tion respecting the route of their ancestors. They supposed the world to have been made by the gods, but imagine that since the creation, four suns have successively appeared and disappeared. The first sun perished by a deluge; the second fell from heaven when there were many giants in the country; the third was consumed by fire; the fourth was dissipated by a tempest of wind. Three days after the last sun became visible, all the former gods died: then, in process of time, were produced those whom they have since worshipped. This resemblance to the tradition of the Hindoos is striking enough, as well as to that of the Egyptians, who told Herodotus that the same sun had four times deviated from his course, having twice risen in the west, and twice set in the east.

When the Mexicans brought their arkite god out of Asia, they also brought with him the ancient mysteries of that deity. Like the idolaters whom they had left behind, they sacrificed on the tops of mountains in traditional commemoration of the sacrifice on Ararat; and adored their bloody gods in dark caverns, similar to those of the worship of Mythras. Their orgies, like all the other orgies of the gentiles, appear to have been of a peculiarly gloomy and terrific nature; sufficient to strike with terror even the most undaunted hearts. Hence their priests, in order that they might be enabled to go through the dreadful rites without shuddering, anointed themselves with a peculiar ointment, and used various fantastic ceremonies to banish fear. Thus prepared, they boldly sallied forth to celebrate their nocturnal rites in wild mountains and the deep recesses of obscure caves, much in the same manner as the nightly orgies of Bacchus, Ceres, and Ceridwen were celebrated by their respective nations. A similar process enabled them to offer up those hecatombs of human victims, by which their` blood-stained superstition was more eminently distinguished than even those of Moloch, Cali, Cronus, or Jaggernath. They had also their vestal virgins; and both those women and the priests were won frantically to

cut themselves with knives, while engaged in the worship of their idols, like the votaries of Baal and Bellona.

Of their bloody sacrifices, the Spanish writers are full; particularly Herrera, Acosta, and Bernal Diaz. Fear, says those authors, was the soul of the Mexican worship. They never approached their altars without sprinkling them with blood, drawn from their own bodies. But of all offerings, human sacrifices were deemed the most acceptable. This belief, mingling with the spirit of vengeance, added more force to it; every captive taken in war was brought to the temple and sacrificed with horrid cruelties. The head and the heart were devoted to the gods: the body was carried off by the warrior who took the captive, to feast himself and his friends. Hence, the spirit of the Mexicans became proportionally unfeeling; and the genius of their religion so far counteracted the influence of policy and arts, that, notwithstanding their progress in both, their manners, instead of softening, became more fierce. Those nations in the New World, who had made the greater progress in the arts of social life, were, in several respects, the most ferocious; and the barbarity of their actions exceeded even those of the savage state.

The Spanish writers have been charged with exaggerating the number of human victims annually sacrificed by the Mexicans. Gomara says, there was no year in which twenty thousand were not immolated. The skulls of these unhappy persons were ranged in order, in a building erected for that purpose; and two of Cortes's officers who had counted them, told Gomara they amounted to a hundred and thirty-six thousand. Herrera declares that five-and-twenty thousand have been sacrificed in one day. The first bishop of Mexico, in a letter to the chapter-general of his order, states the annual average at twenty thousand. On the other hand, Bernal Diaz asserts that the Franciscan monks, who were sent into New Spain immediately after the conquest, found, on particular inquiry

that they did not exceed annually two thousand five hundred. Probably the numbers varied with the varying circumstances of war and other occurrences; but from all authorities, it appears that their bloody rites were carried to an enormous extent.

But enough of these terrible and revolting trophies of priestcraft. We might follow the course of this pestilence into Africa and the South Sea Isles; but I shall rather choose to refer all those who may be curious on the subject to the narratives of our travellers and missionaries, in which they will see the same causes operating the same effects. I prefer to give a concluding page or two in this chapter, to the vivid picture of priestcraft which Mr. Southey has drawn in his noble poem of Madoc. No man has felt and described the true spirit of this terrible race of men more forcibly than Mr. Southey. His Madoc was a Welch prince, who, according to Cambrian tradition, first discovered America, and there settled with a colony of his countrymen. On this foundation Mr. Southey has formed one of his delightful poems; full of nature, of the working of strong affections, and of the spirit of the subject.

