength of a kingdom. Hitherto it is a taste for 

 convenience, luxury, and the external charms of 

 social life, which rapidly spreads here, rather than 

 that for arts and sciences, in the proper sense of 

 the term. While the progress of the latter has, in 

 northern countries, been followed by the refinement 

 of the enjoyments of life, the south, on the contra- 

 ry, proceeds from the development of the pleasures 

 of sense, and of external life, to the improvement of 

 arts and science. Let us, therefore, not yet expect 

 in the young capital those great influential establish- 

 ments for the education and instruction of the peo- 

 ple, which we are accustomed to see in Europe. 



The library, said to contain seventy thousand 

 volumes, which the king brought from Portugal, 

 for the capital of Brazil, is arranged in the edifice 

 belonging to the Ter9eiros da Ordem do Carmo. 

 The branches of history and jurisprudence are said 

 to be the richest. We were particularly interested 

 by a manuscript of a Flora Fluminen sis, that is, of 

 the Rio de Janeiro, which contains descriptions and 

 beautiful drawings of many rare or unknown plants 

 growing in the vicinity, and written by one Velloso. 

 The public have free admission during the greater 

 part of the day ; but the want of literary occupatiorxr 



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