treatises in French; he loved to 'interrogate Nature,' as they say; to possess theodolites, telescopes, star-glasses,-any kind of glass or book, or gazing implement whatever, through which he might try to catch a glimpse of Fact in this strange Universe poor Francia! Nay, it is said, his hard heart was not without inflammability; was sensible to those Andalusian eyes still bright in the tenth or twelfth generation. In such case too, it may have burnt, one would think, like anthracite, in a somewhat ardent manner. Rumours to this effect are afloat; not at once incredible. Pity there had not been some Andalusian pair of eyes, with speculation, depth and soul enough in the rear of them to fetter Dr. Francia permanently, and make a house-father of him. It had been better; but it befell not. As for that light-headed, smart brown girl whom, twenty years afterwards, you saw selling flowers on the streets of Assumpcion, and leading a light life, is there any certainty that she was Dr. Francia's daughter? Any certainty that, even if so, he could and should have done something considerable for her ?9 Poor Francia; poor light-headed, smart brown girl,—this present Reviewer cannot say !

Francia is a somewhat lonesome, downlooking man, apt to be solitary even in the press of men; wears a face not unvisited by laughter, yet tending habitually towards the sorrowful, the stern. He passes everywhere for a man of veracity, punctuality, of iron methodic rigour; of iron rectitude, above all. 'The skilful lawyer,' 'the learned lawyer,' these are reputations; but the 'honest lawyer'! This Law-case was reported by the Robertsons before they thought of writing a Francia's Reign of Terror, with that running shriek, which so confuses us. We love to believe the anecdote, even in its present loose state, as significant of many things in Francia:

'It has been already observed that Francia's reputation, as a lawyer, was not only unsullied by venality, but conspicuous for rectitude.

'He had a friend in Assumpcion of the name of Domingo Rodriguez. This man had cast a covetous eye upon a Naboth's vineyard, and this Naboth, of whom Francia was the open enemy, was called Estanislao Machain. Never doubting that the young Doctor, like other lawyers, would undertake his unrighteous cause, Rodriguez opened to him his case, and requested, with a handsome retainer, his advocacy of it.

• Robertson.

Francia saw at once that his friend's pretensions were founded in fraud and injustice; and he not only refused to act as his counsel, but plainly told him that much as he hated his antagonist Machain, yet if he (Rodriguez) persisted in his iniquitous suit, that antagonist should have his (Francia's) most zealous support. But covetousness, as Ahab's story shows us, is not so easily driven from its pretensions; and in spite of Francia's warning, Rodriguez persisted. As he was a potent man in point of fortune, all was going against Machain and his devoted vineyard.

'At this stage of the question, Francia wrapped himself one night in his cloak, and walked to the house of his inveterate enemy, Machain. The slave who opened the door, knowing that his Master and the Doctor, like the houses of Montagu and Capulet, were smoke in each other's eyes, refused the lawyer admittance, and ran to inform his master of the strange and unexpected visit. Machain, no less struck by the circumstance than his slave, for some time hesitated; but at length determined to admit Francia. In walked the silent Doctor to Machain's chamber. All the papers connected with the law-pleavoluminous enough I have been assured-were outspread upon the defendant's escritoire.

666

Machain," said the Lawyer, addressing him, "you know I am your enemy. But I know that my friend Rodriguez meditates, and will certainly, unless I interfere, carry against you an act of gross and lawless aggression; I have come to offer my services in your defence."

'The astonished Machain could scarcely credit his senses; but poured forth the ebullition of his gratitude in terms of thankful acquiescence.

'The first "escrito," or writing, sent-in by Francia to the Juez de Alzada, or Judge of the Court of Appeal, confounded the adverse advocates, and staggered the judge, who was in their interest. "My friend," said the judge to the leading counsel, "I cannot go forward in this matter unless you bribe Dr. Francia to be silent." "I will try," replied the advocate; and he went to Naboth's counsel with a hundred doubloons (about three-hundred-and-fifty guineas), which he offered him as a bribe to let the cause take its iniquitous course. Considering too, that his best introduction would be a hint that this douceur was offered with the judge's concurrence, the knavish lawyer hinted to the upright one that such was the fact.

666

Salga Usted," said Francia, "con sus viles pensamientos y vilisimo oro de mi casa! Out, with your vile insinuations, and dross of gold, from my house!"

'Off marched the venal drudge of the unjust judge; and in a moment putting on his capote, the offended Advocate went to the residence of the Juez de Alzada. Shortly relating what had passed between himself and the myrmidon,- "Sir," continued Francia, "you are a disgrace to law, and a blot upon justice. You are, moreover, completely

in my power; and unless to-morrow I have a decision in favour of my client, I will make your seat upon the bench too hot for you, and the insignia of your judicial office shall become the emblems of your shame.

'The morrow did bring a decision in favour of Francia's client. Naboth retained his vineyard; the judge lost his reputation; and the young Doctor's fame extended far and wide.'

