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and Aztecs to the south some tribes remained | desolated, under the name of Huns, the
on the coasts of New Norfolk and New
Cornwall, while the rest continued their
course southward. We can conceive how
people travelling en masse-for example, the
Ostrogoths and Alani-were able to pass
from the Black Sea into Spain; but how
could we believe that a portion of these
people were able to return from west to east
at an epoch when other hordes had already
occupied their first abodes on the banks of
the Don or the Boristhenes?

This is not the place to discuss the great problem of the Asiatic origin of the Toultecs or Aztecs. The general question of the first origin of the inhabitants of the continent is beyond the limits prescribed to history, and is not, perhaps, even a philosophical question. There undoubtedly existed other people in Mexico at the time when the Toultecs arrived there in the course of their migration, and therefore to assert that the Toultecs are an Asiatic race is not maintaining that all the Americans came originally from Thibet or Oriental Siberia. De Guignes attempted to prove by the Chinese annals that they visited America posterior to 458, and Horn in his ingenious work De Originibus Americanis, published in 1699, M. Scherer in his historical researches respecting the New World, and more recent writers, have made it appear extremely probable that old relations existed between Asia and America.

I have advanced that the Toultecs, or Aztecs, might be a part of those Hiongnoux who, according to the Chinese historians, emigrated under their leader Punon and were lost in the north parts of Siberia. This nation of warrior-shepherds has more than once changed the face of Oriental Asia and

finest parts of civilized Europe. All these conjectures will acquire more probability when a marked analogy shall be discovered between the languages of Tartary and those of the new continent-an analogy which, according to the latest researches of Mr. Barton Smith, extends only to a very small number of words. The want of wheat, oats, barley, rye, and all those nutritive gramina which go under the general name of "cereal," seems to prove that if Asiatic tribes passed into America they must have descended from pastoral people. We see in the old continent. that the cultivation of cereal gramina and the use of milk were introduced as far back as we have any historical records. The inhabitants of the new continent cultivated no other gramina than maize (zea). They fed on no species of milk, though the lamas, alpacas, and in the North of Mexico and Canada two kinds of indigenous oxen, would have afforded them milk in abundance. These are striking contrasts between the Mongol and American race.

Without losing ourselves in suppositions as to the first country of the Toultecs and the Aztecs, and without attempting to fix the geographical position of those ancient kingdoms. of Huehuetlapallan and Aztlan, we shall confine ourselves to the accounts of the Spanish historians. The northern provinces, New Biscay, Sonora and New Mexico, were very thinly inhabited in the sixteenth century. The natives were hunters and shepherds, and they withdrew as the European conquerors advanced toward the north. Agriculture alone attaches man to the soil and develops the love of country. Thus we see that in the southern parts of Anahuac, in the cul

4

tivated region adjacent to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec colonists patiently endured the cruel vexations exercised toward them by their conquerors, and suffered everything rather than quit the soil which their fathers had cultivated. But in the northern provinces the natives yielded to the conquerors their uncultivated savannas, which served for pasturage to the buffaloes. The Indians took refuge beyond the Rio Gila, toward the Rio Zaguanas and the mountains De las Grullas. The Indian tribes who formerly occupied the territory of the United States and Canada followed the same policy, and chose rather to withdraw first behind the Alleghany Mountains, then behind the Ohio, and then behind the Missouri, to avoid being forced to live among the Europeans. From the same cause we find the copper-colored race neither in the provincias internas of New Spain nor in the cultivated parts of the United States.

The migrations of the American tribes having been constantly carried on from north to south, at least between the sixth and twelfth centuries, it is certain that the Indian population of New Spain must be composed of very heterogeneous elements. In In proportion as the population flowed toward the south, some tribes would stop in their progress and mingle with the tribes which followed them. The great variety of languages still spoken in the kingdom of Mexico proves a great variety of races and origin.

