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"In casting the eye over a Mexican MS., or map, as it is called, one is struck with the grotesque characters it exhibits of the human figure; monstrous overgrown heads on misshapen bodies, which are themselves hard and angular in their outlines, and without the least skill in composition. On closer inspection, however, it is obvious that it is not so much a rude attempt to delineate nature, as a conventional symbol to express the idea in the most clear and forcible manner, in the same manner as the pieces on the chess-board of similar value, while they correspond with one another in form, bear little resemblance, usually, to the objects they represent. Those parts of the figure are most distinctly traced that are most important. So also the colouring, instead of the delicate gradations of nature, exhibits only gaudy and violent contrasts, such as may produce the most vivid impression; for even colours,' as Gama observes, speak in the Aztec hieroglyphics.' But in the execution of all this the Mexicans were much inferior to the Egyptians. The drawings of the latter, indeed, are exceedingly defective, when criticised by the rules of art; for they were as ignorant of perspective as the Chinese, and only exhibited the head in profile, with the eye in the centre, and with total absence of expression. But they handled the pencil more gracefully than the Aztecs, were more true to the natural forms of objects, and, above all, showed great superiority in abridging the original figure by giving only the outline, or some characteristic or essential feature. This simplified the process, and facilitated the communication of thought. An Egyptian text has almost the appearance of alphabetical writing, in its regular lines of minute figures: a Mexican text looks usually like a collection of pictures, each one forming the subject of a separate study. This is particularly the case with the delineations of mythology, in which the story is told by a conglomeration of symbols, that may remind one more of the mysterious anaglyphs sculptured on the temples of the Egyptians, than of their written records."-Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. pp. 84, 85.

With all due deference to the learned author of the Conquest of Mexico, we cannot but think that he underrates the hieroglyphical skill of the Aztecs, in assigning to them the lowest scale among the nations who were conscious of representative records. When we remember the acknowledged accuracy with which they represented to Montezuma the white strangers, who had arrived on his shores, astonishing even the Spaniards themselves, not only by the accuracy of the delineation of their general appearance, but by their attempts -and successful attempts-at individual portraiture, we must assign to them, at least, a very high scale in mere picture-painting. But why must we confine their knowledge to mere picture-painting, this lowest kind of writing? Had they not symbols for such things as were difficult of such representation? The years, the seasons, the elements, had their appropriate symbols, too often arbitrary in the individual writer, as Mr. Prescott says, but still sufficiently alike to admit of general interpretation. The tongue always represented speech; the print of a foot, motion. Again, there was an approach to phonetic signs; we admit but an approach, confined chiefly to proper names. But when we disparage the Mexican for not carrying out his knowledge of hieroglyphical writing, and superseding the vague and rude picture by the phonetic sign, we should remember that the kingdom of the Aztec lasted but a few centuries, and yet showed signs of progress in this, as in every other science, and that the Egyptian monuments show no greater infusion of phonetic

characters, we allow no mean proof of scientific progress during nearly two thousand years. But it is said the Egyptians had been familiar with hieroglyphics from their infancy, and the rude paintings suited the illiterate. The same excuse may be assigned for the Aztec. With the example of the wondrous nation of Egypt, we need not deem it strange that the Mexican failed in breaking down the thin boundary between the lowest and highest series of writing.

Again, consider how few specimens are now existing of Mexican manuscripts. The conquerors rivalled the wantonness of Omar in the destruction they wrought on the records of the Mexicans. The first prelate of Mexico piled the picture paintings of the Aztecs, as many as he could gather together from every side of the great square of Tezcuco, and set fire to this "mountain heap" of national archives. The civil rulers rivalled the ecclesiastical in their ravages. The governor of Mexico, Zavala, sold the documents of the Mexican archives to the apothecaries to wrap drugs in, and to the pyrotechinists to form into rocket-cases. And even of the few MSS. now remaining, the Borgian, having escaped the search of the conquerors, and the bigotry of the Roman priests in later days, fell into the hands of the children of the servants of the Guistiniani family, in whose possession it was, and only escaped calcination from the thickness of the doeskin on which the figures were emblazoned.

