one investigates it; which has been brew-| was properly a reign of rigor; which would ing itself these "two years," and now, on become" terrible" enough if you infringed Good-Friday next," is to be burst out; the rules of it, but which was peaceable starting with the massacre of Dr. Francia otherwise, regular otherwise. Let this, and others, whatever it may close with!* amid the "running shriek," which will and Francia was not a man to be trifled with in should run its full length in such circumplots! He looked, watched, investigated, stances, be well kept in mind. till he got the exact extent, position, nature, and structure of this plot fully in his eye; and then-why, then he pounced on it like a glede-falcon, like a fierce condor, suddenly from the invisible blue; struck beak and claws into the very heart of it, tore it into small fragments, and consumed it on the spot. It is Francia's way! This was the last plot, though not the first plot, Francia ever heard of during his perpetual dictatorship.

It happened too, as Rengger tells us, in the same year, (1820, as we grope and gather,) that a visitation of locusts, as sometimes occurs, destroyed all the crops of Paraguay; and there was no prospect but of universal dearth or famine. The crops are done; eaten by locusts; the summer at an end! We have no foreign trade, or next to none, and never had almost any; what will become of Paraguay and its Guachos! In Guachos is no hope, It is, as we find, over these three or these no help: but in a Dionysius of the Guachos? two years, while the Fulgencio plot is get- Dictator Francia, led by occult French ting itself pounced upon and torn in pieces, sciences and natural sagacity, nay, driven that the reign of terror," properly so by necessity itself, peremptorily commands called, extends. Over these three or these the farmers throughout all Paraguay to two years only,-though the "running sow a certain portion of their lands anew; shriek" of it confuses all things to the end with or without hope, under penalties! of the chapter. It was in this stern period The result was a moderately good harvest that Francia executed above forty persons. still: the result was a discovery that two Not entirely inexplicable! "Par Dios, ye harvests were, every year, possible in Parashall not conspire against me; I will not guay; that agriculture, a rigorous Dictator allow it. The career of freedom, be it presiding over it, could be infinitely imknown to all men and Guachos, is not yet proved there.* As Paraguay has about begun in this country; I am still only cast- 100,000 square miles of territory mostly ing out the Seven Devils. My lease of fertile, and only some two souls planted on Paraguay, a harder one than your stupidi- each square mile thereof, it seemed to the ties suppose, is for life; the contract is, Dictator that this, and not foreign trade, Thou must die if thy lease be taken from might be a good course for his Paraguenos. thee. Aim not at my life, ye constitu- This accordingly, and not foreign trade, in tional Guachos,-or let it be a diviner man the present state of the political horizon, than Don Fulgencio the horse-subduer that was the course resolved on; the course does it. By heaven, if you aim at my life, persisted in, "with evident advantages," I will bid you have a care of your own!" says Rengger. Thus, one thing acting on He executed upwards of forty persons. another,-domestic plot, hanging on ArtiHow many he arrested, flogged, cross-gas's country from without; and locust questioned for he is an inexorable man! swarms with improvement of husbandry in If you are guilty, or suspected of guilt, it will go ill with you here. Francia's arrest, carried by a grenadier, arrives; you are in strait prison; you are in Francia's bodily presence; those sharp St. Dominic eyes, that diabolic intellect, prying into you, probing, cross-questioning you, till the secret cannot be hid: till the "three ball cartridges" are handed to a sentry ;-and your doom is Rhadamanthine!

the interior; and those guard-houses all already there, along the frontier,-Paraguay came more and more to be hermetically closed; and Francia reigned over it, for the rest of his life, as a rigorous Dionysius of Paraguay, without foreign intercourse, or with such only as seemed good to Francia.

How the Dictator, now secure in possession, did manage this huge Paraguay, which, by strange "insidious" and other means, had fallen in life-lease to him, and was his to do the best he could with, it were interesting to know. What the meaning of him, the result of him, actually was?

* Rengger, 67, &c.

One desiderates some Biography of Fran- flunkey promptitudes, with your grimaces, aducia by a native !-Meanwhile, in the "sh-lations, and sham-loyalty? You are so beautithetische Briefwechsel" of Herr Professor ful, a daily and hourly feast to the eye and soul? Sauerteig, a work not yet known in Eng- That the last created flunkey had vanished from Ye unfortunates, from his heart rises one prayer, land, nor treating specially of this subject, this universe, never to appear more! we find, scattered at distant intervals, a remark or two which may be worth translating. Professor Sauerteig, an open soul, looking with clear eye and large recog nizing heart over all accessible quarters of the world, has cast a sharp sun-glance here and there into Dr. Francia too. These few philosophical remarks of his, and then a few anecdotes gleaned elsewhere, such as the barren ground yields, must comprise what more we have to say of Francia.

