(‡ decoration)FRANCIS PARKMAN.HISTORIAN OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN CONFLICT.TO FRANCIS PARKMAN, as much as to any one man, we owe the revival of interest in American history. His story of “The Pioneers of France in the New World,” “The Jesuits in North America,” “La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West,” “The Old Régime in Canada,” “Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.” “A Half-Century of Conflict,” “Montcalm and Wolf,” and “The Conspiracy of Pontiac,” form a connected account of the rise and fall of the French power in America. They may well be described as one work, almost as one book. It was a great design formed when he was still a Harvard student, and held so tenaciously that no trials or disappointments could discourage him and no mountain of labor be too great for his untiring powers.He was born in Boston in 1823, and was so fortunate as to inherit wealth which not only set him free to devote himself to his vocation, but enabled him to command an amount and kind of assistance absolutely essential to his peculiar work, and in his peculiar circumstances, and which could be secured only by large expenditure. He had traveled a year abroad before he graduated in 1844 and had made himself master of the French language and familiar with French history and institutions. By repeated summer journeys into the wilderness of northern New England, he had acquainted himself with the conditions of pioneer life and, to some extent of Indian warfare. He pursued the study of law for two years, but it may well be supposed that these studies yielded larger results in a knowledge of the history of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and of the facts in that history bearing upon the great conflict in the new world, than in any definite grasp of the intricacies of the law itself.In the spring of 1846, he joined his cousin, Quincy A. Shaw, in the hazardous experiment of spending the summer with the Dacotah Indians, then living in an entirely savage condition east of the Rocky mountains. The two young men carried out their undertaking at the continuous risk of their lives, but it supplied Parkman with a minute knowledge of Indian thoughts and Indian ways which equipped him, as probably no other man was ever equipped, for writing the history in which Indians were among the chief actors. But the cost was very great. While among the Indians he was attacked by serious illness and it was one of the savage customs of his Indian companions that he who confessed sickness was to be immediately tomahawked. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to fight off his disease as best he could and make what show was possible,of health and vigor. He succeeded, but the strain was so great that it left him apparently disabled. His physicians assured him that he could not live, and for three years he was compelled to suspend all intellectual work and live a life as absolutely quiet as was possible. The remainder of his life was devoted to the books which we have named. For the greater portion of this fifty years he could not use his eyes for more than five continuous minutes, and he was compelled to exercise the greatest care not to bring on final collapse by exceeding the few hours per day which he could safely devote to mental labor. Every one of his books was dictated to a relative, who cared for every detail of its preparation for the press. In gathering the materials for his histories he visited Europe seven times, and constantly employed a number of experts in copying important documents for his use. He very early became master of everything that had been printed which bore upon his subject, and realized that his main dependence must be upon manuscripts—private letters, public documents, official reports—scattered through public and private libraries in Europe and America, often unknown and frequently almost inaccessible. An interesting example of his persistency is in his continuing to search for fifteen years for a volume of letters from Montcalm in Canada, which Montcalm had requested to have burned, but which Parkman believed to exist, and which was finally discovered in a private collection of manuscripts.The Massachusetts Historical Society possesses an oaken cabinet in which are stored some two hundred folio volumes of manuscript copies of important documents, the gift ofMr.Parkman; to Harvard College he gave a most interesting collection of fac-simile maps.Mr.Parkman was not a recluse, but on the contrary delighted in society, and indulged his liking as far as was possible with a due regard to saving his strength for his beloved work. He took the most lively interest in public affairs, and for a number of years was one of the corporation of Harvard University.An interesting side ofMr.Parkman’s life was his interest in horticulture. He became the owner in 1854 of a property on the shore of Jamaica Pond, and in this beautiful place devoted himself in the intervals of literary labor, and during the several periods of two or three years when he was absolutely compelled to abstain, to the culture of flowers. He made long continued and careful experiments in hybridizing lillies and other flowers and produced a number of new varieties one of which, a magnificent lilly was given his name by the English horticulturist who undertook to put the beautiful plant upon the market. He published “The Book of Roses,” held a professorship in the Bussey Institution, and was in 1886 president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. But his principal workshop was a plain, comfortable room at the top of his sister’s house on Beacon Hill, in Boston, where with an open fire and convenient bookshelves and the willing help of friends and relatives he completed his task in 1892. It was at his suburban home which had supplied occupation and entertainment when driven from his work and whose beauties were so largely his own creation, that, two years later, he passed away.This, in brief, is the life of the man who has made La Salle and Montcalm live again for delighted thousands of nineteenth century readers. The study of our nation’s history is coming to take its proper position in our colleges and schools, our libraries are compelled to set apart more and more shelf-room for books which tellthe story of the making of America and of our national life. There is no chapter in all this history more vivid, more full of action, more crowded with the conflict between high and ignoble purpose, nor one which bears a more important relation to our national development than that which tells how the Frenchman came, how he made friends with the Indian, how he contended for empire and was defeated. And no one of these chapters has been written with more absolute fidelity to the actual facts in their proper relation. It is written in a style whose grace and elegance of diction, clearness and dignity of expression, completeness and accuracy of statement bring back the Indian and the Frenchman, the priest and thevoyageurand make them live and move before our eyes. It was a field unoccupied, a period of history interesting, inviting, and complete in itself. Few historians have embraced such an opportunity, of still fewer can it be said that their work is so well done that it need never be done again.He was half a century at his work, untiringly; as has been well said, “Nowhere can we find a better illustration of the French critic’s definition of a great life—a thought conceived in youth and realized in later years.”THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.THE four northern colonies were known collectively as New England; Massachusetts may serve as a type of all. It was a mosaic of little village republics, firmly cemented together, and formed into a single body politic through representatives sent to the “General Court,” at Boston. Its government, originally theocratic, now tended towards democracy, ballasted as yet by strong traditions of respect for established worth and ability, as well as by the influence of certain families prominent in affairs for generations. Yet there were no distinct class-lines, and popular power, like popular education, was widely diffused.Practically Massachusetts was almost independent of the Mother Country. Its people were purely English, of good♦yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn from the best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of life. A harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff formalism, and its prohibition of wholesome recreation; excess in the pursuit of gain—the only resource left to energies robbed of their natural play; the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil; and the isolation of a narrow village life—joined to produce in the meaner sorts qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive.♦‘yoeman’ replaced with ‘yeoman’Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing. Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude was one of repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but much that is innocent and salutary. Human nature so treated will take its revenge, and for every vice that it loses find another instead. Nevertheless, while New England Puritanism bore its peculiar crop of faults, it also produced many sound and good fruits. An uncommon vigor, joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England type. The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and flesh—and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an understanding courage,♦patriotism, public sagacity and a strong good sense.♦‘partiotism’ replaced with ‘patriotism’The New England Colonies abounded in high examples of public and private virtue, though not always under prepossessing forms. There were few New Englanders, however personally modest, who could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval; and thus self-righteousness—along with certain other traits—failed to commend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows. Then, as now, New England was best known to her neighbors by her worst side.THE HEIGHTS OFABRAHAM.¹(FROM MONTCALM AND WOLFE, 1884.)¹By Permission of Little, Brown &Co.FOR full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current, steered silently down theSt.Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robinson, afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low voice, repeated Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Church-yard” to the officers about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his thoughts. Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to illustrate.—“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”“Gentlemen,” he said, as his recital ended, “I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec.” None were there to tell him that the hero is greater than the poet.Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the evening the cannon bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and the boats of the fleet hovered in the dusk off Beauport shore, threatening every moment to land. Troops lined the entrenchments till day, while the general walked the field that adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning, accompanied by the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez. Johnstone says that he was in great agitation, and took no rest all night. At daybreak he heard the sound of cannon above the town. It was the battery at Samos firing on the English ships. He had sent an officer to the headquarters of Vaudreuil, which was much nearer Quebec, with orders to bring him word at once should anything unusual happen. But no word came, and about six o’clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone. As they advanced, the country behind the town opened more and more upon their sight; till at length, when opposite Vaudreuil’s house, they saw across theSt.Charles, some two miles away, the red ranks of British soldiers on the heights beyond.