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Conquest of Mexico

was seen brightening on altar and hearthstone, for the circuit of many a league, long before the Sun, rising on his accustomed track, gave assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march, and that the laws of nature were not to be reversed for the Aztecs.

The following thirteen days were given up to festivity. The houses were cleansed and whitened. The broken vessels were replaced by new ones. The people, dressed in their gayest apparel, and crowned with garlands and chaplets of flowers, thronged in joyous procession, to offer up their oblations and thanksgivings in the temples. Dances and games were instituted, emblematical of the regeneration of the world. It was the carnival of the Aztecs; or rather the national jubilee, the great secular festival, like that of the Romans, or ancient Etruscans, which few alive had witnessed before,—or could expect to see again.¹

M. de Humboldt remarked, many years ago, "It were to be wished that some government would publish, at its own expense, the remains of the ancient American civilisation; for it is only by the comparison of several monuments, that we can succeed in discovering the meaning of these allegories, which are partly astronomical, and partly mystic." This enlightened wish has now been realised, not by any government, but by a private individual. Lord Kingsborough. The great work, published under his auspices, and so often cited in this introduction, appeared in London in 1830. When completed, it will reach to nine volumes, seven of which are now before the public. Some idea of its magnificence may be formed by those who have not seen it, from the fact that copies of it, with coloured plates, sold originally at £175, and, with uncoloured, at £120. The price has been since much reduced. It is designed to exhibit a complete view of the ancient Aztec MSS., with such few interpretations as exist; the beautiful drawings of Castañeda relating to Central America, with the commentary of Dupaix; the unpublished history of Father Sahagun; and, last, not least, the copious annotations of his lordship.

Too much cannot be said of the mechanical execution of the book, its splendid typography, the apparent accuracy, and the delicacy of the drawings, and the sumptuous quality of the materials. Yet the purchaser would have been saved some superfluous expense, and the reader much inconvenience, if the letterpress had been in volumes of an ordinary size. But it is not uncommon, in works on this magnificent plan, to find utility in some measure sacrificed to show.

The collection of Aztec MSS., if not perfectly complete, it very extensive, and reflects great credit on the diligence and research of the compiler. It strikes one as strange, however, that not a single document should have been drawn from Spain. Peter Martyr speaks of a number having been brought thither in his time (De Insulis nuper inventis, p. 368). The Marquis Spineto examined one in the Escurial, being the same with the Mendoza Codex, and perhaps the original, since that at Oxford is but a copy (Lectures, lec. 7). Mr. Waddilove, chaplain of the British embassy to Spain, gave a particular account of one to Dr. Robertson, which he saw in the same library, and considered an Aztec calendar. Indeed, it is scarcely possible that the frequent voyagers to the New World should not have furnished the mother country with abundant specimens of this

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