Madoc discovers land, and falls in with a native who had fled from his country to avoid being sacrificed by the priests. This youth, Lincoya, leads Madoc to his native land, when he is soon introduced to Erillyab, the widowed queen, who sits before her door, near the war-pole of her deceased husband;a truly noble woman. Madoc, in his own narrative

says,―

She welcomed us

With a proud sorrow in her mien; fresh fruits
Were spread before us, and her gesture said
That when he lived whose hand was wont to wield
Those weapons,-that in better days,-that ere

She let the tresses of her widowhood

Grow wild, she could have given to guests like us
A worthier welcome. Soon a man approached,
Hooded with sable; his half-naked limbs

Smeared black: the people at his sigh drew round;
The women wailed and wept; the children turned

And hid their faces in their mothers' knees.

He to the queen addressed his speech, then looked
Around the children, and laid hands on two
Of different sexes, but of age alike,

Some six years old, who at his touch shrieked out.
But then Lincoya rose, and to my feet

Led them, and told me that the conqueror claimed
These innocents for tribute; that the priest
Would lay them on the altar of his god,-
Tear out their little hearts in sacrifice,
Yea, with more cursed wickedness, himself
Feast on their flesh.

away the dis

Ma

Madoc defends the children; sends appointed priest; and, in consequence, gets into war with the Azticas, the powerful tribe which has seized upon Aztlan, the city of the Hoamen, the people of queen Erillyab. He soon, however, obliges them to come to terms; to renounce their bloody rites, and, having put things into a fair train, returns to Europe for fresh stores and emigrants. In his absence, the priests of Aztlan, according to the wont of all priests, stir up the king of Aztlan again to war. They cry, if not exactly "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," great is Mexitli of the Azticas. They pretend to hear voices and see prodigies; they pretend the gods cry out for the blood of their enemies, and forbode all manner of destruction from them, if they be not appeased. doc does but just arrive in time to save his colony. A desperate war is commenced; an occasion is given for the full display of the reckless atrocity, the perfidy, and vile arts of the priests, and for many noble and touching incidents arising out of the contact of better natures with the casualties of battle and stratagem. Hoel, a child, the nephew of Madoc, is carried off, at the instigation of the priests, to be sacrificed. Madoc, in following his captives, falls himself into an ambush, and is doomed a victim to Mexitli; but escapes through a national custom of allowing a great warrior to fight for his life at the altar-stone, by the timely arrival of his friends, and by the assistance of a native maiden, to whom also Hoel owes his rescue from the den of Tlaloc, where he was left to starve. The

Azticas are defeated, and finally abandon their territory, going onward and founding Mexico; calling it after the name of their chief deity.

To quote all the passages which seem especially made for our purpose would fill this volume; but I must select one or two. The description of the idol:

On a huge throne, with four huge silver snakes,
As if the keeper of the sanctuary

Circled, with stretching neck and fangs displayed,
Mexitli sat; another graven snake

Belted with scales of gold his monstrous bulk.
Around his neck a loathsome collar hung

Of human hearts; the face was masked with gold;
His specular eyes seemed fire; one hand upreared
A club, the other, as in battle, held

The shield; and over all suspended hung

The banner of the nation.

The chief priest, Tezozomoc, when about to present little Hoel to the idol, and the child, terrified at his hideous appearance, shrieks and recoils from him :

His dark aspect,

Which nature with her harshest characters

Had featured, art made worse, His cowl was white;
His untrimmed hair, a long and loathsome mass,
With cotton cords entwisted, clung with gum,
And matted with the blood which every morn
He from his temples drew before the god,
In sacrifice; bare were his arms, and smeared
Black; but his countenance a stronger dread
Than all the horrors of that outward garb

Struck, with quick instinct, to young Hoel's heart.
It was a face whose settled sullenness

No gentle feeling ever had disturbed:

Which when he probed a victim's living breast,
Retained its hard composure.

-The whole work is alive with the machinations, arts, and fanatic deeds of the priesthood. The king of the Azticas, in an early conference with Madoc, says, speaking of the priests,

Awe them, for they awe me:

and his queen, after he has been killed in battle, and

C