“This is a serious business,” Montcalm said, and sent off Johnstone at full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre and left of the camp. Those on the right were in motion already, and doubtless by the Governor’s order. Vaudreuil came out of the house. Montcalm stopped for a few words with him; then set spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge of theSt.Charles to the scene of danger. He rode with a fixed look, uttering not a word.Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected to see a detachment, and he found an army. Full in sight before him stretched the lines of Wolfe; the close ranks of English infantry, stretched a silent wall of red, and the wild array of Highlanders, with their waving tartans, and bagpipes screaming defiance. Vaudreuil had not come; but not the less was felt the evil of divided authority and the jealousy of the rival chiefs. Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered to join him from the left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It is said the Governor had detained them lest the English should attack the Beauport shore. Even if they did so, and succeeded, the French might defy them, could they but put Wolfe to route on the Plains of Abraham. Neither did the garrison of Quebec come to the aid of Montcalm. He sent to Ramesay, its commander, for twenty-five field-pieces which were on the palace battery. Ramesay would give him only three, saying that he wanted them for his own defence. There were orders and counter-orders; misunderstandings, haste, delay, perplexity.Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is said that he and they alike were for immediate attack. His enemies declared that he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive and take command; but the Governor was not the man to assume responsibility at such a crisis. Others say his impetuosity overcame his better judgment; and of this charge it is hard to acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles distant and some of his troops were much nearer; a messenger sent by way of Old Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a-half at most, and a combined attack in front and rear might have been concerted with him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an understanding with Vaudreuil, his own forces might have been strengthenedby two or three thousand additional men from the town and the camp of Beauport; but he felt that there was no time to lose, for he imagined that Wolfe would soon be reinforced, which was no less an error. He has been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at all. In this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was now in a position to cut off all his supplies. His men were full of ardor, and he resolved to attack before their ardor cooled. He spoke a few words to them in his keen, vehement way. “I remember very well how he looked,” one of the Canadians, then a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age. “He rode a black or dark bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with wide sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed the white linen of the wristband.”The English waited the result with a composure which, if not quite real, was well feigned. The three field-pieces sent by Ramesay plied them with canister-shot, and fifteen hundred Canadians and Indians fusilladed them in front and flank.Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his followers loved him is shown by the following incident that happened in the course of the morning. One of his captains was shot through the lungs; and on recovering consciousness he saw the general standing by his side. Wolfe pressed his hand, told him not to despair, praised his services, promised him early promotion, and sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that officer to keep the promise if he himself should fall.It was toward ten o’clock when, from the high ground on the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with grapeshot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments more they were in motion. They came on rapidly, uttering loud shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range. Their ranks, ill-ordered at best, were further confused by a number of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who, after hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload. The British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still. When the French were within forty paces the word of command rang out, and a crash of musketry answered all along the line. The volley was delivered with remarkable precision. In the battalions of the centre, which had suffered least from the enemy’s bullets, the simultaneous explosion was afterwards said by French officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot.Another volley followed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was revealed: the ground cumbered with dead and wounded; the advancing masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting, cursing, gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as blood-hounds. At the English right, though the attacking column was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge at the head of the Louisbourg Grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the Grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon. “There’s no need,” he answered; “it’s all over with me.” A moment after, one of them cried out: “They run, see how they run!” “Who run?” Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. “The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!”“Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton,” returned the dying man, “tell him to march Webb’s Regiment down to Charles River to cut off their retreat from the bridge.” Then, turning on his side, he murmured: “Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!” and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.
(‡ decoration)
HISTORIAN OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN CONFLICT.
TO FRANCIS PARKMAN, as much as to any one man, we owe the revival of interest in American history. His story of “The Pioneers of France in the New World,” “The Jesuits in North America,” “La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West,” “The Old Régime in Canada,” “Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.” “A Half-Century of Conflict,” “Montcalm and Wolf,” and “The Conspiracy of Pontiac,” form a connected account of the rise and fall of the French power in America. They may well be described as one work, almost as one book. It was a great design formed when he was still a Harvard student, and held so tenaciously that no trials or disappointments could discourage him and no mountain of labor be too great for his untiring powers.
He was born in Boston in 1823, and was so fortunate as to inherit wealth which not only set him free to devote himself to his vocation, but enabled him to command an amount and kind of assistance absolutely essential to his peculiar work, and in his peculiar circumstances, and which could be secured only by large expenditure. He had traveled a year abroad before he graduated in 1844 and had made himself master of the French language and familiar with French history and institutions. By repeated summer journeys into the wilderness of northern New England, he had acquainted himself with the conditions of pioneer life and, to some extent of Indian warfare. He pursued the study of law for two years, but it may well be supposed that these studies yielded larger results in a knowledge of the history of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and of the facts in that history bearing upon the great conflict in the new world, than in any definite grasp of the intricacies of the law itself.
In the spring of 1846, he joined his cousin, Quincy A. Shaw, in the hazardous experiment of spending the summer with the Dacotah Indians, then living in an entirely savage condition east of the Rocky mountains. The two young men carried out their undertaking at the continuous risk of their lives, but it supplied Parkman with a minute knowledge of Indian thoughts and Indian ways which equipped him, as probably no other man was ever equipped, for writing the history in which Indians were among the chief actors. But the cost was very great. While among the Indians he was attacked by serious illness and it was one of the savage customs of his Indian companions that he who confessed sickness was to be immediately tomahawked. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to fight off his disease as best he could and make what show was possible,of health and vigor. He succeeded, but the strain was so great that it left him apparently disabled. His physicians assured him that he could not live, and for three years he was compelled to suspend all intellectual work and live a life as absolutely quiet as was possible. The remainder of his life was devoted to the books which we have named. For the greater portion of this fifty years he could not use his eyes for more than five continuous minutes, and he was compelled to exercise the greatest care not to bring on final collapse by exceeding the few hours per day which he could safely devote to mental labor. Every one of his books was dictated to a relative, who cared for every detail of its preparation for the press. In gathering the materials for his histories he visited Europe seven times, and constantly employed a number of experts in copying important documents for his use. He very early became master of everything that had been printed which bore upon his subject, and realized that his main dependence must be upon manuscripts—private letters, public documents, official reports—scattered through public and private libraries in Europe and America, often unknown and frequently almost inaccessible. An interesting example of his persistency is in his continuing to search for fifteen years for a volume of letters from Montcalm in Canada, which Montcalm had requested to have burned, but which Parkman believed to exist, and which was finally discovered in a private collection of manuscripts.
The Massachusetts Historical Society possesses an oaken cabinet in which are stored some two hundred folio volumes of manuscript copies of important documents, the gift ofMr.Parkman; to Harvard College he gave a most interesting collection of fac-simile maps.
Mr.Parkman was not a recluse, but on the contrary delighted in society, and indulged his liking as far as was possible with a due regard to saving his strength for his beloved work. He took the most lively interest in public affairs, and for a number of years was one of the corporation of Harvard University.
An interesting side ofMr.Parkman’s life was his interest in horticulture. He became the owner in 1854 of a property on the shore of Jamaica Pond, and in this beautiful place devoted himself in the intervals of literary labor, and during the several periods of two or three years when he was absolutely compelled to abstain, to the culture of flowers. He made long continued and careful experiments in hybridizing lillies and other flowers and produced a number of new varieties one of which, a magnificent lilly was given his name by the English horticulturist who undertook to put the beautiful plant upon the market. He published “The Book of Roses,” held a professorship in the Bussey Institution, and was in 1886 president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. But his principal workshop was a plain, comfortable room at the top of his sister’s house on Beacon Hill, in Boston, where with an open fire and convenient bookshelves and the willing help of friends and relatives he completed his task in 1892. It was at his suburban home which had supplied occupation and entertainment when driven from his work and whose beauties were so largely his own creation, that, two years later, he passed away.