'Pity," exclaims Sauerteig once, " that a nation cannot reform itself, as the English are now trying to do, by what their newspapers call 'tremendous cheers! Alas, it cannot be done. Reform is not joyous, but grievous; no single man can reform himself without stern suffering and stern working; how much less can a nation of men. The serpent sheds not his old skin without rusty disconsolateness; he is not happy, but miserable! In the Water-cure itself, do you not sit steeped for months; washed to the heart in elemental drenchings; and, like Job, are made to curse your day? Reforming of a nation is a terrible business! Thus, too, Medea, when she made men young again, was wont' (du Himmel!) to hew them in pieces with meat-axes; cast them into caldrons, and boil them for a length of time. How much handier could they but have done it by tremendous cheers'

alone !"

"And yet truly a man does tend, and must, under frightful penalties perpetually tend, to be king of his world; to stand in his world as what he is, a centre of light and order, not of darkness and confusion. A man loves power: yes, if he see disorder his eternal enemy rampant about him, he does love to see said enemy in the way of being conquered; he can have no rest till that come to pass! Your Mahomet cannot bear a rent cloak, but clouts it with his own hands; how much more a rent country, a rent world. He has to imprint the image of his own veracity upon the world, and shall, and must, and will do it, more or less: it is at his peril if he neglect any great or any small possibility he may have of this. Francia's inner flame is but a meagre, blue-burning one: let him irradiate midnight Paraguay with it, such as it is."

in getting her farms leased! Is it not a blessing "Nay, on the whole, how cunning is Nature this Paraguay can get the one veracious man it has, to take lease of it, in these sad circumstances? His farm profits, and whole wages, it would seem, amount only to what is called Nothing and find yourself! Spartan food and lodging, solitude, two cigars, and a cup of maté daily, he already had."

Truly, it would seem, as Sauerteig remarks, Dictator Francia had not a very joyous existence of it, in this his life-lease of Paraguay! Casting out of Seven Devils "Like a drop of surgical antiseptic liquid, from a Guacho population is not joyous at poured (by the benign Powers, as I fancy!) into all; both exorcist and exorcised find it sorboundless brutal corruptions; very sharp, very rowful! Meanwhile, it does appear, there caustic, corrosive enough, this tawny tyrannous was some improvement made: no veritable Dr. Francia, in the interior of the South Ameri- labor, not even a Dr. Francia's, is in vain. can continent,-he, too, is one of the elements of Of Francia's improvements there might the grand Phenomenon there. A monstrous as much be said as of his cruelties or moulting process taking place; monstrous, gluttonous boa-constrictor (he is of length from rigors; for, indeed, at bottom, the one was Panama to Patagonia) shedding his old skin; in proportion to the other. He improved whole continent getting itself chopped to pieces, agriculture-not two ears of corn where and boiled in the Medea caldron, to become one only grew, but two harvests of corn, young again, unable to manage it by 'tremen- as we have seen! He introduced schools, dous cheers' alone!" "boarding-schools," "elementary schools," and others, on which Rengger has a chapter; everywhere he promoted education, as he could; repressed superstition as he could.

"What they say about love of power' amounts to little. Power? Love of 'power' merely to make flunkies come and go for you is a 'love,' I should think, which enters only into Strict justice between man and the minds of persons in a very infantine state! man was enforced in his law-courts: he A grown man, like this Dr. Francia, who wants himself would accept no gift, not even a nothing as I am assured, but three cigars daily, trifle, in any case whatever. Rengger, on a cup of mate, and four ounces of butchers' meat packing up for departure, had left in his with brown bread: the whole world and its uni- hands, not from forgetfulness, a Print of ted flunkies, taking constant thought of the matter, can do nothing for him but that only. That Napoleon; worth some shillings in Europe, he already has, and has had always; why but invaluable in Paraguay, where Francia, should he, not being a minor, love flunkeypow- who admired this hero much, had hitherto er?' He loves to see you about him, with your seen no likeness of him but a Nürnberg

"Amid the convulsions of revolution," says the Reverend Manuel, "the Lord, looking down with pity on Paraguay, raised up Don Jose Gaspar Francia for its deliverance. And when, in the words of my text, the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered

them."

