and then
proceeded with all quiet despatch to make his preparations for the
secret reception of the deliverer. It was at midnight, and while a
thunder-storm was raging, that he entered the city, making his way,
agreeably to previous arrangement, and under select guidance, into the
inner apartments of the house of Zalabariata. A meeting of the
conspirators--for such they were--of head men among the patriots of
Bogota, had been contemplated for his reception. 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, t