This, in brief, is the life of the man who has made La Salle and Montcalm live again for delighted thousands of nineteenth century readers. The study of our nation’s history is coming to take its proper position in our colleges and schools, our libraries are compelled to set apart more and more shelf-room for books which tellthe story of the making of America and of our national life. There is no chapter in all this history more vivid, more full of action, more crowded with the conflict between high and ignoble purpose, nor one which bears a more important relation to our national development than that which tells how the Frenchman came, how he made friends with the Indian, how he contended for empire and was defeated. And no one of these chapters has been written with more absolute fidelity to the actual facts in their proper relation. It is written in a style whose grace and elegance of diction, clearness and dignity of expression, completeness and accuracy of statement bring back the Indian and the Frenchman, the priest and thevoyageurand make them live and move before our eyes. It was a field unoccupied, a period of history interesting, inviting, and complete in itself. Few historians have embraced such an opportunity, of still fewer can it be said that their work is so well done that it need never be done again.
He was half a century at his work, untiringly; as has been well said, “Nowhere can we find a better illustration of the French critic’s definition of a great life—a thought conceived in youth and realized in later years.”
THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.
THE four northern colonies were known collectively as New England; Massachusetts may serve as a type of all. It was a mosaic of little village republics, firmly cemented together, and formed into a single body politic through representatives sent to the “General Court,” at Boston. Its government, originally theocratic, now tended towards democracy, ballasted as yet by strong traditions of respect for established worth and ability, as well as by the influence of certain families prominent in affairs for generations. Yet there were no distinct class-lines, and popular power, like popular education, was widely diffused.Practically Massachusetts was almost independent of the Mother Country. Its people were purely English, of good♦yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn from the best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of life. A harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff formalism, and its prohibition of wholesome recreation; excess in the pursuit of gain—the only resource left to energies robbed of their natural play; the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil; and the isolation of a narrow village life—joined to produce in the meaner sorts qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive.♦‘yoeman’ replaced with ‘yeoman’Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing. Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude was one of repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but much that is innocent and salutary. Human nature so treated will take its revenge, and for every vice that it loses find another instead. Nevertheless, while New England Puritanism bore its peculiar crop of faults, it also produced many sound and good fruits. An uncommon vigor, joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England type. The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and flesh—and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an understanding courage,♦patriotism, public sagacity and a strong good sense.♦‘partiotism’ replaced with ‘patriotism’The New England Colonies abounded in high examples of public and private virtue, though not always under prepossessing forms. There were few New Englanders, however personally modest, who could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval; and thus self-righteousness—along with certain other traits—failed to commend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows. Then, as now, New England was best known to her neighbors by her worst side.
THE four northern colonies were known collectively as New England; Massachusetts may serve as a type of all. It was a mosaic of little village republics, firmly cemented together, and formed into a single body politic through representatives sent to the “General Court,” at Boston. Its government, originally theocratic, now tended towards democracy, ballasted as yet by strong traditions of respect for established worth and ability, as well as by the influence of certain families prominent in affairs for generations. Yet there were no distinct class-lines, and popular power, like popular education, was widely diffused.
Practically Massachusetts was almost independent of the Mother Country. Its people were purely English, of good♦yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn from the best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of life. A harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff formalism, and its prohibition of wholesome recreation; excess in the pursuit of gain—the only resource left to energies robbed of their natural play; the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil; and the isolation of a narrow village life—joined to produce in the meaner sorts qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive.
♦‘yoeman’ replaced with ‘yeoman’
Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing. Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude was one of repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but much that is innocent and salutary. Human nature so treated will take its revenge, and for every vice that it loses find another instead. Nevertheless, while New England Puritanism bore its peculiar crop of faults, it also produced many sound and good fruits. An uncommon vigor, joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England type. The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and flesh—and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an understanding courage,♦patriotism, public sagacity and a strong good sense.
♦‘partiotism’ replaced with ‘patriotism’
The New England Colonies abounded in high examples of public and private virtue, though not always under prepossessing forms. There were few New Englanders, however personally modest, who could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval; and thus self-righteousness—along with certain other traits—failed to commend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows. Then, as now, New England was best known to her neighbors by her worst side.
THE HEIGHTS OFABRAHAM.¹
(FROM MONTCALM AND WOLFE, 1884.)
¹By Permission of Little, Brown &Co.
FOR full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current, steered silently down theSt.Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robinson, afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low voice, repeated Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Church-yard” to the officers about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his thoughts. Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to illustrate.—“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”“Gentlemen,” he said, as his recital ended, “I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec.” None were there to tell him that the hero is greater than the poet.Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the evening the cannon bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and the boats of the fleet hovered in the dusk off Beauport shore, threatening every moment to land. Troops lined the entrenchments till day, while the general walked the field that adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning, accompanied by the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez. Johnstone says that he was in great agitation, and took no rest all night. At daybreak he heard the sound of cannon above the town. It was the battery at Samos firing on the English ships. He had sent an officer to the headquarters of Vaudreuil, which was much nearer Quebec, with orders to bring him word at once should anything unusual happen. But no word came, and about six o’clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone. As they advanced, the country behind the town opened more and more upon their sight; till at length, when opposite Vaudreuil’s house, they saw across theSt.Charles, some two miles away, the red ranks of British soldiers on the heights beyond.“This is a serious business,” Montcalm said, and sent off Johnstone at full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre and left of the camp. Those on the right were in motion already, and doubtless by the Governor’s order. Vaudreuil came out of the house. Montcalm stopped for a few words with him; then set spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge of theSt.Charles to the scene of danger. He rode with a fixed look, uttering not a word.Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected to see a detachment, and he found an army. Full in sight before him stretched the lines of Wolfe; the close ranks of English infantry, stretched a silent wall of red, and the wild array of Highlanders, with their waving tartans, and bagpipes screaming defiance. Vaudreuil had not come; but not the less was felt the evil of divided authority and the jealousy of the rival chiefs. Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered to join him from the left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It is said the Governor had detained them lest the English should attack the Beauport shore. Even if they did so, and succeeded, the French might defy them, could they but put Wolfe to route on the Plains of Abraham. Neither did the garrison of Quebec come to the aid of Montcalm. He sent to Ramesay, its commander, for twenty-five field-pieces which were on the palace battery. Ramesay would give him only three, saying that he wanted them for his own defence. There were orders and counter-orders; misunderstandings, haste, delay, perplexity.Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is said that he and they alike were for immediate attack. His enemies declared that he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive and take command; but the Governor was not the man to assume responsibility at such a crisis. Others say his impetuosity overcame his better judgment; and of this charge it is hard to acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles distant and some of his troops were much nearer; a messenger sent by way of Old Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a-half at most, and a combined attack in front and rear might have been concerted with him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an understanding with Vaudreuil, his own forces might have been strengthenedby two or three thousand additional men from the town and the camp of Beauport; but he felt that there was no time to lose, for he imagined that Wolfe would soon be reinforced, which was no less an error. He has been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at all. In this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was now in a position to cut off all his supplies. His men were full of ardor, and he resolved to attack before their ardor cooled. He spoke a few words to them in his keen, vehement way. “I remember very well how he looked,” one of the Canadians, then a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age. “He rode a black or dark bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with wide sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed the white linen of the wristband.”The English waited the result with a composure which, if not quite real, was well feigned. The three field-pieces sent by Ramesay plied them with canister-shot, and fifteen hundred Canadians and Indians fusilladed them in front and flank.Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his followers loved him is shown by the following incident that happened in the course of the morning. One of his captains was shot through the lungs; and on recovering consciousness he saw the general standing by his side. Wolfe pressed his hand, told him not to despair, praised his services, promised him early promotion, and sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that officer to keep the promise if he himself should fall.It was toward ten o’clock when, from the high ground on the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with grapeshot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments more they were in motion. They came on rapidly, uttering loud shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range. Their ranks, ill-ordered at best, were further confused by a number of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who, after hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload. The British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still. When the French were within forty paces the word of command rang out, and a crash of musketry answered all along the line. The volley was delivered with remarkable precision. In the battalions of the centre, which had suffered least from the enemy’s bullets, the simultaneous explosion was afterwards said by French officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot.Another volley followed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was revealed: the ground cumbered with dead and wounded; the advancing masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting, cursing, gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as blood-hounds. At the English right, though the attacking column was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge at the head of the Louisbourg Grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the Grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon. “There’s no need,” he answered; “it’s all over with me.” A moment after, one of them cried out: “They run, see how they run!” “Who run?” Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. “The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!”“Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton,” returned the dying man, “tell him to march Webb’s Regiment down to Charles River to cut off their retreat from the bridge.” Then, turning on his side, he murmured: “Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!” and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.
