300 
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couth delineations of common objects, or very coarfe 
images of the human and other forms, devoid of grace 
and propriety. Certain it is, that, in the wooden prints 
or copper-plates of their paintings, that have been pub- 
1 idled by various authors, every figure of men, quadru¬ 
peds, or birds, as well as every reprefentation of inanimate 
nature, is extremely rude and awkward. But, though 
the Mexican paintings may be ranked low as works of 
art, they may be regarded in a higher point of view, when 
confidered as the records cf their country, or as historical 
monuments of its policy and transactions; and in this 
view they become intereiting objedts of attention. 
Some of thefe paintings were mere images of their gods, 
kings, heroes, or of terreftrial objedts. Others were hil- 
..tori cal, containing an account of particular events ; others 
mythological, of which a volume is preferved in the great 
library of the order of Bologna : others were codes of law, 
civil and religious ; while fome were chronological, aftro- 
nomical, or altrologicai; in which were reprelented their 
calendar, the petition of the itars, changes of the moon, 
eclipl'es, and prognoftications and variations of the wea¬ 
ther. Great numbers of thefe were burned by the fuper- 
ftitious Spaniards, who ijnagiried that they contained tome 
emblems of heathen worthip. They had likewife geogra¬ 
phical paintings, which lerved not only to thow the ex¬ 
tent and boundaries of their poffeffions, but likewife the 
fituation of places, the direction of the coafts, and the 
courfe of the rivers. In his firft letter to Charles V. Cortes 
lays, that, having made enquiries if there was any fecure 
harbour for veliels on the Mexican coaft, Montezuma 
prefented him with a painting of the whole coaft, from 
the port of Vera Cruz, at that time called Chalchiuhuecim, 
to the river Coatzacualco. Another author informs us 
alfo, that Cortes, in a long and difficult voyage which he 
made to the Bay of Honduras, made ufe of .a chart pre¬ 
fented to him by the lords of Coatzacualco, in which all 
the places and rivers were marked from the coaft of Coat¬ 
zacualco to Huejacallan. 
The cloth on which paintings were done was made of 
the thread of the aloe, or a kind of palm ; or they painted 
on fneep’s Ikins, or upon paper. This laft was made of the 
leaves of a certain kind of aloe fteeped like hemp, and af¬ 
terwards walked, ftretched, and fmoothed. They uled 
alfo the bark of other trees prepared with gum: but we 
are ignorant of the method they ufed in the manufacture. 
This paper is fimilar in thicknefs to the European pafte- 
board; but fofter, fmoother, and more eafy for writing. 
In general it was made up in very long ftieets, which 
they preferved in rolls, or folded like bed-lkreens. To 
form their hiftories or annals, they painted on the mar¬ 
gin of the cloth or paper the figures of the years in lb 
many fquares, and at the fide of each fquare the event or 
events which happened that year. With refpedt to the 
order of repreienting the years and events, it was at the 
liberty of the hiftorian to begin at which-ever angle of 
the piece he plealed ; but at the lame time conftantiy ob- 
ferving,.that, if the painting began at the upper angle 
of the right hand, he proceeded towards the-left; but, if 
it began, as it moft commonly did, at the upper angle of 
the left hand, he proceeded ftraight downwards. If he 
painted the firft year, at the lower angle of the left, he 
continued towards the right; but, if he began at the 
lower angle of the right, he painted ftraight upwards: fo 
that on the upper part of his canvas he never painted 
from left to right, nor ever on the lower part from right 
to left; never advanced upwards from the left, nor down¬ 
wards from the right. When this method of the Mexi¬ 
cans is underftood, it is ealy to difeover at firft light 
which is the beginning and which the ending of any liif- 
torical painting. 
