the edifice of the academy, or rather in one of the courts which belong to it. It would be curious to see these monuments of the first cultivation of our species, the works of a semibarbarous people inhabiting the Mexican Andes, placed beside the beautiful forms produced under the sky of Greece and Italy. The revenues of the Academy of Fine Arts at Mexico amount to 125,000 francs *, of which the government gives 60,000, the body of Mexican miners nearly 25,000, the consulado, or association of merchants of the capital, more than 1500. It is impossible not to perceive the influence of this establishment on the taste of the nation. This influence is particularly visible in the symmetry of the buildings, in the perfection with which the hewing of stone is conducted, and in the ornaments of the capitals and stucco relievos. What a number of beautiful edifices are to be seen at Mexico! nay, even in provincial towns like Guanaxato and Queretaro! These monuments, which frequently cost a million and a million and a half of fiancs t, would appear to advantage in the finest streets of Paris, Berlin, and Petersburg. M. Tolsa, professor of sculpture at Mexico, was even able to cast an equestrian statue of King Charles the Fourth; a work which, with the exception of the Marcus * 52087. sterling. Trans. Aurelius at Rome, surpasses in beauty and purity of stile every thing which remains in this way in Europe. Instruction is communicated gratis at the Academy of Fine Arts. It is not confined alone to the drawing of landscapes and figures; they have had the good sense to employ other means for exciting the national industry. The academy labours successfully to introduce among the artisans a taste for elegance and beautiful forms. Large rooms, well lighted by Argand's lamps, contain every evening some hundreds of young people, of whom some draw from relicvo or living models, while others copy drawings of furniture, chandeliers, or other ornaments in bronze. In this assemblage (and this is very remarkable in the midst of a country where the prejudices of the nobility against the casts are so inveterate) rank, colour, and race is confounded: we see the Indian and the Mestizo sitting beside the white, and the son of a poor artisan in emulation with the children of the great lords of the country. It is a consolation to observe, that under every zone the cultivation of science and art establishes a certain equality among men, and obliterates for a time, at least, all those petty passions of which the effects are so prejudicial to social happiness. Since the close of the reign of Charles the Third, and under that of Charles the Fourth, the study of the physical sciences has made great progress, not only in Mexico, but in general in all the Spanish colonies. No European government has sacrificed greater sums to advance the knowledge of the vegetable kingdom than the Spanish government. Three botanical expeditions, in Peru, New Grenada, and New Spain, under the direction of MM. Ruiz and Pavon, Don Jose Celestino Mutis, and MM. Sesse and Mociño, have cost the state nearly two millions of francs *. Moreover, botanical gardens have been established at Manilla and the Canary islands. The commission destined to draw plans of the canal of los Guines was also appointed to examine the vegetable productions of the island of Cuba. All these researches, conducted during twenty years in the most fertile regions of the new continent, have not only enriched science with more than four thousand new species of plants, but have also contributed much to diffuse a taste for natural history among the inhabitants of the country. The city of Mexico exhibits a very interesting botanical garden within the very precincts of the viceroy's palace. Professor Cervantes gives annual courses there, which are very well attended. This savant possesses, besides his herbals, a rich collection of Mexican minerals. M. Mociño, whom we just now mentioned as one of the coadjutors of M. Sesse, and who has pushed his laborious excursions from the kingdom of Guatimala to the north-west coast or island of * 83,3407. sterling. Trans. Vancouver and Quadra; and M. Echeveria, a painter of plants and animals, whose works will bear a comparison with the most perfect productions of the kind in Europe, are both of them natives of New Spain. They had both attained a distinguished rank among savans and artists before quitting their country*. The principles of the new chemistry, which is known in the Spanish colonies by the equivocal appellation of new philosophy (nueva filosofia), are more diffused in Mexico than in many parts of the peninsula. A European traveller cannot undoubtedly but be surprised to meet in the interior of the country, on the very borders of California, with young Mexicans who reason on the decomposition of water in the process of amalgamation. with free air. The School of Mines possesses a chemical laboratory; a geological collection, arranged according to the system of Werner; a physical cabinet, in which we not only find the valuable instruments of Ramsden, Adams, Le Noir, *The public is only yet put in possession of the discoveries of the botanical expedition of Peru and Chili. The great herbals of M. Sesse, and the immense collection of drawings of Mexican plants executed under his eye, arrived at Madrid in 1803. The publication of both the Flora of New Spain and the Flora of Santa Fe de Bogota is expected with impatience. The latter is the fruit of 40 years researches and observations by the celebrated Mutis, one of the greatest botanists of the age. and Louis Berthoud, but also models executed in the capital even, with the greatest precision, and from the finest wood in the country. The best mineralogical work in the Spanish language was printed at Mexico, I mean the Manual of Oryctognosy, composed by M. del Rio, according to the principles of the school of Freyberg, in which the author was formed. The first Spanish translation of Lavater's Elements of Chemistry was also published at Mexico. I cite these insulated facts because they give us the measure of the ardour with which the exact sciences are begun to be studied in the capital of New Spain. This ardour is much greater than that with which they addict themselves to the study of languages and ancient li terature*. *This is as much as to say that taste is rather at a low ebb among them, and that imagination is in a somewhat similar state; for wherever taste and imagination flourish an admiration for the ancients is seen to prevail. The observation of Humboldt may perhaps receive a much more extensive application; and it may peculiarly be applied to the whole of America. I have seen it asserted that there are whole states in the union where a classical seminary of any kind is not to be found. It would be rash to say that the faculties of men transplanted to America gradually assimilate to those of the aborigines, who are stated by M. Humboldt to be destitute of taste, but excellently adapted for science. Should we not rather say that every age has its favourite study, which it cultivates almost to the neglect of every other? At one time it is all commenting and comparing manuscripts: "And A's deposed and B with pomp restored:" |