FOR full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current, steered silently down theSt.Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robinson, afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low voice, repeated Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Church-yard” to the officers about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his thoughts. Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to illustrate.—“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
“Gentlemen,” he said, as his recital ended, “I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec.” None were there to tell him that the hero is greater than the poet.
Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the evening the cannon bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and the boats of the fleet hovered in the dusk off Beauport shore, threatening every moment to land. Troops lined the entrenchments till day, while the general walked the field that adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning, accompanied by the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez. Johnstone says that he was in great agitation, and took no rest all night. At daybreak he heard the sound of cannon above the town. It was the battery at Samos firing on the English ships. He had sent an officer to the headquarters of Vaudreuil, which was much nearer Quebec, with orders to bring him word at once should anything unusual happen. But no word came, and about six o’clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone. As they advanced, the country behind the town opened more and more upon their sight; till at length, when opposite Vaudreuil’s house, they saw across theSt.Charles, some two miles away, the red ranks of British soldiers on the heights beyond.
“This is a serious business,” Montcalm said, and sent off Johnstone at full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre and left of the camp. Those on the right were in motion already, and doubtless by the Governor’s order. Vaudreuil came out of the house. Montcalm stopped for a few words with him; then set spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge of theSt.Charles to the scene of danger. He rode with a fixed look, uttering not a word.
Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected to see a detachment, and he found an army. Full in sight before him stretched the lines of Wolfe; the close ranks of English infantry, stretched a silent wall of red, and the wild array of Highlanders, with their waving tartans, and bagpipes screaming defiance. Vaudreuil had not come; but not the less was felt the evil of divided authority and the jealousy of the rival chiefs. Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered to join him from the left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It is said the Governor had detained them lest the English should attack the Beauport shore. Even if they did so, and succeeded, the French might defy them, could they but put Wolfe to route on the Plains of Abraham. Neither did the garrison of Quebec come to the aid of Montcalm. He sent to Ramesay, its commander, for twenty-five field-pieces which were on the palace battery. Ramesay would give him only three, saying that he wanted them for his own defence. There were orders and counter-orders; misunderstandings, haste, delay, perplexity.
Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is said that he and they alike were for immediate attack. His enemies declared that he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive and take command; but the Governor was not the man to assume responsibility at such a crisis. Others say his impetuosity overcame his better judgment; and of this charge it is hard to acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles distant and some of his troops were much nearer; a messenger sent by way of Old Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a-half at most, and a combined attack in front and rear might have been concerted with him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an understanding with Vaudreuil, his own forces might have been strengthenedby two or three thousand additional men from the town and the camp of Beauport; but he felt that there was no time to lose, for he imagined that Wolfe would soon be reinforced, which was no less an error. He has been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at all. In this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was now in a position to cut off all his supplies. His men were full of ardor, and he resolved to attack before their ardor cooled. He spoke a few words to them in his keen, vehement way. “I remember very well how he looked,” one of the Canadians, then a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age. “He rode a black or dark bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with wide sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed the white linen of the wristband.”
The English waited the result with a composure which, if not quite real, was well feigned. The three field-pieces sent by Ramesay plied them with canister-shot, and fifteen hundred Canadians and Indians fusilladed them in front and flank.
Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his followers loved him is shown by the following incident that happened in the course of the morning. One of his captains was shot through the lungs; and on recovering consciousness he saw the general standing by his side. Wolfe pressed his hand, told him not to despair, praised his services, promised him early promotion, and sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that officer to keep the promise if he himself should fall.
It was toward ten o’clock when, from the high ground on the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with grapeshot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments more they were in motion. They came on rapidly, uttering loud shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range. Their ranks, ill-ordered at best, were further confused by a number of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who, after hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload. The British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still. When the French were within forty paces the word of command rang out, and a crash of musketry answered all along the line. The volley was delivered with remarkable precision. In the battalions of the centre, which had suffered least from the enemy’s bullets, the simultaneous explosion was afterwards said by French officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot.
Another volley followed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was revealed: the ground cumbered with dead and wounded; the advancing masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting, cursing, gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as blood-hounds. At the English right, though the attacking column was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge at the head of the Louisbourg Grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the Grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon. “There’s no need,” he answered; “it’s all over with me.” A moment after, one of them cried out: “They run, see how they run!” “Who run?” Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. “The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!”
“Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton,” returned the dying man, “tell him to march Webb’s Regiment down to Charles River to cut off their retreat from the bridge.” Then, turning on his side, he murmured: “Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!” and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.
(‡ decoration)WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT.HISTORIAN OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND PERU.IT MAY well be doubted whether any other historian was ever so loved both by those who knew him personally and by those who counted themselves fortunate in knowing him through his books as was William H. Prescott. Indeed that love promises to be perennial, for “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru” continue to be the delight of the intelligent schoolboy and bid fair to maintain their hold upon public interest in succeeding generations.Prescott was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, having been born in that city on the4thof May, 1796. His father was a lawyer, and he inherited from him literary tastes, love of learning and great mental vigor. He was accidentally struck, while a Junior at Harvard, by a piece of hard bread, thrown by a fellow student, and the blow deprived him forever of the use of his left eye, gave him many months of tedious suffering in darkened rooms, and resulted in such serious damage to the other eye as to make it of little and constantly decreasing use to him. He had intended to be a lawyer, but this accident made another choice necessary. He deliberately resolved upon a literary career and prepared himself for it in the most thorough and painstaking way imaginable. A memorandum dated October, 1821, lays out a course of study which one might think unnecessary for a graduate of Harvard College, but which he undertook for the purpose of perfecting his style, and with what degree of success the universal admiration of his works well testifies. It was as follows:“1. Principles of Grammar, correct writing,etc.2. Compendious history of North America.3. Fine prose-writers of English.4. Latin classics one hour a day.”This course, omitting the American history, he faithfully pursued for about a year, when he took up the study of French and, later, of German. His study of Spanish and consequently his choice of the topics of his great works came about almost accidentally. He had found the study of German very difficult, so much so that he was in despair. His friend George Ticknor had delivered to the Senior Class at Harvard a series of lectures on Spanish literature, and, to divert and entertain him during a period of discouragement and of suffering from his eyes, proposed to read the lectures to him. He was so delighted with the subject that he immediately began the study of the language with the result that the remainder of his life wasdevoted to Spanish subjects. Prescott had married, in 1820, to Miss Susan Amory, the daughter of a cultivated and successful Boston merchant, and of the marriage he said, near the close of his life, “contrary to the assertion of a French philosopher who says that the most fortunate husband finds reason to regret his condition at least once in twenty-four hours,—I may truly say that I have found no such day in the quarter of a century that Providence has spared us to each other.”Mrs.Prescott was devoted to her husband, and until his death in 1859, was his continual support, adviser and assistant.MR.PRESCOTT’S HOUSE AT PEPPERETT,MASS.The account of his method of composition is told in one of his letters: “In the Christmas of 1837 my first work, ‘The History of Ferdinand and Isabella,’ was given to the world. I obtained the services of a reader who knew no language but his own, (English). I taught him to pronounce Castilian in a manner suited, I suspect, more tomyear than to that