in their institutions. The idiosyncracy of race appears here also, conspicuous and powerful as there.

This diversity of race and the analogous difference between the two civilizations brought into such close connection, renders the history of the Spanish settlements in America exceedingly interesting to a philosophical inquirer: the English colonies are interesting on account of the ideas they brought hither and developed, and the influence those ideas have had on the world; the Spanish settlements are chiefly interesting on account of the facts they bring to light. Under these circumstances, it becomes the duty of the historian, who will write a book worthy of his theme, to note the effect of this mingling of races and of civilizations; he is not merely to tell who was killed, and who wounded, on which side of the river each one fought, and how deep the water was between them, or how bloody it ran; he is to describe the civilization of the nations, giving, however briefly, all the important features thereof, and then show the effect of the meeting of the two.

More than three centuries have passed by since the Mexican conquest was complete. During that time great revolutions have taken place in the world,-theological, political, and social. A great progress has been made in the arts, in science, in morals and religion,-in the subjective development thereof as piety, the objective application to life in the form of practical morality. But the Spanish-Americans have but a small share in that progress; they seem to have done nothing to promote it. They have not kept pace with the Anglo-American colonies; not even with the French. It is pretty clear that the population of Spanish North America-continental and insular-is less numerous now than when Columbus first crossed the sea. The condition of the Americans in many respects is improved. Still it may be reasonably doubted if the population of Mexico is happier to-day than four hundred years ago. What is the cause of this: have the two races been weakened by their union; were the Mexicans incapable of further advance; or were the Spaniards unable to aid them? The Europeans gave the Indian most valuable material helps to civilization-cattle, swine, sheep, goats, asses, horses, oxen, the cereal grasses of the East, iron, and gunpowder; ideal helps also in the doctrines of Christian

ity-the machinery of the old world. In another work, Mr Prescott declares the Moorish civilization incapable of continuing, as it had in its bosom the causes of its ruin. Is the same thing true of the Spanish civilization? Surely it cannot stand before the slow, strong, steady wave of the Anglo-Saxon tide, which seems destined ere long to sweep it off, or hide it in its own ample bosom. The consequence is always in the cause; there but hidden. The historian of the conquest of Mexico, writing so long after the events he chronicles, while those consequences are patent to all the world, might describe to us the cause; nay, the history is not adequately written until this is done. Without this, a work is history without its meaning-without philosophy. We must complain of Mr Prescott's work, in general, that he has omitted this its most important part. True, he was only writing of the conquest of the country and the immediate colonization; but this is not adequately described until the other work is done.

Not only has Mr Prescott an attractive theme-obvious facts and glittering deeds, to attract all men and satisfy the superficial, and larger, more general facts of a profound significance, to pause upon and explain-but the materials for his work are abundant. There are the narratives of men personally engaged in the expeditions they write of-men like Bernal Diaz and Gomara; official documents like the letters of Cortés; early histories, as that of Solís; works on the antiquities of Mexico, like that of Clavigero, and the magnificent volumes published by Lord Kingsborough. Then there are works written by men themselves descended from the Mexicans. In addition to printed volumes, Mr Prescott has richly supplied himself with such manuscript treasures of Spanish history as few American eyes ever behold. He has at his command about eight thousand folio pages of the works of Las Casas, Ixtlilxochitl, Toribio, Camargo, Oviedo, and others. Public and private collections abroad have been opened to him with just and scholarlike liberality.

If we divide Mr Prescott's work according to its substance, it consists of three parts:-the first relates to Mexico, its inhabitants and their civilization; the second to the conquest of Mexico; and the third to the subsequent career of Cortés. In respect of its form, the volumes are

divided into seven books, treating respectively of the Aztec civilization, of the discovery of Mexico, the march thither, the residence there, the expulsion thence, the siege and surrender of the city, and the subsequent career of Cortés. A valuable appendix is added, and a copious index, the latter quite too uncommon in American books.

This history has been so much admired, so widely circulated in America and Europe, and so abundantly read, that, as in the former article, we shall take it for granted that our readers are familiar with the work, and spare them our analysis thereof. We shall also presuppose that the well-informed reader is sufficiently familiar with the writings of Diaz and Solís, with the printed works of Las Casas, with Clavigero, Herrera, and the original accounts published at Madrid, a hundred years ago, in the collection of "Historiadores primitivos."