Besides the great destruction and consequent scarcity of Mexican MSS., there are many reasons which combined to render the interpretation and deciphering of them even more obscure and difficult than of the hieroglyphics of Egypt. It was not until some years after the conquest, that some few Spanish antiquaries endeavoured to rescue from destruction, and bring to light, the few MSS. still remaining in the country; and when they, in their desire of interpreting these picture paintings, applied to the natives for assistance, they found they had to contend as well with the old feeling of devotion to their departed faith and kingdom, which prompted them to conceal their distaste of disclosing the secrets of the Aztec nations to their conquerors; as with that newer feeling imported and encouraged by the more bigoted and illiterate of the missionaries, that these were works of the evil one, superstition, as well as fear of punishment, restrained them from admitting any knowledge. Some few of the MSS. have a native interpretation written with them, but how this can be depended on is difficult to be decided. We are clearly too ignorant of the system of Mexican picture painting, to give more than very general dicta on the subject. The Mexican Calendar presents so many difficulties in the way of a clear explanation, that we shall merely refer to Mr. Prescott's chapter on the subject, almost prepared, when we read and re-read his account, to agree with Father Sahagun in its unhallowedness, founded neither on natural reason, nor on the influence of the planets, nor on the true course of the year; but plainly the work of necroinancy, and the fruit of the compact with the devil;" the approved

"as

method among the early writers of characterising the mysteries of the faith and knowledge of the Aztec.

Astrology is too natural to the uneducated mind, especially when the science of astronomy is gradually developing its wonders, not to find a chief place among the Mexican sciences. There is so much beauty in the belief in astral influences, that were it possible to separate it from the fatalism to which it leads, we might even now regard it with respect. Coleridge in his translation of Wallenstein, has seized its fairest point:

"It is a gentle and affectionate thought,

That, in immeasurable heights above us,

At our first birth, the wreath of love was woven,
With sparkling stars for flowers."

The Aztec, however, was no mean astronomer-it was the highest of his sciences, as far as we can now judge, and there are fewer relics of astronomical instruments, than even of picture paintings. The great Mexican Calendar-stone alone remained a witness to their scientific attainments as astronomers. The want of stones for a furnace prevented the preservation of some further fragments at Chapoltepec, and deprived Gama of the means of elucidating somewhat more on the subject; it was no mean attainment in this science that enabled their priests to adjust their festivals by the movements of the planets, and fix the length of the year with marvellous accuracy, an accuracy to be attained only by patient and long investigations. We will not here delay to meditate on the origin of this knowledge. This is our author's description of the great festival of the renewal of the world's term of life; the birth of the new cycle.

"I shall conclude the account of Mexican science with that of a remarkable festival, celebrated by the natives at the termination of the great cycle of fifty-two years. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, their tradition of the destruction of the world at four successive epochs. They looked forward confidently to another such catastrophe to take place, like the preceding, at the close of a cycle, when the sun was to be effaced from the heavens, the human race from the earth, and when the darkness of chaos was to settle on the habitable globe. The cycle would end in the latter part of December, and, as the dreary season of the winter solstice approached, and the diminished light of day gave melancholy presage of its speedy extinction, their apprehensions increased; and, on the arrival of the five unlucky days which closed the year, they abandoned themselves to despair. They broke in pieces the little images of their household gods, in whom they no longer trusted. The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic utensils were destroyed; their garments torn in pieces; and every thing was thrown in disorder, for the coming of the evil genii, who were to descend on the desolate earth.

"On the evening of the last day, a procession of priests, assuming the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved from the capital to a lofty mountain about two leagues distant. They carried with them a noble recluse, the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the success of which was an augury of the renewal of the cycle. On reaching the summit of the mountain, the procession paused till midnight; when, as the constellation of the Pleiades approached the Zenith, the new fire was kindled by the friction of the sticks placed on the wounded breast of the native. The flame was soon

communicated to a funeral pile, on which the body of the slaughtered captive was thrown. As the light streamed up towards heaven, shouts of joy and triumph burst forth from the countless myriads who covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the housetops, with eyes anxiously bent on the mount of sacrifice. Couriers, with torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore them over every part of the country; and the cheering element was seen brightening on altar and hearth-stone, for the circuit of many a league long before the sun, rising on its accustomed track, gave assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march, and that the laws of nature were not to be reverses for the Aztecs."-Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. pp. 113, 114.

And now, when, to adopt the words of Southey in his Madoc, the blaze had sprung up from its living altar to herald the sun of the new century, and the fire was restored to temple and house, then began the Aztec carnival, then the people put on their gayest apparel, and the houses were restored to their gay appearance, and the people danced and sang before their idols, whilst the priest gathered in the costly offerings of a nation grateful for a renewal of their existence. Like the ludi seculares of the Romans, no man could hope to see the close of the cycle but once, to bear but once his part in those games, quos nec spectasset quisquam, nec spectaturus esset."

