college boys are numbered among the most attentive listeners to all discussions and debates giving expression to their enthusiasm in rounds of applause. But the pleasure of these reunions is greatly diminished to the stranger who finds himself seated so as to look at the guests on the opposite side of the room, and the only view he has of the speaker is obtained by twisting his neck and looking in a sidewise direction. However, the aim of the society is of a pure and lofty nature, its sole ambition being the encouragement and development of native talent, and right royally is it succeeding, so that it matters little as to how or where one sits.
The name of Vicente Riva Palacio occupies an exalted place in the history of his country. It would seem, therefore, an act of injustice to place him only among the writers, when he has played so grand a part among the gallant heroes in " grim-visaged war." For, from the age of twenty-three to the present time, he has filled almost every place of honor that could be bestowed upon him by his people. A man of brilliant genius and liberal ideas, he enjoys the reputation of being the most humorous and versatile of Mexican writers. It is somewhat surprising that, although by profession a lawyer, we yet find him, also, a statesman, a leading politician, a soldier, a poet, a journalist and dramatist, and in each position he has reached high distinction.
As a politician, he has filled acceptably not only the office of Governor of several States, but has also been Justice of the Supreme Court and Cabinet Minister. From 1870 to 1879 he was Minister of Fomento (public works, commerce, industry and colonization), during which time he used signal efforts for the development of the country in the extension of railways and telegraph lines, the improvement of public buildings and roads. Like others of his countrymen, he has suffered imprisonment, but his confinement was cheered by the muses, and some of the sweetest poems he ever penned was when behind the prison bars.
As a writer, his works are not only extremely popular in his native land, but throughout the whole of Spanish America. By request of the