caricature. Francia sent an express after | fused loud litanying about "reign of ter-
Rengger, to ask what the value of the Print ror," and so forth, was not possibly of a
was. No value; M. Rengger could not rather long-eared nature?
sell Prints; it was much at his Excellency's
service. His Excellency straightway re-
turned it. An exact, decisive man! Pec-
ulation, idleness, ineffectuality, had to cease
in all the public offices of Paraguay. So
far as lay in Francia, no public and no pri-
vate man in Paraguay was allowed to slur
his work; all public and all private men, so
"What measures did not his Excellency de-
far as lay in Francia, were forced to do vise, what labors undergo, to preserve peace
their work or die! We might define him in the Republic at home, and place it in an atti-
as the born enemy of quacks; one who tude to command respect from abroad! His
has from Nature a heart-hatred of unve- first care was directed to obtain supplies of
To all that
racity in man or in thing, wheresoever arms, and to discipline soldiers.
would import arms he held out the inducement
he sees it. Of persons who do not
speak the truth, and do not act the of exemption from duty, and the permission to
truth, he has a kind of diabolic-divine im-export in return whatever produce they prefer-
red. An abundant supply of excellent arms
patience they had better disappear out was, by these means, obtained. I am lost in
of his neighborhood. Poor Francia; his wonder to think how this great man could at-
light was but a very sulphurous, meagre, tend to such a multiplicity of things! He ap-
blue-burning one; but he irradiated Para- plied himself to study of the military art; and,
guay with it (as our Professor says) the in a short time taught the exercise, and directed
military evolutions like the skilfullest veteran.
Often have I seen his Excellency go up to a re-
cruit, and show him by example how to take
aim at the target. Could any Paragueno think
it other than honorable to carry a musket when
his Dictator taught him how to manage it?
The cavalry-exercise too, though it seems to
require a man at once robust and experienced
in horsemanship, his Excellency as you know
did himself superintend; at the head of his
squadrons he charged and manœuvred, as if bred
to it; and directed them with an energy and
vigor which infused his own martial spirit into
these troops."

best he could.

That he had to maintain himself alive all the while, and would suffer no man to glance contradiction at him, but instantaneously repressed all such this too we need no ghost to tell us; this lay in the very nature of the case. His lease of Paraguay was a life-lease. He had his "three-ball cart ridges" ready for whatever man he found aiming at his life. He had frightful prisons. He had Tevego far up among the wastes, a kind of Paraguay Siberia, to which unruly persons, not yet got the length of shooting, were relegated. The main exiles, Rengger says, were drunken mulattoes and the class called unfortunate-females. They lived miserably there; became a sadder, and perhaps a wiser, body of mulattoes and unfortunate-females.

"What evils do not the people suffer from
highwaymen !" exclaims his Reverence, a little
farther on; "violence, plunder, murder, are
crimes familiar to these malefactors. The in-
accessible mountains and wide deserts in this
Republic seemed to offer impunity to such men.
Our Dictator succeeded in striking such a terror
into them that they entirely disappeared, seek-
His Excellency
ing safety in a change of life.
saw that the manner of inflicting the punish-
ment was more efficacious than even the punish-
ment itself; and on this principle he acted.
Whenever a robber could be seized, he was led
to the nearest guard-house (Guardia); a sum-
mary trial took place; and, straightway, so
soon as he had made confession, he was shot.
Ere long the
These means proved effectual.
Republic was in such security, that, we may
say, a child might have travelled from the Uru-
guay to the Parana without other protection
than the dread which the Supreme Dictator
had inspired."-This is saying something, your
Reverence!

But let us listen for a moment to the Reverend Manual Perez as he preaches, "in the Church of the Incarnation at Assumpcion, on the 20th of October, 1840," in a tone somewhat nasal, yet trustworthy withal. His Funeral Discourse, translated into a kind of English, presents itself still audible in the "Argentine News" of Buenos Ayres, No. 813. We select some passages; studying to abate the nasal tone a little; to reduce, if possible, the Argentine English under the law of grammar. It is the worst translation in the world, and does poor Manuel Perez one knows not what injustice. This Funeral Discourse has "much surprised" the Able Editor, it seems; has led him perhaps to ask, or be readier for asking, Whether all that con