Agriculture was greatly patronized among the Mexicans; the soldier and the high noble were alone exempt from the labours of husbandry, and the weaker sex bore their part in the lighter labours of the field alone; the Aztec, if he traced his race to the Egyptian, had thrown off the effeminacy of his forefathers, preferring the labours of the field, to the driving of the shuttle, and marking his distinctness from the more northern tribes in his own continent, in not only relieving the Mexican female from severe labour, but in raising her to the rank of a companion, a sharer in all his joys, in all his miseries. In his intercourse with his wife and family, the fierce Aztec establishes his claim to a high rank in civilization; the obligations of the marriage vow were made under the sanction of religion, and observed under the fear of temporal and eternal punishments; modesty was inculcated as the virtue of the female, implicit reverence for her husband as the best ornament of the wife. The science of working in the precious metals was carried to a great height among the Aztecs; and though furnished with tools of soft bronze alone, yet by the aid of the dust of flint stones, they rendered their tools sufficiently hard and sharp to work not only metals, but precious stones. They were but rude sculptors, but compensated for beauty and of design and execution in the number and size of the statues they carved. Mexico was crowded with statues-according to Clavigero, these relics formed the quarries for the great stones required for the foundations of the new city, when it rose from its ruins under Cortez. The cathedral in the Plaza Mayor stands on sculptured stones, and hardly a cellar is dug, or a foundation excavated within this, the Aztec forum, without disclosing some fragment of Mexican sculpture. The hand of the destroyer, and the exhortations of the bigot, have swept these records away. Up to the middle of the

last century, the great bas-reliefs of the unfortunate Montezuma and his sire, cut in the solid rock, stood among the groves of Chapoltepec; they are gone, broken and defaced by the order of the government of the time.

Such was the Aztec in his religion, his polity, and his manners. Towards the eastern end of the great lake, lay the kingdom of Tezcuco, the firm ally of the Mexican, superior in every respect to the other races of Anahuac. The Acolhuans and Tezcucans were of the same great family as the Aztecs; but, either from the greater mingling of their race with that of the Toltecs, or from the severe lessons which misfortune and subjection to the cruel Tepanecs taught them, the Tezcucans surpassed the Mexicans in intellectural culture and social civilization, as much as they rivalled them in power; and were then inferior in military ferocity. The Tezcucans had settled little more than a century in their new abode, when the Tepnecs came up against them, slew the king of the nation, drove his young heir into exile, and subjected the people to a bitter tyranny. For a time the young prince sought refuge among a few powerful friends from the power of the conquerors; he was, however, soon seized, his life indeed spared, through the intercession of the Aztec monarch, and cast into a dungeon; an old servant effected the rescue of his prince at the expense of his own life; and Nezahualcoyotl at length found refuge in Mexico, there to pursue, for eight years, his necessary studies. On the death of the tyrant, the prince hastened to tender his obedience to his successor. The refusal of his small presents, and the warnings of his friends, admonished the prince to fly from the power of King Maxtla. He retired to Tezcuco. The tyrant sought to entrap him at a banquet, and failed; then he threw off his disguise, sent his soldiers after the young prince, and set a price upon his head. Troops of armed men traversed the country in search of him; and a heap of merchandise or aloe stalks were not unfrequently the only safeguard to the prince, as the soldiers searched the place of his temporary refuge. His people were true to their prince, and despised the bribes of the tyrant.

"Here (near Tlascala,) he led a wretched, wandering life, exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, hiding himself in deep thickets and caverns, and stealing only at night, to satisfy the cravings of appetite; while he was kept in constant alarm by the activity of his pursuers, always hovering on his track. On one occasion, he sought refuge from them among a small party of soldiers, who proved friendly to him, and concealed him in a large drum, around which they were dancing. At another time he was just able to move the crest of a hill, as his enemies were climbing it on the other side, when he fell in with a girl who was reaping chian, a Mexican plant, the seed of which was much used in the drinks of the country. He persuaded her to cover him up with the stalks she had been cutting; when his pursuers came up, and inquired if she had seen the fugitive, the girl coolly answered, "She had," and pointed out a path as the one he had taken. Notwithstanding the high reward offered, Nezahualcoyatt seems to have incurred no danger from treachery; such was the general attachment felt to himself and his house. "Would you deliver up the prince, if he came in your way?" he inquired of a young peasant, who was unacquainted