Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/49

Rh world we are about to sketch, would be obscured by the imperfect descriptions of our pen, if it had not been illustrated by the divinest poet of the age, to whose sublime genius the task was reserved.

Felices nimium populi, queis prodiga tellus Fundit opes ad vota suas, queis contigit Æstas< Æmula veris, Hyems sine fiigore, nubibus aer Usque carens, nulloque solum fcecundius imbre.

Certain philosophers have undertaken to erect to Nature a temple worthy of her immensity—a temple in which, her productions being deposited, the skeletons of all organized beings should be collected in the centre; and that over this tomb of corpses death should hover, to give life and vigour to art. Peru is her august temple, in which, without the necessity of the