of a Spaniard, and we began our wearisome journey through Mariana’s noble (Spanish) history. I cannot even now call to mind without a smile the tedious hours in which, seated under some old trees in my country residence, we pursued our slow and melancholy way over pages which afforded no glimmering of light to him, and from which the light came dimly struggling to me through a half intelligible vocabulary. But in a few weeks the light became stronger, and I was cheered by the consciousness of my own improvement, and when we had toiled our way through seven quartos, I found I could understand the book when read about two-thirds as fast as ordinary English. My reader’s office required the more patience; he had not even this result to cheer him in his labor. I now felt that the great difficulty could be overcome, and I obtained the services of a reader whose acquaintance with modern and ancient tongues supplied,as far as it could be supplied, the deficiency of eyesight on my part. But though in this way I could examine various authorities, it was not easy to arrange in my mind the results of my reading drawn from different and often contradictory accounts. To do this I dictated copious notes as I went along, and when I had read enough for a chapter (from thirty to forty, and sometimes fifty pages in length), I had a mass of memoranda in my own language, which would easily bring before me in one view, the fruit of my researches. These notes were carefully read to me, and while my recent studies were fresh in my recollection, I ran over the whole of any intended chapter in my mind. This process I repeated at least half a dozen times, so that when I finally put my pen to paper it ran off pretty glibly for it was an effort of memory rather than composition.Writing presented me a difficulty even greater than reading. Thierry, the famous blind historian of the Norman conquest, advised me to cultivate dictation; but I usually preferred a substitute that I found in a writing-case made for the blind which I procured in London, forty years since. It consists of a frame of the size of a sheet of paper, traversed by brass wires, as many as lines are wanted on the page, and with a sheet of carbonated paper, such as is used for getting duplicates, pasted on the reverse side. With an ivory or agate stylus the writer traces his characters between the wires on the carbonated sheet, making indelible marks, which he cannot see, on the white page below. This treadmill operation has its defects; and I have repeatedly supposed I had accomplished a good page, and was proceeding in all the glow of composition to go ahead, when I found I had forgotten to insert a sheet of writing-paper below, that my labor had all been thrown away, and that the leaf looked as blank as myself. Notwithstanding these and other whimsical distresses of the kind, I have found my writing-case my best friend in my lonely hours, and with it have written nearly all that I have sent into the world the last forty years.”Prescott’s writings were successful from the first. Translations of the “History of Ferdinand and Isabella” appeared within a few years in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian, and it is surely no wonder that the author took up with a good heart the preparation of a “History of the Conquest of Mexico,” and then a “History of the Conquest of Peru,” both of which were received with the same appreciation that had rewarded his first published work.He had spent some time abroad before his marriage, partly in the hope of benefitting his eyesight. In 1850 he again visited England and spent some time on the continent. He wrote a number of miscellaneous articles for magazines and reviews, and published in 1855, two, and in 1858 the third volume of his uncompleted “History of the Reign of PhilipII., King of Spain.” This, had he lived to complete it, would doubtless have been his greatest work. It was received with such favor that six months after the publication of the first two volumes, eight thousand copies had been sold and the sales of his other works had been so stimulated as to bring the total up to thirty thousand volumes during that time, which yielded the author the substantial royalty of seventeen thousand dollars.A slight stroke of paralysis had already enfeebled him, and a second terminated his life on the28thof January, 1859. His wife, one daughter, and two sons survived him.Few men have combined so many engaging qualities. His blindness had made no change in his appearance, and he was thought to be one of the handsomest men of his time. His cheerfulness of disposition was so great that at the time of his most intense suffering he addressed those who cared for him with such brightness and consideration that one might have thought their positions reversed. The personal friends who were won by his grace of manner and by the sterling worth of his character have nearly all passed away, but the hope that he early expressed, “to produce something which posterity would not willingly let die,” was most abundantly realized.THE GOLDEN AGE OF TEZCUCO.(FROM HISTORY OF CONQUEST OF MEXICO, 1843.)THE first measure of Nezahualcoyotl, on returning to his dominions, was a general amnesty. It was his maxim “that a monarch might punish, but revenge was unworthy of him.” In the present instance he was averse even to punish, and not only freely pardoned his rebel nobles, but conferred on some, who had most deeply offended, posts of honor and confidence. Such conduct was doubtless politic, especially as their alienation was owing probably, much more to fear of the usurper than to any disaffection towards himself. But there are some acts of policy which a magnanimous spirit only can execute.The restored monarch next set about repairing the damages sustained under the late misrule, and reviving, or rather remodelling, the various departments of government. He framed a concise, but comprehensive, code of laws, so well suited, it was thought, to the exigencies of the times, that it was adopted as their own by the two other members of the triple alliance. It was written in blood, and entitled the author to be called the Draco rather than “the Solon of Anahuac,” as he is fondly styled by his admirers. Humanity is one of the best fruits of refinement. It is only with increasing civilization that the legislator studies to economize human suffering, even for the guilty; to devise penalties not so much by way of punishment for the past as of reformation for the future.He divided the burden of the government among a number of departments, as the council of war, the council of finance, the council of justice. This last was a court of supreme authority, both in civil and criminal matters, receiving appeals from the lower tribunals of the provinces, which were obliged to make a full report, every four months, or eighty days, of their own proceedings to this higher judicature. In all these bodies, a certain number of citizens were allowed to have seats with the nobles and professional dignitaries. There was, however, another body, a council of state, for aiding the king in the dispatch of business, and advising him in matters of importance, which was drawn altogether from the highest order of chiefs. It consisted of fourteen members; and they had seats provided for them at the royal table. Lastly, there was an extraordinary tribunal, called the council of music, but which differing from the import of its name, was devoted to the encouragement of science and art. Works on astronomy, chronology, history or any other science, were required to be submitted to its judgment, before they could be made public. This censorial power was of some moment, at least with regard to the historical department, where the wilful perversion of truth was made a capital offence by the bloody code of Nezahualcoyotl. Yet a Tezcucan author must have been a bungler, who could not elude a conviction under the cloudy veil of hieroglyphics. This body, which was drawn from the best instructed persons in the kingdom, with little regard to rank, had supervision of all the productions of art, and the nicer fabrics. It decided on the qualifications of the professors in the various branches of science, on the fidelity of their instructions to their pupils, the deficiency of which was severely punished, and it instituted examinations of these latter. In short, it was a general board ofeducation for the country. On stated days, historical compositions, and poems treating of moral or traditional topics, were recited before it by their authors. Seats were provided for the three crowned heads of the empire, who deliberated with the other members on the respective merits of the pieces, and distributed prizes of value to the successful competitors.The influence of this academy must have been most propitious to the capital, which became the nursery not only of such sciences as could be compassed by the scholarship of the period, but of various useful and ornamental arts. Its historians, orators, and poets were celebrated throughout the country. Its archives, for which accommodations were provided in the royal palaces, were stored with the records of primitive ages. Its idiom, more polished than the Mexican, was, indeed, the purest of all the Nahuatlac dialects, and continued, long after the Conquest, to be that in which the best productions of the native races were composed. Tezcuco claimed the glory of being the Athens of the Western world.Among the most illustrious of her bards was the emperor himself,—for the Tezcucan writers claim this title for their chief, as head of the imperial alliance. He doubtless appeared as a competitor before that very academy where he so often sat as a critic. Many of his odes descended to a late generation, and are still preserved, perhaps, in some of the dusty repositories of Mexico or Spain. The historian Ixtlilxochitl has left a translation, in Castilian, of one of the poems of his royal ancestor. It is not easy to render his version into corresponding English rhyme, without the perfume of the original escaping in this double filtration. They remind one of the rich breathings of Spanish-Arab poetry, in which an ardent imagination is tempered by a not unpleasing and moral melancholy. But, though sufficiently florid in diction, they are generally free from the meretricious ornaments and hyperbole with which the minstrelsy of the East is usually tainted. They turn on the vanities and mutability of human life,—a topic very natural for a monarch who had himself experienced the strangest mutations of fortune. There is mingled in the lament of the Tezcucan bard, however, an Epicurean philosophy, which seeks relief from the fears of the future in the joys of the present. “Banish care,” he says: “if there are bounds to pleasure, the saddest of 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. Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come when thou shalt sigh for these 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 remembrance of the just shall not pass away from the nations, and the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor. 