"But what is all this compared to the demon of anarchy. Oh!" exclaims his simple Reverence, "Oh, my friends, would I had the talent to paint to you the miseries of a people that fall into anarchy! And was not our Republic on the very eve of this? Yes, brethren."—"It be

hoved his Excellency to be prompt; to smother the enemy in his cradle!" He did so. He seized the leaders; brought to summary trial, they were convicted of high treason against the country. What a struggle now, for his ExcelJency, between the law of duty, and the voice of feeling"-if feeling to any extent there were! "I" exclaims his Reverence, "am confident that had the doom of imprisonment on those persons seemed sufficient for the state's peace, his Excellency never would have ordered their execution." It was unavoidable; nor was it avoided; it was done! "Brethren, should not I hesitate, lest it be a profanation of the sacred place I now occupy, if I seem to approve sanguinary measures in opposition to the mildness of the Gospel? Brethren, no. God himself approved the conduct of Solomon in putting Joab and Adonijah to death." Life is sacred, thinks his Reverence, but there is something more sacred still: woe to him who does not know that withal!

Alas, your Reverence, Paraguay has not yet succeeded in abolishing capital punishment, then? But indeed neither has Nature, anywhere that I hear of, yet succeeded in abolishing it. Act with the due degree of perversity, you are sure enough of being violently put to death, in hospital or highway, by dyspepsia, delirium tremens, or stuck through by the kindled rage. of your fellow-men! What can the friend of humanity do?-Twaddle in Exeter-hall or elsewhere, "till he become a bore to us," and perhaps worse! An advocate in Arras once gave up a good judicial appointment, and retired into frugality and privacy, rather than doom one culprit to die by law. The name of this advocate, let us mark it well, was Maximilien Robespierre. There are sweet kinds of twaddle that have a deadly virulence of poison concealed in them; like the sweetness of sugar of lead. Were it not better to make just laws, think you, and then execute them strictly, as the gods still do?

"His Excellency next directed his attention to purging the state from another class of enemies," says Perez in the Incarnation Church; "the peculating tax-gatherers, namely, Vigilantly detecting their frauds, he made them refund for what was past, and took precautions against the like in future; all their accounts were to be handed in, for his examination, once every year."

scrupulously examining every piece of artizans' workmanship."

"Republic of Paraguay, how art thou indebted to the toils, the vigils, and cares of our Perpetual Dictator! It seemed as if this extraordinary man were endowed with ubiquity, to attend to all thy wants and exigences. Whilst in his closet, he was traversing thy frontiers to place thee in an attitude of security. What devastation did not those inroads of Indians from the Chaco occasion to the inhabitants of RioAbajo? Ever and anon there reached Assumpcion, tidings of the terror and affliction caused by their incursions. Which of us hoped that evils so wide-spread, ravages so appalling, could be counteracted? Our Dictator, nevertheless, did devise effectual ways of securing that part of the Republic.

"Four respectable fortresses with competent garrisons have been the impregnable barrier which has restrained the irruptions of those ferocious Savages. Inhabitants of Rio-Abajo! rest tranquil in your homes; you are a portion of the people whom the Lord confided to the care of our Dictator; you are safe." "The precautions and wise measures he adopted to repel force, and drive back the Savages to the north of the Republic; the fortresses of Climpo, of San Carlos de Apa, placed on the best footing for defence; the orders and instructions furnished to the Villa de la Concepcion.secured that quarter of the republic under attack

from all.

"The great wall, ditch, and fortress, on the opposite bank of the river Paraná; the force and judicious arrangement of the troops distributed over the interior in the south of our Republic, have commanded the respect of its enemies in that quarter."

"The beauty, the symmetry, and good taste vantageous idea of their inhabitants," continues displayed in the building of cities convey an adPerez: "Thus thought Caractacus, King of the Angles,"-thus think most persons! "His Excellency, glancing at the condition of the capital of the republic, saw a city in disorder and without police; streets without regularity, houses built according to the caprice of their owners."

