Father Olavarrieta, aware that the abundance of good and bad criticisms with which Europe has been inundated, were not, on account of the diversity of circumstances, adaptable to the civil and domestic system of the country he had newly chosen for his residence, the defeats of which required a particular demonstration, in the same way as the physical maladies of each climate demand a distinct remedy, proposed to himself to apply the valuable departments of criticism to the particular objects and occupations of the capital of Peru. His active genius, and profound literary attainments, generally admitted by the philosophers of Europe, eminently qualified him for this undertaking, in announcing which, the editor of the Mercury makes this observation: “Lima has at length placed itself on a footing with Mexico, at the time of the greatest splendour of the latter city, by possessing a Diary, a Mercury, and a Weekly Critic. If these three papers should alike meet with a flattering encouragement, a new author may perhaps one day present himself on the literary theatre, to propose the idea of publishing the essence, or spirit, of the best periodical papers of Lima.”
At Santa Fé, a weekly journal was set on foot at the commencement of the month of February, 1791, under the simple title of the “Periodical Paper of Santa Fé de Bogota,” and bearing the Latin device, from Livy: Communis utilitas societatis maximum est vinculum. In the preliminary article of the first number, intended as a prospectus, the author employs the following short episode, to shew the principles of the felicity of man: “Of the three philosophies, the political, which leads us to the knowledge of the government of nations, the moral, which influences the regularity of our customs, and the