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.”But the hours of the Tezcucan monarch were not all passed in idle dalliance with the Muse, nor in the sober contemplations of philosophy, as at a later period. In the freshness of youth and early manhood he led the allied armies in their annual expeditions, which were certain to result in a wider extent of territory to the empire. In the intervals of peace he fostered those productive arts which are the surest sources of public prosperity. He encouraged agriculture above all; and there was scarcely a spot so rude, or a steep so inaccessible, as not to confess the power of cultivation. The land was covered with a busy population, and towns and cities sprang up in places since deserted or dwindled into miserable villages.THE BANQUET OF THE DEAD.(FROM “HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU,” 1847.)THE wealth displayed by the Peruvian princes was only that which each had amassed individually for himself. He owed nothing to inheritance from his predecessors. On the decease of an Inca, his palaces were abandoned; all his treasures, except what were employed in his obsequies,his furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he had left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever. The new sovereign was to provide himself with everything new for his royal state. The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to reanimate his body on earth; and they wished that he should find everything to which he had been used in life prepared for his reception.When an Inca died, or, to use his own language, “was called home to the mansions of his father, the Sun,” his obsequies were celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the body and deposited in the temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with them, and a number of his attendants and favorite concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb. Some of them showed the natural repugnance to the sacrifice occasionally manifested by the victims of a similar superstition in India. But these were probably the menials and more humble attendants; since the women have been known, in more than one instance, to lay violent hands on themselves, when restrained from testifying their fidelity by this act of conjugal martyrdom. This melancholy ceremony was followed by a general mourning throughout the empire. At stated intervals, for a year, the people assembled to renew the expressions of their sorrow; processions were made, displaying the banner of the departed monarch; bards and minstrels were appointed to chronicle his achievements, and their songs continued to be rehearsed at high festivals in the presence of the reigning monarch, thus stimulating the living by the glorious example of the dead.The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed, and removed to the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign, on entering the awful sanctuary, might behold the effigies of his royal ancestors, ranged in opposite files, the men on the right, and their queens on the left of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less liable to change than the fresher coloring of an European complexion—and their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the period at which they died! It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned by nature.They cherished a still stranger illusion in the attentions which they continued to pay to those insensible remains, as if they were instinct with life. One of the houses belonging to the deceased Inca was kept open and occupied by his guard and attendants with all the state appropriate to royalty. On certain festivals the revered bodies of the sovereigns were brought out with great ceremony into the public square of the capital. Invitations were sent by the captains of the guard of the respective Incas to the different nobles and officers of the court; and entertainments were provided in the names of their masters, which displayed all the profuse magnificence of their treasures, and “such a display,” says an ancient chronicler, “was there in the great square of Cuzco, on this occasion, of gold and silverplate and jewels, as no other city in the world ever witnessed.” The banquet was served by the menials of the respective households, and the guests partook of the melancholy cheer in the presence of the royal phantom with the same attention to the forms of courtly etiquette as if the living monarch had presided!
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HISTORIAN OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND PERU.
IT MAY well be doubted whether any other historian was ever so loved both by those who knew him personally and by those who counted themselves fortunate in knowing him through his books as was William H. Prescott. Indeed that love promises to be perennial, for “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru” continue to be the delight of the intelligent schoolboy and bid fair to maintain their hold upon public interest in succeeding generations.
Prescott was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, having been born in that city on the4thof May, 1796. His father was a lawyer, and he inherited from him literary tastes, love of learning and great mental vigor. He was accidentally struck, while a Junior at Harvard, by a piece of hard bread, thrown by a fellow student, and the blow deprived him forever of the use of his left eye, gave him many months of tedious suffering in darkened rooms, and resulted in such serious damage to the other eye as to make it of little and constantly decreasing use to him. He had intended to be a lawyer, but this accident made another choice necessary. He deliberately resolved upon a literary career and prepared himself for it in the most thorough and painstaking way imaginable. A memorandum dated October, 1821, lays out a course of study which one might think unnecessary for a graduate of Harvard College, but which he undertook for the purpose of perfecting his style, and with what degree of success the universal admiration of his works well testifies. It was as follows:
“1. Principles of Grammar, correct writing,etc.
2. Compendious history of North America.
3. Fine prose-writers of English.
4. Latin classics one hour a day.”
This course, omitting the American history, he faithfully pursued for about a year, when he took up the study of French and, later, of German. His study of Spanish and consequently his choice of the topics of his great works came about almost accidentally. He had found the study of German very difficult, so much so that he was in despair. His friend George Ticknor had delivered to the Senior Class at Harvard a series of lectures on Spanish literature, and, to divert and entertain him during a period of discouragement and of suffering from his eyes, proposed to read the lectures to him. He was so delighted with the subject that he immediately began the study of the language with the result that the remainder of his life wasdevoted to Spanish subjects. Prescott had married, in 1820, to Miss Susan Amory, the daughter of a cultivated and successful Boston merchant, and of the marriage he said, near the close of his life, “contrary to the assertion of a French philosopher who says that the most fortunate husband finds reason to regret his condition at least once in twenty-four hours,—I may truly say that I have found no such day in the quarter of a century that Providence has spared us to each other.”Mrs.Prescott was devoted to her husband, and until his death in 1859, was his continual support, adviser and assistant.
MR.PRESCOTT’S HOUSE AT PEPPERETT,MASS.
MR.PRESCOTT’S HOUSE AT PEPPERETT,MASS.
The account of his method of composition is told in one of his letters: “In the Christmas of 1837 my first work, ‘The History of Ferdinand and Isabella,’ was given to the world. I obtained the services of a reader who knew no language but his own, (English). I taught him to pronounce Castilian in a manner suited, I suspect, more tomyear than to that of a Spaniard, and we began our wearisome journey through Mariana’s noble (Spanish) history. I cannot even now call to mind without a smile the tedious hours in which, seated under some old trees in my country residence, we pursued our slow and melancholy way over pages which afforded no glimmering of light to him, and from which the light came dimly struggling to me through a half intelligible vocabulary. But in a few weeks the light became stronger, and I was cheered by the consciousness of my own improvement, and when we had toiled our way through seven quartos, I found I could understand the book when read about two-thirds as fast as ordinary English. My reader’s office required the more patience; he had not even this result to cheer him in his labor. I now felt that the great difficulty could be overcome, and I obtained the services of a reader whose acquaintance with modern and ancient tongues supplied,as far as it could be supplied, the deficiency of eyesight on my part. But though in this way I could examine various authorities, it was not easy to arrange in my mind the results of my reading drawn from different and often contradictory accounts. To do this I dictated copious notes as I went along, and when I had read enough for a chapter (from thirty to forty, and sometimes fifty pages in length), I had a mass of memoranda in my own language, which would easily bring before me in one view, the fruit of my researches. These notes were carefully read to me, and while my recent studies were fresh in my recollection, I ran over the whole of any intended chapter in my mind. This process I repeated at least half a dozen times, so that when I finally put my pen to paper it ran off pretty glibly for it was an effort of memory rather than composition.
Writing presented me a difficulty even greater than reading. Thierry, the famous blind historian of the Norman conquest, advised me to cultivate dictation; but I usually preferred a substitute that I found in a writing-case made for the blind which I procured in London, forty years since. It consists of a frame of the size of a sheet of paper, traversed by brass wires, as many as lines are wanted on the page, and with a sheet of carbonated paper, such as is used for getting duplicates, pasted on the reverse side. With an ivory or agate stylus the writer traces his characters between the wires on the carbonated sheet, making indelible marks, which he cannot see, on the white page below. This treadmill operation has its defects; and I have repeatedly supposed I had accomplished a good page, and was proceeding in all the glow of composition to go ahead, when I found I had forgotten to insert a sheet of writing-paper below, that my labor had all been thrown away, and that the leaf looked as blank as myself. Notwithstanding these and other whimsical distresses of the kind, I have found my writing-case my best friend in my lonely hours, and with it have written nearly all that I have sent into the world the last forty years.”
Prescott’s writings were successful from the first. Translations of the “History of Ferdinand and Isabella” appeared within a few years in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian, and it is surely no wonder that the author took up with a good heart the preparation of a “History of the Conquest of Mexico,” and then a “History of the Conquest of Peru,” both of which were received with the same appreciation that had rewarded his first published work.
