Several of them were accordingly in attendance when he came. These were persons whose sentiments were well known to be friendly to the cause of liberty, who had suffered by the hands, or were pursued by the suspicions of Zamano, and who, it was naturally supposed, would be eagerly alive to every opportunity of shaking off the rule of the oppressor. But patriotism, as a philosophic sentiment, to be indulged after a good dinner, and discussed phlegmatically, if not classically, over sherry and cigars, is a very different sort of thing from patriotism as a principle of action, to be prosecuted as a duty, at every peril, instantly and always, to the death, if need be. Our patriots at Bogota were but too frequently of the contemplative, the philosophical order. Patriotism with them was rather a subject for eloquence than use. They could recall those Utopian histories of Greece and Rome which furnish us with ideals rather than facts, and sigh for names like those of Cato, and Brutus, and Aristides. But more than this did not seem to enter their imaginations as at all necessary to assert the character which it pleased them to profess, or maintain the reputation which they had prospectively acquired for the very commendable virtue which constituted their ordinary theme. Bolivar found them cold. Accustomed to overthrow and usurpation, they were now slow to venture property and life upon the predictions and promises of one who, however perfect in their estimation as a patriot, had yet suffered from most capricious fortunes. His past history, indeed, except for its patriotism, offered but very doubtful guarantees in favor of the enterprise to which they were invoked. Bolivar was artful and ingenious. He had considerable powers of eloquence--was specious and persuasive; had an oily and bewitching tongue, like Balial; and if not altogether capable of making the worse appear the better cause, could at least so shape the aspects of evil fortune, that, to the unsuspicious nature, they would seem to be the very results aimed at by the most deliberate arrangement and resolve. But Bolivar, on this occasion, was something more than ingenious and persuasive, he was warmly earnest, and passionately eloquent. In truth, he was excited much beyond his wont. He was stung to indignation by a sense of disappointment. He had calculated largely on this meeting, and it promised now to be a failure. He had anticipated the eager enthusiasm of a host of brave and noble spirits ready to fling out the banner of freedom to the winds, and cast the scabbard from the sword forever. Instead of this, he found but a little knot of cold, irresolute men, thinking only of the perils of life which they should incur, and the forfeiture and loss of property which might accrue from any hazardous experiments. Bolivar spoke to them in language less artificial and much more impassioned than was his wont. He was a man of impulse rather than of thought or principle, and, once aroused, the intense