they marry at an early age; and I cannot here resist the temptation of citing the testimony of a late foreign author, little known to us, on the characteristics of the Spanish Americans.

"The females in the Spanish dominions are marriageable at the age of twelve years, and the boys at fourteen; so that we often see the united ages of a wedded pair fall short of thirty, and the latter considers himself only a man when he is a husband. The study or accordance of disposition seldom precedes matrimony; the sympatby of humour is often mistaken for that of feeling and passion; an eternal attachment is anticipated, where nothing but a slight and passing fancy in reality exists. They enter the bonds of wedlock as if its duration had an optional limit."

In all civilized nations, the parents have an absolute authority over their children till a certain age, prescribed by a positive law. In Holland it formerly continued to the age of twenty for the female, and twenty-five for the male. In England both have arrived at the legal age of puberty at twenty-one years. In France the minority is limited at twenty-five for the women, and thirty for the men; though, by a late law, they have the free administration and disposal of property at twenty-one. Till that time they are considered under the tutelage of their parents, and every engagement previously contracted of this nature is held null and void. This custom appears to have been wisely established as a check on the morals and passions of youth, and to frus

trate and counteract the snares frequently set for its inexperience. It is not uncommon in Spain for a daughter who has been refused alliance to her choice, and whose connection is opposed by the parents, to take refuge in the house of the curate, or some other respectable secular, where she places herself out of the reach of her natural guardians: the bans are then published three successive Sundays, and though the parents of neither party concur, the ceremony is performed, unless any degradation to either family be proved.

To suppress emigration to South America, and hinder persons of bad character from being introduced there, it became necessary even for Spaniards to obtain passports in Europe and grants of residence; and, by the tarifa de gracias, drawn up in 1801, the council of the Ladies had the right of disposing of this grant to foreign persons, previously naturalized according to law in Spain: in that case the naturalization act cost 450 dollars, and the passport or certificate of resilence, 400; but this was granted under some stipulations, particularly as to a similarity of religion. The Spaniards, who once get established there, seldom return home, though even married before their emigration; they form new alliances, often leaving their former wife and family in poverty in their native villages. Their little ventures they carry out prosper and increase in a country where every necessary of life is cheap, and they acquire a consistency and importance they would lose by revisiting Qq 2

their

their mother country. The Catalans and Biscayans form the greatest body of emigrants.

Few Creoles visit Europe, against which, both distance and prejudice operate; and they acquire little more than a local education, which some, however, accomplish by the energy of their own minds. The attachment that might arise from schooling her colonial youth in the mother coun try, Spain seems to have considered as undeserving her notice; but the French thought it of material consequence. They suppressed all colleges abroad, in order to monopolize the education of male and female children in Europe, that they might there form connections; and civil and military promotions were to be obtained there only. This created alliances and connections which lasted through life, and contributed to a union of interests. Even the spurious descendants of planters in St. Domingo received this mode of education.

The traveller through Spain and Portgal, has at all times been astonished at the superabundant quantity of friars and clergy that are met with, and has considered them the greatest tax possible upon the working poor communities, from whom they derive their principal support. This remark holds equally good on South America; for the numbers seem to vie with those of the mother country, so much so, that the higher ranks are filled with little else than friars, seculars, nuns, lawyers, and nominal officers; and it is the best criterion of the size and consequence of a town, to sum up

the quantity of convents it has within its precincts. The clergyman, who assists at the dying moments of the sick, and the notary called to draw up his last wishes, equally remind him of the church; and if he be considered rich, not 10 leave a legacy or prebend, were an act of irreligion that would shock the good pastor and his flock, so that if this practice continues in successive ages, they will exclusively become the principal owners of property in the country, and are, indeed, amongst the first

now.

The Creoles are particularly attached to their own country, which they think the best of any in the world, from its having been in every war a point of attack to England; the great object of French intrigue, the subject of envy and enterprize to their free neighbours on the north, and, in short, a bone of contention for them all. When they contrast it with European Spain, they see nothing but poor adventurers, who come amongst them with a view to get riches, by filling the most menial offices; and as ease and affluence are their chief good, they judge of all by, the species that come amongst them. They feel pride and consequence from being born in a new hemisphere, and conceive that to Creolism is attached a degree of dignity and honour. It will not, therefore, appear singular, that a nation which has no emigrations, but receives those from her mother country, is drained by no wars, and is blessed with a genial climate and prolific people, should have risen, from the time of its

discovery,

discovery, to an inconceivable de gree of population, the more difficult accurately to calculate, as it is scattered over immense regions, and its census is attended with the incorrections we have alluded to in speaking of Hispañola.