He had spent some time abroad before his marriage, partly in the hope of benefitting his eyesight. In 1850 he again visited England and spent some time on the continent. He wrote a number of miscellaneous articles for magazines and reviews, and published in 1855, two, and in 1858 the third volume of his uncompleted “History of the Reign of PhilipII., King of Spain.” This, had he lived to complete it, would doubtless have been his greatest work. It was received with such favor that six months after the publication of the first two volumes, eight thousand copies had been sold and the sales of his other works had been so stimulated as to bring the total up to thirty thousand volumes during that time, which yielded the author the substantial royalty of seventeen thousand dollars.
A slight stroke of paralysis had already enfeebled him, and a second terminated his life on the28thof January, 1859. His wife, one daughter, and two sons survived him.
Few men have combined so many engaging qualities. His blindness had made no change in his appearance, and he was thought to be one of the handsomest men of his time. His cheerfulness of disposition was so great that at the time of his most intense suffering he addressed those who cared for him with such brightness and consideration that one might have thought their positions reversed. The personal friends who were won by his grace of manner and by the sterling worth of his character have nearly all passed away, but the hope that he early expressed, “to produce something which posterity would not willingly let die,” was most abundantly realized.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF TEZCUCO.
(FROM HISTORY OF CONQUEST OF MEXICO, 1843.)
THE first measure of Nezahualcoyotl, on returning to his dominions, was a general amnesty. It was his maxim “that a monarch might punish, but revenge was unworthy of him.” In the present instance he was averse even to punish, and not only freely pardoned his rebel nobles, but conferred on some, who had most deeply offended, posts of honor and confidence. Such conduct was doubtless politic, especially as their alienation was owing probably, much more to fear of the usurper than to any disaffection towards himself. But there are some acts of policy which a magnanimous spirit only can execute.The restored monarch next set about repairing the damages sustained under the late misrule, and reviving, or rather remodelling, the various departments of government. He framed a concise, but comprehensive, code of laws, so well suited, it was thought, to the exigencies of the times, that it was adopted as their own by the two other members of the triple alliance. It was written in blood, and entitled the author to be called the Draco rather than “the Solon of Anahuac,” as he is fondly styled by his admirers. Humanity is one of the best fruits of refinement. It is only with increasing civilization that the legislator studies to economize human suffering, even for the guilty; to devise penalties not so much by way of punishment for the past as of reformation for the future.He divided the burden of the government among a number of departments, as the council of war, the council of finance, the council of justice. This last was a court of supreme authority, both in civil and criminal matters, receiving appeals from the lower tribunals of the provinces, which were obliged to make a full report, every four months, or eighty days, of their own proceedings to this higher judicature. In all these bodies, a certain number of citizens were allowed to have seats with the nobles and professional dignitaries. There was, however, another body, a council of state, for aiding the king in the dispatch of business, and advising him in matters of importance, which was drawn altogether from the highest order of chiefs. It consisted of fourteen members; and they had seats provided for them at the royal table. Lastly, there was an extraordinary tribunal, called the council of music, but which differing from the import of its name, was devoted to the encouragement of science and art. Works on astronomy, chronology, history or any other science, were required to be submitted to its judgment, before they could be made public. This censorial power was of some moment, at least with regard to the historical department, where the wilful perversion of truth was made a capital offence by the bloody code of Nezahualcoyotl. Yet a Tezcucan author must have been a bungler, who could not elude a conviction under the cloudy veil of hieroglyphics. This body, which was drawn from the best instructed persons in the kingdom, with little regard to rank, had supervision of all the productions of art, and the nicer fabrics. It decided on the qualifications of the professors in the various branches of science, on the fidelity of their instructions to their pupils, the deficiency of which was severely punished, and it instituted examinations of these latter. In short, it was a general board ofeducation for the country. On stated days, historical compositions, and poems treating of moral or traditional topics, were recited before it by their authors. Seats were provided for the three crowned heads of the empire, who deliberated with the other members on the respective merits of the pieces, and distributed prizes of value to the successful competitors.The influence of this academy must have been most propitious to the capital, which became the nursery not only of such sciences as could be compassed by the scholarship of the period, but of various useful and ornamental arts. Its historians, orators, and poets were celebrated throughout the country. Its archives, for which accommodations were provided in the royal palaces, were stored with the records of primitive ages. Its idiom, more polished than the Mexican, was, indeed, the purest of all the Nahuatlac dialects, and continued, long after the Conquest, to be that in which the best productions of the native races were composed. Tezcuco claimed the glory of being the Athens of the Western world.Among the most illustrious of her bards was the emperor himself,—for the Tezcucan writers claim this title for their chief, as head of the imperial alliance. He doubtless appeared as a competitor before that very academy where he so often sat as a critic. Many of his odes descended to a late generation, and are still preserved, perhaps, in some of the dusty repositories of Mexico or Spain. The historian Ixtlilxochitl has left a translation, in Castilian, of one of the poems of his royal ancestor. It is not easy to render his version into corresponding English rhyme, without the perfume of the original escaping in this double filtration. They remind one of the rich breathings of Spanish-Arab poetry, in which an ardent imagination is tempered by a not unpleasing and moral melancholy. But, though sufficiently florid in diction, they are generally free from the meretricious ornaments and hyperbole with which the minstrelsy of the East is usually tainted. They turn on the vanities and mutability of human life,—a topic very natural for a monarch who had himself experienced the strangest mutations of fortune. There is mingled in the lament of the Tezcucan bard, however, an Epicurean philosophy, which seeks relief from the fears of the future in the joys of the present. “Banish care,” he says: “if there are bounds to pleasure, the saddest of 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. Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come when thou shalt sigh for these 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 remembrance of the just shall not pass away from the nations, and the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor. 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.”But the hours of the Tezcucan monarch were not all passed in idle dalliance with the Muse, nor in the sober contemplations of philosophy, as at a later period. In the freshness of youth and early manhood he led the allied armies in their annual expeditions, which were certain to result in a wider extent of territory to the empire. In the intervals of peace he fostered those productive arts which are the surest sources of public prosperity. He encouraged agriculture above all; and there was scarcely a spot so rude, or a steep so inaccessible, as not to confess the power of cultivation. The land was covered with a busy population, and towns and cities sprang up in places since deserted or dwindled into miserable villages.
THE first measure of Nezahualcoyotl, on returning to his dominions, was a general amnesty. It was his maxim “that a monarch might punish, but revenge was unworthy of him.” In the present instance he was averse even to punish, and not only freely pardoned his rebel nobles, but conferred on some, who had most deeply offended, posts of honor and confidence. Such conduct was doubtless politic, especially as their alienation was owing probably, much more to fear of the usurper than to any disaffection towards himself. But there are some acts of policy which a magnanimous spirit only can execute.
The restored monarch next set about repairing the damages sustained under the late misrule, and reviving, or rather remodelling, the various departments of government. He framed a concise, but comprehensive, code of laws, so well suited, it was thought, to the exigencies of the times, that it was adopted as their own by the two other members of the triple alliance. It was written in blood, and entitled the author to be called the Draco rather than “the Solon of Anahuac,” as he is fondly styled by his admirers. Humanity is one of the best fruits of refinement. It is only with increasing civilization that the legislator studies to economize human suffering, even for the guilty; to devise penalties not so much by way of punishment for the past as of reformation for the future.