But enough, O, Perez; for it becomes. too nasal! Perez, with a confident face, asks in fine, Whether all these things do not clearly prove to men and Guachos of sense, that Dictator Francia was "the deliverer whom the Lord raised up to deliver Paraguay from its enemies?"-Truly, O Perez, the benefits of him seem to have been considerable. Undoubtedly a man "sent by Heaven,"-as all of us are! Nay, "The habit of his Excellency when he deli- it may be, the benefit of him is not even vered out articles for the supply of the public; yet exhausted, even yet entirely become that prolix and minute counting of things appa- visible. Who knows but, in unborn centurently unworthy of his attention, had its origin ries, Paragueno men will look back to their in the same motive. I believe that he did so, lean iron Francia, as men do in such cases less from a want of confidence in the individuals lately appointed for this purpose, than from to the one veracious person, and institute a desire to show them with what delicacy they considerations! Oliver Cromwell, dead should proceed. Hence likewise his ways, in two hundred years, does yet speak; nay,

perhaps now first begins to speak. The cho-cloth, and other produce of the coun-
meaning and meanings of the one true try, all of first-rate quality, and with the
man, never so lean and limited, starting up
direct from Nature's heat, in this bewil-
dered Guacho world, gone far away from
Nature, are endless!

prices ticketed. These goods this aston-
ished Robertson is to carry to the "Bar of
the House of Commons," and there to say,
in such fashion and phraseology as a native
The Messrs. Robertson are very merry may know to be suitable: Mr. Speaker-
on this attempt of Francia's to rebuild on a Dr. Francia is Dictator of Paraguay, a
better plan the City of Assumpcion. The country of tropical fertility, and 100,000
City of Assumpcion, full of tropical vegeta- square miles in extent, producing these
tion and "permanent hedges, the deposits commodities, at these prices. With near-
of nuisance and vermin," has no pave-ly all foreign nations he declines altogeth-
ment, no straightness of streets; the sandy er to trade; but with the English, such is
thoroughfare in some quarters is torn by his notion of them, he is willing and desir-
the rain into gullies, impassable with con- ous to trade. These are his commodities,
venience to any animal but a kangaroo. in endless quantity; of this quality, at these
Francia, after meditation, decides on having prices. He wants arms, for his part.
it remodelled, paved, straightened,-irra- What say you, Mr. Speaker ?" Sure
diated with the image of the one regular enough, our Robertson arriving at the
man. Robertson laughs to see a Dictator, "Bar of the House of Commons" with
sovereign ruler, straddling about, "taking such a message, would have cut an origi-
observations with his theodolite," and so nal figure! Not to the "House of Com-
forth: O Robertson, if there was no other mons, was this message properly address-
man that could observe with a theodolite? ed; but to the English Nation; which
Nay, it seems further, the improvement of
Assumpcion was attended, once more, with
the dreadfullest tyrannies: peaceable citi-
zens dreaming no harm, no active harm to
any soul, but mere peaceable passive dirt
and irregularity to all souls, were ordered
to pull down their houses, which happened
to stand in the middle of streets; forced
(under rustle of the gallows) to draw their
purses, and rebuild them elsewhere! It is
horrible. Nay, they said, Francia's true
aim in these improvements, in this cutting
down of the luxuriant "cross hedges" and
architectural monstrosities, was merely to
save himself from being shot, from under
cover, as he rode through the place. It
may be so but Assumpcion is now an im-
proved paved city, much squarer in the
corners (and with the planned capacity, it
seems, of growing ever squarer†); passable
with convenience not to kangaroos only,
but to wooden bullock-carts and all vehi-
cles and animals.

Francia, idiot-like, supposed to be somehow
represented, and made accessible and ad-
dressable in the House of Commons. It
was a strange imbecility in any Dictator!
The Robertson, we find accordingly, did
not take this bale of goods to the bar of the
House of Commons; nay, what was far
worse, he did not, owing to accidents, go to
England at all, or bring any arms back to
Francia at all: hence, indeed, Francia's un-
reasonable detestation of him, hardly to be
restrained within the bounds of common
politeness! A man who said he would do,
and then did not do, was at no time a kind
of man admirable to Francia. Large sec-
tions of this "Reign of Terror" are a sort
of unmusical sonata, or free duet with varia-
tions, to this text: "How unadmirable a
hide-merchant that does not keep his
word!"-"How censurable, not to say ri-
diculous and imbecile, the want of common
politeness in a Dictator!"

Francia was a man that liked performance: and sham performance, in Paraguay as elsewhere, was a thing too universal. What a time of it had this strict man with unreal performers, imaginary workmen, public and private, cleric and laic! Ye Guachos-it is no child's play, casting out those Seven Devils from you!

Monastic or other entirely slumberous church-establishments could expect no great favor from Francia. Such of them as seemed incurable, entirely slumberous, he, somewhat roughly, shook awake, somewhat sternly ordered to begone. Debout, canaille fainéante, as his prophet Raynal