24 JOHN EBADE ON 



polished of the idioms of Anahuac. None of the Aztec compositions have survived ; but 

 we can form some estimate of the general state of poetic culture from the odes which have 

 come down to us from the royal house of Tezcuco.'" 



The historian to whom we are indebted for the account of Tezcuco in its golden age, 

 as well of general prosperity as of literary culture, was himself a descendant of the 

 royal line whose glories he has immortalised. The story of Nezahualcoyotl reads more 

 like romance than history. Orphaned and exiled at the early age of fifteen, after many 

 reverses and trials, he was at last firmly seated on the throne of his fathers, and set him- 

 self to repair the damages of the interval of disorder and misrule. Besides his political 

 reforms — some of which would ill suit the spirit of the age in which we live — he set 

 himself to provide for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts. He founded 

 an academy, which was to take cognisance of, and pass judgment upon, all works of a 

 literary or scientific character. Under its censorship, Tezcuco became the Athens of the 

 western world. Nezahualcoyotl was himself one of its most accomplished and produc- 

 tive members. He was a poet and the author of no less than seventy odes. Ixtlilxochitl 

 has left, in Castillan, a translation of one of them, and several others are said to be hidden 

 away in the dusty repositories of Spain or Mexico. The following is Prescott's prose 

 version of part of the poem of the "Western Solomon on " The Vanities of Human Life" : — 



" Banish care ; if there are bounds to pleasiu-e, the saddest life must also have an end. Then weave 

 the chaplet of flowers, and sing thy songs in praise of the all-powerful God ; for the glory of this 

 world soon fadeth away. Eejoice in the green freshness of thy spring, for the day shall come when 

 thou shalt sigh for those Joys in vain ; when the sceptre shall pass from thy hands, thy servants shall 

 wander desolate in thy courts; thy sons and the sons of thy nobles shall drink the dregs of distress, 

 and all the pomp of thy victories and triumphs shall live only in their recollection. Yet the remem- 

 brance of the just shall not pass away from the nations, and the good thou hast done shall ever be 

 held in honour. The goods of this life, its glories and its riches are but lent to us, its substance is but 

 an illusory shadow, and the things of to-day shall change on the coming of the morrow. Then gather 

 the fairest flowers from thy gardens to bind round thy brow, and seize the joys of the present ere 

 they perish." 



In the appendix to his history Prescott gives translations of the poem in Spanish and 

 English verse. Mr. H. H. Bancroft, in his "Native Eaces " (Vol. II. pp. 494-96), gives a 

 fine metrical version of the same ode, and a prose translation of the ode on the tyrant, 

 Tezozomoc. Here is a passage from the latter : — 



" Who could have thought, having seen the palaces and the court, the glory and the power of 

 the old King Tezozomoc, that these things could have an end ? Yet have they withered and 

 perished. Verily, life giveth nought but disappointment and vexation ; all that is weareth out and 

 passeth away." 



Of the races which, in historical times, have lived or still live entirely within the limits 

 of the United States, may be mentioned the Pueblos of New Mexico, the Yuma group, 

 the Shoshonees and Pawnees, the Appalachian family and the races of California. Some 

 of these groupings are ethnic or linguistic ; some of them, simply geographical. In the 



' Conquest of Mexico, chap. iv. 