Of this picture-writing feme lingular fpccimens have 
been preferved. The moft valuable of thefe have been 
publilhed by Purchas in 66 plates, and divided into three 
parts. The firft contains the hiftory of the Mexican em¬ 
pire under its ten raonarchs. The fecond is a tribute- 
I c o. 
roll, reprefenting what each conquered town paid into 
the royal treafury. The third- is a code of their inftitu- 
tions, domellic, political, and military. Another fpeci- 
men of Mexican painting has been publilhed in 32 plates 
by the archbilhop of Toledo. The Ityle of painting is the 
fame in all; they reprefent things, not words; exhibiting 
images to the eye, not ideas to the underftanding; and 
they may, therefore, be confidered as the earlieft and moft 
imperfeCt efl'ay of men in their progrefs towards dilcover- 
ing the art of writing. The plates already mentioned in¬ 
dicate fome approach to the plain and limple hierogly¬ 
phic, where l'ome principal part or circumftance in the 
fubject is made to Hand for the whole ; and the Mexicans 
feem all'o to have advanced farther towards the ufe of the 
more figurative and fanciful hieroglyphics. In order to 
del'cribe a monarch who had enlarged his dominions by 
force of arms, they painted a target ornamented with 
darts, and placed it between him and thole towns which 
he fubdued. For the notation of numbers, the Mexican 
painters had invented artificial marks, by means of which 
they computed the years of the reigns of their kings, as 
well as the amount of tribute to be paid into the royal 
treafury. The figure of a circle reprelented unit, and in 
fmall numbers the computation was made by repeating it. 
According to Clavigero, they conjoined the decimal with 
tire binary fyftem of notation. Every number below 20, 
or the /core, they exprefted by repeated dots. Tvventy 
was reprelented by a club, or upright double-headed bar ; 
the fquare of this, or 400, was lignified by two Inch bars 
inverted and falhioned into the lhape ot a fpear-head; 
and the cube of the fcore, or 8000, again, was denoted 
by a new combination, forming a fort of ornamented 
lhield. 
Their mode of computing time may be confidered as a 
more decifive evidence of their progrefs In improvement. 
They divided their year into 18 months, each confiding 
of 20 days, amounting in all to 360. But, as they ob- 
ferved that the courie of the fun was not completed in 
that time, they added five days to the year. Thefe Were 
termed “ fupernumerary or wafte daysand, as they did 
not belong to any month, no work was done, nor lacred 
rite performed on them, but they were devoted wholly 
to feftivity and paftime, like the complementary days, or 
Jans-cnloltides, during the French republic. It appears, 
fays Clavigero, from the chronology ot the Mexicans, 
that they not only counted 365 days, to the year, but 
that they alfo knew the excefs of about fix hours in the 
lolar above the civil year, and remedied the difference 
between them by means of 13 intercalary days, which 
they added to their century of 52 years. The names of 
their 18 months were taken both from the employments 
and feftivals which occurred in them, and alfo from the 
accidents of the feafon which attended them. The Mexi¬ 
cans, in order to reprefent a month, painted a circle or 
wheel, divided into 20 figures, fignifying 20 days. To 
reprefent a year, they painted another, which they divided 
into 18 figures of the 18 months, and frequently painted 
within the wheel the image of the moon. The century 
was reprelented by a wheel divided into 52 figures, or 
rather by four figures which were 13 times defigned. 
They uled to paint a ferpent twilled about the wheel, 
which pointed out, by four twills o i its body, the four 
principal winds, and the beginnings of the lour periods 
of 13 years. See figures of thefe wheels in Clavigero's 
Hiftory of Mexico. 
The Mexicans had arrived at greater perfe&ion in fculp- 
ture, cafting of metals, and molaic works, than in paint¬ 
ing. Sculpture was likewife one of the arts exercifed by the 
ancient Toltecans; but the Mexicans had Iculptors among 
them when they left their native country of Atztlan. 
Several of the Toltecan ftatues, however, were preferved 
till the time of the conqueft, particularly that of the idol 
Tialoc, placed upon the mountain of the lame name, and 
l'ome gigantic ftatues in one of their temples. Stone and 
wood were the uftial materials of their ftatues: the for¬ 
mer 