To prove how far the want of intercourse tends to the formation of false notions, and how much the French have studied to engraft a good opinion of themselves on other nations, to the prejudice of their rivals, I will mention the peculiarities remarked in a young Creole Spaniard, who accompanied me lately to England, as it may be considered a faithful outline of the general bias in their way of thinking, and will evince what erroneous predispositions exist, and with what subtlety and design the malignant misrepresentations of the French have been spread. His maitres d'agremens had been all of the Gallic tribe, and had generally led him to think that England was the very tomb of existence, her cities scenes of want and plodding enterprize, her public buildings devoid of design, and confined to ranges of galleries and halls for the purposes of manufacture; the people, in short, distant, dull, inhospitable, and egotists.

With such a schooling, one may judge of the feelings of a native youth, set down in the midst of London; gazing at its curiosities and buildings, and enjoying every delight or luxury it affords. He could scarcely believe that the music and representations at Covent Garden, were by English performers, or that dancing so exquisite, could be produced by such Arones as they had been represented to him; that the delicious

viands of which he partook, and the great display of pastry in the shops, could be prepared by any but an eléve at Paris.

When he saw a beautiful, wellformed, well dressed, and elegant female trip by him, "Is she not French," was the first and spontaneous question, for English ladies had always been delineated to him as resembling Dutch housewives, and devoid of taste, grace, and animation. Science could not be cultivated amongst us, since all works of that nature which the Spanish language boasted, were borrowed from the French; even the novels of Richardson, which so much delight the Spanish reader, with difficulty would he place to the credit of the nation to whom they belonged, because the editions he had read in his own language, were preceded by a "translated from the French." He had, indeed, heard of such a building as St. Paul's, and of some others that equally filled him with astonishment; but had never met with any printed description to enable him to form a correct idea of their magnificence, or of the talents and exhibitions of English painters and statuaries. The acquirements of the English in the arts had been limited to their manufactures, to the moulding of buttons, the grinding of razors, and such like handicraft; what he at first only allowed them to possess was, a good breed of horses, and well-trained sailors. A small intercourse with the nation, however, soon obliterated the preju dices he had received from French influence and tutoring; and, as his ideas enlarged, he discovered that his early notions had been founded on misrepresentations and Qq 3

rival

rival envy; and in his letters home, he lamented the delusion of so many of his countrymen, to whom a simplicity of manners had been represented as boorish cold ness and apathy; the disuse of insincere and gesticulated expressions of forced friendship, a want of polish and civility, and, in short, that the portrait generally held out to them, was merely a blending of dark shades.

A French author, speaking of the dress and appearance of Spanish youths, says, "they have gained the acme of perfection as soon as they have acquired our style of dress, manners, and accomplishments, and can act and carry themselves a la Francoise."

The Creoles have certainly an aptitude for the sciences and general learning, but not for the deep researches of the plodding Dutch commentator. Their minds are active, their imaginations lively and penetrating, they easily receive an impression, though they they do not so long retain it as the European, owing to the flexibility of their corporeal structure, which produces a correspondent volatility of mind.

The greatest part of their artists and handicraftsmen are Creoles of colour, descendants of Indians, sometimes mixed with white and black blood. Oviedo himself was born in South America, and is the

best and most correct author that has ever written on that country; but many other men of equal merit might be named. From their most trustworthy records we find, that thirty years after the conquest, there were Indians in the colleges of Mexico, who were preceptors of Greek and Latin,

professors of painting; and to their ingenuity and address, the missionaries owed a good comprehension of their language and history, derived from symbols, characters, and figures.

In jurisprudence and civil law, we find many illustrious characters; hence we may easily infer, that if their minds received a right bias, and their education were properly formed, their national prejudices would subside, and they would no longer look with scornful disregard on the acquirements of other nations.

They begin, however, to pierce with a steady eye the mist of fanaticism and prejudice, with which they have been clouded and obscured; they assume a more modified state of social existence; they gradually discover, that there is something in other nations worthy their adoption and imitation; they shake off that lethargy which serves but to debilitate and emasculate the human frame, and it may be expected there will be a happy change in their systems, and that the generation now on its decline, will be succeeded by one possessing features of moral amelioration, harmonized and illuminated by the useful principles of other nations,

Anecdotes of the Mexicans, including a Description of Mexico, its Lakes, &c. [From the same Work, Vol. II.]

Anahuac was the original name given to the vale of Mexico, and signifies near to the water. The city of Mexico was anciently called Tenochtitlan; it was founded A.D.