Translation of JOHN BLACK.

of temper, though these may give them great comfort within and administer to an honest. pride in their own minds, will by no means, alas! do their business in the world. Prudence and circumspection are necessary even to the best of men. They are, indeed, as it were, a guard to Virtue without which she can never be safe. It is not enough that your designs-nay, that your actions-are intrinsically good you must take care they shall appear so. If your inside be never so beautiful, you must preserve a fair outside also. This must be constantly looked. to, or malice and envy will take care to blacken it so that sagacity and goodness will not be able to see through it and to discern the beauties within. Let this be your constant maxim-that no man can be good enough to enable him to neglect the rules of prudence; nor will Virtue herself look beautiful unless she be bedecked with the outward ornaments of decency and decorum.

HENRY FIELDING.

LONG HAVE I LOVED.

ONG have I loved what I behold

The night that calms, the day that

cheers;
The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me-her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.

The dragon's wing, the magic ring, I shall not covet for my dower

PRUDENCE NECESSARY TO THE BEST If I along that lowly way

OF MEN.

WELL-DISPOSED youths may find

that goodness of heart and openness

With sympathetic heart may stray, And with a soul of power.

BERNARD BARTON.

[graphic]

THE PATRIARCH'S LAMENT.

H for one draught of those Where once my spirit worshipped when with

sweet waters now

That shed such freshness

o'er my early life!

Oh that I could but bathe

my fevered brow,

To wash away the dust of

worldly strife,

And be a simple-hearted child

once more,

As if I ne'er had known this world's pernicious lore!

My heart is weary and my spirit pants Beneath the heat and burden of the day; Would that I could regain those shady haunts Where once with Hope I dreamed the

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sweet

And passionless devotion it could twine Its strong affections round earth's earthliest things,

Yet bear away no stain upon its snowy wings.

What though some flowers have 'scaped the tempest's wrath?

Daily they droop by nature's swift decay; What though the setting sun still lights my path?

Morn's dewy freshness long has passed

away.

Oh, give me back life's newly-budded flowers, Let me once more inhale the breath of morning's hours!

My youth, my youth! Oh, give me back my youth!

Not the unfurrowed brow and blooming cheek,

But childhood's sunny thoughts, its perfect truth,

And youth's unworldly feelings, these I seek.

Ah! who could e'er be sinless and yet sage? Would that I might forget Time's dark and blotted page!

EMMA C. EMBURY.

HELEN OF GREECE.

AS this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burned the topless towers of Ilium?

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! | Which only Jesu's blood can wash away;

Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it

flies.

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And lovely as the life of holiest saint Was his, that good Dominican's who fed His Master's lambs with more than daily bread.

The children's custom, while that pious man Fulfilled the various duties of his state, Within the spacious church, as sacristan,

Was on the altar-steps to sit and wait, Nestling together ('twas a lovely sight!) Like the young turtledoves of Hebrew rite.

A small rich chapel was their sanctuary

While thus abiding, with adornment fair Of curious carved work wrought cunningly In all quaint patterns and devices rare, And ever there above the altar smiled From Mary mother's arms the holy Child—

Smiled on his infant guests as there below, On the fair altar-steps, those young ones spread

(Nor aught irreverent in such act, I trow) Their simple morning meal of fruit and bread;

Too wise for simple pleasure, smiles and Such feast not ill-beseemed the sacred dome:

tears,

Dream of our earliest, purest, happiest

years.

Come listen to the legend-for of them Surely thou art not-and to thee I'll tell How on a time in holiest Santarem

Strange circumstance miraculous befell Two little ones who to the sacred shrine Came daily to be schooled in things divine.

Twin-sisters, orphan innocents, were they; Most pure, I ween, from all but th' olden

taint

Their Father's house is the dear children's home.

At length it chanced that on a certain day, When Frey Bernardo to the chapel came, Where patiently was ever wont to stay

His infant charge, with vehement acclaim Both lisping creatures forth to meet him ran, And each to tell the same strange tale began.

Father," they cried as, hanging on his

gown

On either side, in each perplexèd ear

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