He divided the burden of the government among a number of departments, as the council of war, the council of finance, the council of justice. This last was a court of supreme authority, both in civil and criminal matters, receiving appeals from the lower tribunals of the provinces, which were obliged to make a full report, every four months, or eighty days, of their own proceedings to this higher judicature. In all these bodies, a certain number of citizens were allowed to have seats with the nobles and professional dignitaries. There was, however, another body, a council of state, for aiding the king in the dispatch of business, and advising him in matters of importance, which was drawn altogether from the highest order of chiefs. It consisted of fourteen members; and they had seats provided for them at the royal table. Lastly, there was an extraordinary tribunal, called the council of music, but which differing from the import of its name, was devoted to the encouragement of science and art. Works on astronomy, chronology, history or any other science, were required to be submitted to its judgment, before they could be made public. This censorial power was of some moment, at least with regard to the historical department, where the wilful perversion of truth was made a capital offence by the bloody code of Nezahualcoyotl. Yet a Tezcucan author must have been a bungler, who could not elude a conviction under the cloudy veil of hieroglyphics. This body, which was drawn from the best instructed persons in the kingdom, with little regard to rank, had supervision of all the productions of art, and the nicer fabrics. It decided on the qualifications of the professors in the various branches of science, on the fidelity of their instructions to their pupils, the deficiency of which was severely punished, and it instituted examinations of these latter. In short, it was a general board ofeducation for the country. On stated days, historical compositions, and poems treating of moral or traditional topics, were recited before it by their authors. Seats were provided for the three crowned heads of the empire, who deliberated with the other members on the respective merits of the pieces, and distributed prizes of value to the successful competitors.
The influence of this academy must have been most propitious to the capital, which became the nursery not only of such sciences as could be compassed by the scholarship of the period, but of various useful and ornamental arts. Its historians, orators, and poets were celebrated throughout the country. Its archives, for which accommodations were provided in the royal palaces, were stored with the records of primitive ages. Its idiom, more polished than the Mexican, was, indeed, the purest of all the Nahuatlac dialects, and continued, long after the Conquest, to be that in which the best productions of the native races were composed. Tezcuco claimed the glory of being the Athens of the Western world.
Among the most illustrious of her bards was the emperor himself,—for the Tezcucan writers claim this title for their chief, as head of the imperial alliance. He doubtless appeared as a competitor before that very academy where he so often sat as a critic. Many of his odes descended to a late generation, and are still preserved, perhaps, in some of the dusty repositories of Mexico or Spain. The historian Ixtlilxochitl has left a translation, in Castilian, of one of the poems of his royal ancestor. It is not easy to render his version into corresponding English rhyme, without the perfume of the original escaping in this double filtration. They remind one of the rich breathings of Spanish-Arab poetry, in which an ardent imagination is tempered by a not unpleasing and moral melancholy. But, though sufficiently florid in diction, they are generally free from the meretricious ornaments and hyperbole with which the minstrelsy of the East is usually tainted. They turn on the vanities and mutability of human life,—a topic very natural for a monarch who had himself experienced the strangest mutations of fortune. There is mingled in the lament of the Tezcucan bard, however, an Epicurean philosophy, which seeks relief from the fears of the future in the joys of the present. “Banish care,” he says: “if there are bounds to pleasure, the saddest of 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. Rejoice in the green freshness of thy spring; for the day will come when thou shalt sigh for these 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 remembrance of the just shall not pass away from the nations, and the good thou hast done shall ever be held in honor. 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.”
But the hours of the Tezcucan monarch were not all passed in idle dalliance with the Muse, nor in the sober contemplations of philosophy, as at a later period. In the freshness of youth and early manhood he led the allied armies in their annual expeditions, which were certain to result in a wider extent of territory to the empire. In the intervals of peace he fostered those productive arts which are the surest sources of public prosperity. He encouraged agriculture above all; and there was scarcely a spot so rude, or a steep so inaccessible, as not to confess the power of cultivation. The land was covered with a busy population, and towns and cities sprang up in places since deserted or dwindled into miserable villages.
THE BANQUET OF THE DEAD.
(FROM “HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU,” 1847.)
THE wealth displayed by the Peruvian princes was only that which each had amassed individually for himself. He owed nothing to inheritance from his predecessors. On the decease of an Inca, his palaces were abandoned; all his treasures, except what were employed in his obsequies,his furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he had left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever. The new sovereign was to provide himself with everything new for his royal state. The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to reanimate his body on earth; and they wished that he should find everything to which he had been used in life prepared for his reception.When an Inca died, or, to use his own language, “was called home to the mansions of his father, the Sun,” his obsequies were celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the body and deposited in the temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with them, and a number of his attendants and favorite concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb. Some of them showed the natural repugnance to the sacrifice occasionally manifested by the victims of a similar superstition in India. But these were probably the menials and more humble attendants; since the women have been known, in more than one instance, to lay violent hands on themselves, when restrained from testifying their fidelity by this act of conjugal martyrdom. This melancholy ceremony was followed by a general mourning throughout the empire. At stated intervals, for a year, the people assembled to renew the expressions of their sorrow; processions were made, displaying the banner of the departed monarch; bards and minstrels were appointed to chronicle his achievements, and their songs continued to be rehearsed at high festivals in the presence of the reigning monarch, thus stimulating the living by the glorious example of the dead.The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed, and removed to the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign, on entering the awful sanctuary, might behold the effigies of his royal ancestors, ranged in opposite files, the men on the right, and their queens on the left of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less liable to change than the fresher coloring of an European complexion—and their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the period at which they died! It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned by nature.They cherished a still stranger illusion in the attentions which they continued to pay to those insensible remains, as if they were instinct with life. One of the houses belonging to the deceased Inca was kept open and occupied by his guard and attendants with all the state appropriate to royalty. On certain festivals the revered bodies of the sovereigns were brought out with great ceremony into the public square of the capital. Invitations were sent by the captains of the guard of the respective Incas to the different nobles and officers of the court; and entertainments were provided in the names of their masters, which displayed all the profuse magnificence of their treasures, and “such a display,” says an ancient chronicler, “was there in the great square of Cuzco, on this occasion, of gold and silverplate and jewels, as no other city in the world ever witnessed.” The banquet was served by the menials of the respective households, and the guests partook of the melancholy cheer in the presence of the royal phantom with the same attention to the forms of courtly etiquette as if the living monarch had presided!
THE wealth displayed by the Peruvian princes was only that which each had amassed individually for himself. He owed nothing to inheritance from his predecessors. On the decease of an Inca, his palaces were abandoned; all his treasures, except what were employed in his obsequies,his furniture and apparel, were suffered to remain as he had left them, and his mansions, save one, were closed up forever. The new sovereign was to provide himself with everything new for his royal state. The reason of this was the popular belief that the soul of the departed monarch would return after a time to reanimate his body on earth; and they wished that he should find everything to which he had been used in life prepared for his reception.
When an Inca died, or, to use his own language, “was called home to the mansions of his father, the Sun,” his obsequies were celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the body and deposited in the temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with them, and a number of his attendants and favorite concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb. Some of them showed the natural repugnance to the sacrifice occasionally manifested by the victims of a similar superstition in India. But these were probably the menials and more humble attendants; since the women have been known, in more than one instance, to lay violent hands on themselves, when restrained from testifying their fidelity by this act of conjugal martyrdom. This melancholy ceremony was followed by a general mourning throughout the empire. At stated intervals, for a year, the people assembled to renew the expressions of their sorrow; processions were made, displaying the banner of the departed monarch; bards and minstrels were appointed to chronicle his achievements, and their songs continued to be rehearsed at high festivals in the presence of the reigning monarch, thus stimulating the living by the glorious example of the dead.
The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed, and removed to the great temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign, on entering the awful sanctuary, might behold the effigies of his royal ancestors, ranged in opposite files, the men on the right, and their queens on the left of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in the princely attire which they had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less liable to change than the fresher coloring of an European complexion—and their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the period at which they died! It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned by nature.
They cherished a still stranger illusion in the attentions which they continued to pay to those insensible remains, as if they were instinct with life. One of the houses belonging to the deceased Inca was kept open and occupied by his guard and attendants with all the state appropriate to royalty. On certain festivals the revered bodies of the sovereigns were brought out with great ceremony into the public square of the capital. Invitations were sent by the captains of the guard of the respective Incas to the different nobles and officers of the court; and entertainments were provided in the names of their masters, which displayed all the profuse magnificence of their treasures, and “such a display,” says an ancient chronicler, “was there in the great square of Cuzco, on this occasion, of gold and silverplate and jewels, as no other city in the world ever witnessed.” The banquet was served by the menials of the respective households, and the guests partook of the melancholy cheer in the presence of the royal phantom with the same attention to the forms of courtly etiquette as if the living monarch had presided!