On the other hand, it is admitted that he quarrelled with his Father, in those days; and, as is reported, never spoke to him more. The subject of the quarrel is vaguely supposed to have been 'money matters.' Francia is not accused of avarice; nay is expressly acquitted of loving money, even by Rengger. But he did hate injustice;—and probably was not indisposed to allow himself, among others, 'the height of fair play'! A rigorous, correct man, that will have a spade be a spade; a man of much learning in Creole Law, and occult French Sciences, of great talent, energy, fidelity :—a man of some temper withal; unhappily subject to private 'hypochondria;' black private thunder-clouds, whence probably the origin of these lightnings, when you poke into him! He leads a lonesome self-secluded life; 'interrogating Nature' through mere star-glasses, and AbbéRaynal philosophies,—who in that way will yield no very exuberant response. Mere law-papers, advocate-fees, civic officialities, renowns, and the wonder of Assumpcion Gauchos ;-not so much as a pair of Andalusian eyes that can lasso him, except in a temporary way: this man seems to have got but a lean lease of Nature, and may end in a rather shrunk condition! A century ago, with this atrabiliar earnestness of his, and such a reverberatory furnace of passions, inquiries, unspeakabilities burning in him, deep under cover, he might have made an excellent Monk of St. Dominic, fit almost for canonisation; nay, an excellent Superior of the Jesuits, Grand Inquisitor, or the like, had you developed him in that way. But, for all this, he is now a day too late. Monks of St. Dominic that might have been, do now, instead of devotional raptures and miraculous suspensions in prayer, produce-brown accidental female infants, to sell flowers, in an indigent state, on the streets of Assumpcion! It is grown really a most barren time; and this Francia with his grim unspeakabilities, with his fiery splenetic humours, kept close under lock-and-key, what has he to look

for in it? A post on the Bench, in the municipal Cabildo,— nay he has already a post in the Cabildo; he has already been Alcalde, Lord-Mayor of Assumpcion, and ridden in such giltcoach as they had. He can look for little, one would say, but barren moneys, barren Gaucho world-celebrities; Abbé-Raynal philosophisms also very barren; wholly a barren life-voyage of it, ending—in zero, thinks the Abbé Raynal?

But no; the world wags not that way in those days. Far over the waters there have been Federations of the Champ-deMars guillotines, portable-guillotines, and a French People. risen against Tyrants; there has been a Sansculottism, speaking at last in cannon-volleys and the crash of towns and nations over half the world. Sleek Fatpauncho Usandwonto, sleek aristocratic Donothingism, sunk as in death-sleep in its wellstuffed easy-chair, or staggering in somnambulism on the housetops, seemed to itself to hear a voice say, Sleep no more, Donothingism; Donothingism doth murder sleep! It was indeed a terrible explosion, that of Sansculottism; cominingling very Tartarus with the old-established stars ;-fit, such a tumult was it, to awaken all but the dead. And out of it there had come Napoleonisms, Tamerlanisms; and then as a branch of these, • Conventions of Aranjuez,' soon followed by 'Spanish Juntas,' 'Spanish Cortes;' and, on the whole, a smiting broad awake of poor old Spain itself, much to its amazement. And naturally of New Spain next,-to its double amazement, seeing itself awake! And so, in the new Hemisphere too, arise wild projects, angry arguings; arise armed gatherings in Santa Marguerita Island, with Bolivars and invasions of Cumana; revolts of La Plata, revolts of this and then of that; the subterranean electric element, shock on shock, shaking and exploding, in the new Hemisphere too, from sea to sea. Very astonishing to witness, from the year 1810 and onwards. Had Rodriguez Francia three ears, he would hear; as many eyes as Argus, he would gaze! He is all eye, he is all ear. A new, entirely different figure of existence is cut-out for Doctor Rodriguez.

The Paraguay People as a body, lying far inland, with little speculation in their heads, were in no haste to adopt the new republican gospel; but looked first how it would succeed in shaping itself into facts. Buenos-Ayres, Tucuman, most of the

La Plata Provinces had made their revolutions, brought in the reign of liberty, and unluckily driven out the reign of law and regularity; before the Paraguenos could resolve on such an enterprise. Perhaps they are afraid? General Belgrano, with a force of a thousand men, missioned by Buenos-Ayres, came up the river to countenance them, in the end of 1810; but was met on their frontier in array of war; was attacked, or at least was terrified, in the night-watches, so that his men all fled;— and on the morrow, poor General Belgrano found himself not a countenancer, but one needing countenance; and was in a polite way sent down the river again!10 Not till a year after did the Paraguenos, by spontaneous movement, resolve on a career of freedom;-resolve on getting some kind of Congress assembled, and the old Government sent its ways. Francia, it is presumable, was active at once in exciting and restraining them the fruit was now drop-ripe, we may say, and fell by a shake. Our old royal Governor went aside, worthy man, with some slight grimace, when ordered to do so; National Congress introduced itself; secretaries read papers, 'compiled chiefly out of Rollin's Ancient History;' and we became a Republic with Don Fulgencio Yegros, one of the richest Gauchos and best horseman of the province, for President, and two Assessors with him, called also Vocales, or Vowels, whose names escape us; Francia, as Secretary, being naturally the Consonant, or motive soul of the combination. This, as we grope out the date, was in 1811. The Paraguay Congress, having completed this constitution, went home again to its field-labours, hoping a good issue.

Feebler light hardly ever dawned for the historical mind, than this which is shed for us by Rengger, Robertsons and Company, on the birth, the cradling, baptismal processes and early fortunes of the new Paraguay Republic. Through long vague, and indeed intrinsically vacant pages of their Books, it lies gray, undecipherable, without form and void. Francia was Secretary, and a Republic did take place: this, as one small clear-burning fact, shedding far a comfortable visibility, conceivability, over the universal darkness, and making it into conceivable dusk with one rushlight fact in the centre of it,this we do know; and, cheerfully yielding to necessity, decide

10 Rengger.