Would I were with thee in the solemn night!
B.
LITERARY NOTICES.
History of the Conquest of Mexico, with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror, Hernando Cortes. By William H. Prescott. In three volumes. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
We have awaited the appearance of these very elegant volumes with deep and anxious interest. The ability, industry and taste which the author displayed in his ‘History of Ferdinand and Isabella,’ which won for him a noble reputation in the most cultivated states of Europe, still more endeared his name to his own countrymen, and led them to look, with the highest hope and the most pleasant anticipations, to the future efforts of his elegant and fascinating pen. We have for some time known that he was assiduously engaged in collecting materials, and preparing from them a history of the famous Conquest of Mexico; an event which, although of a very splendid and romantic character, was still but vaguely known, even in accomplished and well-informed literary circles. The facts relating to it were nowhere recorded in an authentic and connected form; for it has not been until within the last fifty years that the attention of historians and general scholars has been turned in this direction. The labors of Spanish antiquarians since that time, conducted as they have been with great skill and industry, and under the supervision and encouragement of the government itself, have been abundantly rewarded; and a vast number of original documents have been accumulated in the public and private libraries, which shed floods of light upon all historical events connected with the conquests of Spanish armies, or the discoveries of Spanish fleets, and have thus placed within the reach of writers at the present day materials for lack of which even the able histories of Robertson and his contemporaries became meagre and unattractive. The historians of our era are making the best possible use of these copious and invaluable collections. The first result of their efforts was Washington Irving’s magnificent ‘Life of Columbus,’ one of the most polished and perfect works of its class in the English language, and which has done as much for American literature abroad as it has for its eminent author at home. Then followed Prescott’s ‘Ferdinand and Isabella,’ pronounced by the best critics on both sides the Atlantic to be one of the most interesting and valuable histories ever published: and here we have, in his ‘History of the Conquest of Mexico,’ drawn from the same rich source, a work eminently worthy to succeed its brilliant and most ‘illustrious predecessors.’
Within the limits which restrain us, we can of course do nothing more than intimate very vaguely the general character and scope of this great work; nor are we sure that even this is not quite a useless labor, as it must find its way at once into the library of every literary gentleman throughout the country, and be read with the greatest avidity by men of every class. One of the most valuable portions of the history is the extended view which Mr. Prescott has presented, at the opening of the work, of the character and civilization of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico. The Spaniards conquered no tribe of untutored savages, roaming, in the wild lawlessness of the aborigines of our section of the western continent, over the sunny plains and smiling fields of Anahuac: they found a people there who, centuries before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, possessed the arts of civilization, and had reached a point of intellectual and moral culture in many respects surpassing that of the most renowned nations of the other world. We are surprised to find the high degree of refinement which they had reached. The sciences, especially of mathematics and astronomy, were understood to a degree of nicety scarcely attained by the Romans in their palmiest days. Their political organization was of a wonderfully perfect character; and their laws, and especially the organization of the judiciary, the department by which they were to be interpreted and administered, were stamped by a clear insight into the nature of moral obligation, and the mutual duties and rights of the members of society, which strike us with the utmost astonishment. Their mythology, with the single exception of the sanction it gives to human sacrifices, indicates a much nearer approach to a knowledge of the true God than the popular faith of the Greeks or Romans; and sentiments are recorded as having been uttered by a prince of the Tezcucan tribe, guided solely by the light of his own indwelling reason, which were worthy of Plato or of any sage that has ever lived, unenlightened by the hopes of revelation on which Christians build their faith. The history of such a people, dwelling centuries ago upon our own continent, shrouded as it has heretofore been in darkness and vague uncertainty, under the lucid and brilliant pen of Mr. Prescott becomes more attractive than any offspring of the fancy or imaginative fiction could possibly be. This preliminary sketch occupies nearly half of the first volume; and we have never read any similar effort of the same extent with equal gratification.
We can of course give no outline of the main portion of the work, the history of the train of events by which the whole Mexican empire fell into the hands of the conquering Spaniard. It is one of the most romantic narratives which ever bore the seal of truth. Its prominent actors are men of eminent genius, who performed exploits worthy the greatest captains of Europe or Asia; and the history of their lives abounds with interest and instruction. Mr. Prescott has a most happy historical style, glowing with all the warmth and shining with a far more substantial brilliancy than that of Bancroft; and blending the strict truth of accurate narrative with the free flow of a fine imagination, all under the control of an exquisite taste, with more success than that of any other American writer, Irving perhaps alone excepted. The authorities upon which he relies for his facts are uniformly given in notes, and the fullest information is presented in the same form, on all points which concern the accuracy and completeness of the work. We read the following passage in our author’s preface with profound regret: ‘For one thing, I may reasonably ask the reader’s indulgence. Owing to the state of my eyes, I have been obliged to use a writing-case made for the blind, which does not permit the writer to see his own manuscript; nor have I ever corrected, or even read, my own original draft.’ Mr. Prescott may well consider this as an ample excuse for any errors of typography; of which, by the way, we have not discovered even one. We were already aware, on the best authority, that Washington Irving had prepared to take up the ground so ably occupied by our author; a fact to which Mr. Prescott alludes in the following graceful terms:
‘It was not till I had become master of my rich collection of materials, that I was acquainted with this circumstance; and had he persevered in his design, I should unhesitatingly have abandoned my own, if not from courtesy, at least from policy; for though armed with the weapons of Achilles, this could give me no hope of success in a competition with Achilles himself. But no sooner was that distinguished writer informed of the preparations I had made, than with the gentlemanly spirit which will surprise no one who has the pleasure of his acquaintance, he instantly announced to me his intention of leaving the subject open to me. While I do but justice to Mr. Irving by this statement, I feel the prejudice it does to myself in the unavailing regret I am exciting in the bosom of the reader.’
We cannot take leave of this splendid book without making mention of the truly elegant style in which it has been issued by its liberal publishers. It yields in no respect to the finest issue of the Boston, and we had almost added, of the London press. The three volumes are large octavo, of about five hundred pages each, containing elegant portraits and illustrative maps; and yet the whole is sold for six dollars!