We now propose to examine this history of the conquest of Mexico somewhat in detail, and to say a word of each of the three grand divisions of the subject. We will speak first of the civilization of the Aztecs. Mr Prescott's account of the geography of Mexico, with his description of the country, is attractive and graphic. It seems to be sufficient; we only regret the absence of a more extended map. With only the ordinary maps the reader is often puzzled in trying to make out the exact position of a place, and accordingly he cannot always understand the account of a battle or the description of a march. The two small maps (in Vols. I. and II.) are of great service, and were prepared with much care, but are not adequate to render all parts of the text intelligible: thus Itztapalapan (Vol. III. p. 6) is said to stand " on a narrow tongue of land which divides the waters of the great salt lake from those of the fresh," while on the map no such narrow tongue exists, and the reader must seek it in Clavigero or elsewhere. But this is a trifle.

In Mexico Mr Prescott finds four important tribes, or "races." The most conspicuous of these are the Toltecs, who came from the North before the end of the seventh century, and in the eleventh century "disappeared from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it; " the Chichemecs, a numerous and rude tribe who came from the North-west in the twelfth century, and were soon "fol

lowed by other races of higher civilization, perhaps of the same family with the Toltecs;" the most noted of these tribes were the Aztecs, or Mexicans, and the Acolhuans, or Tezcucans. The civilization of the Toltecs was communicated to the Tezcucans, and by them to the Chichemecs.

Of these four tribes-Toltecs, Chichemecs, Tezcucans, and Aztecs-the latter have become the most celebrated. They are the Mexicans, and by that name we shall designate them in what follows. After encountering various fortunes in the land, they came to the valley of Mexico in the year 1325, A.D., according to Mr Prescott, where they subsequently built Tenochtitlan, the city of Mexico. The Mexicans were a warlike people, and in less than two centuries their empire extended from shore to shore. This rapid enlargement of their power proves the martial vigour of the tribe, and their skill in forming political organizations though Mr Prescott seems to doubt their political ability. But as the Mexican empire was composed of several nations recently conquered and united almost entirely by external force, it is plain it contained heteroge neous elements which might easily be separated. Like the old Roman and all other states thus formed, it was a piece of carpentry, artificially held together by outward circumstances, not a regular growth, where the branch grows out of the bole, that out of the root, and all are united by a central principle and partake of a common origin and history.

Mr Prescott devotes four chapters to the civilization of Mexico, and one to Tezcuco. His materials are derived chiefly from Torquemada, Clavigero, Sahagun, Gama, the works which have appeared in France and England on the antiquities of Mexico, the writings of Boturini and Ixtlilxochitl. Of these authors Clavigero is the best known to general readers. Notwithstanding the advantage which Mr Prescott has in coming sixty years after the work of Clavigero was published, we must confess that on the whole the earlier writer has given the more satisfactory account of the matter. It is true, Clavigero had space to be minute and curious in particulars,-for nearly two of his four quarto volumes are devoted to the subject, but his general arrangement is better, though by no means perfect or philosophical,following an inward principle, and his

account of the Mexican institutions is on the whole more distinct as well as more complete. Yet in some details Mr Prescott surpasses his predecessor.

Mr Prescott gives an account, sufficiently lucid, of what may be called the Constitution of Mexico; he speaks intelligently of the royal power, which was both legislative and executive. He gives a good description of the judicial power, certainly a very remarkable institution for such a nation, and in many respects a very wise one. But his account of the nobles, of their power and position, is meagre and unsatisfactory. He does not tell us how the distinction of nobility was obtained.

What he says of the penal laws is still less satisfactory, or complete. The only punishments he mentions are death, slavery, reduction of rank, and confiscation of property. Clavigero adds confinement in prison and banishment from the country. Prisons as houses of punishment generally indicate a higher civilization than the penalty of death, or exile.

Clavigero has given the fuller and more satisfactory account of the Mexican system of slavery. He mentions also one important provision of the penal law omitted by Mr Prescott, that kidnapping was punished with death.

Mr Prescott's account of the manner of collecting the revenue is full and clear. The same must be said of his account of the military establishment of Mexico. Still the reader would be glad to know whether the soldiers were volunteers or conscripts, how they were fed, and, when successful in war, what share of the booty belonged to them. Clavigero mentions a significant fact, that there were three military orders, called Princes, Eagles, and Tigers (Achautin, Quauhtin, and Ocelo). Since the two last are titles of honour, as well as the first, they furnish an important monument of the ferocity of the nation.

The civilization of the Mexicans has been sometimes exalted above its merit; still it is plain they had attained a pretty high degree of culture. Yet it differed in many respects from that of the eastern nations: it was a civilization without the cereal grasses; without wine, milk, or honey; without swine, sheep, or goats; without the horse or the ass, or any beast of burthen; civilization without iron. Mexico seems to have been the centre of refinement