make him a student of law at Salamanca, but though the age and country were decidedly military, Spain was already overstocked with lawyers. Cortés felt no call to this profession, let his parents call never so loudly. He was sent into the world for very different uses.

He was a man of

action, rather than a wrangler,-of deeds, not of words. His words, however much to the purpose, were usually but few; and the profession of law, in Spain then, as in our day, called for unnatural copiousness. The motives were sufficient for eloquence, then as now, to swarms of hungry seekers; but these motives moved not him. His soul needed a higher stimulus than avarice. He obeyed his destiny, abandoned the pen for the sword, and, at seventeen, we find him preparing to join the army of the great Gonsalvo. But Italy was not to be the theatre of his performance. Fate interfered to keep him from that subordinate position, into which, at his early age, and in the ranks of a warfare filled up with the veterans of the time, he must have fallen. Nay, a farther training was necessary, in less arduous employments. His sinews were not yet sufficiently hardened, his frame not sufficiently formed, his temper not enough subdued, for fields of active warfare. Napoleon, in after days, said to the French, "send me no more boys-they only serve to fill the hospitals." The military career of Cortés, the work for which he was wanted, needed more time, more preparation, a better training than had been his. He fell sick, and before he recovered, the time for marching had gone by. Italy was no longer open to the adventurer, and he turned his eyes upon the Atlantic. Impatient for action, circumstances seem about to favor his desires. His kinsman, Ovando, is made governor of Hispaniola. With him he determines to set sail. All things are in readiness, but his fortune, as if the fruit were not yet ripe for his hands, again interposes, and again, through the medium of suffering, prevents his departure. It is one characteristic of heroism, that it must be doing. The blood of Cortés required to be kept in exercise. Your knight-crrant, fierce in conflict, is equally fond in dalliance with the fair. Love scems naturally to supply the intervals of war. Nothing, indeed, would seem more natural, than that the ardency of the warrior should be equally great in all fields of combat. It is Mr. Moore who sings

""Tis always the youth who is bravest in war,
That is fondest and truest in love."

Of the truth of our hero's passion in the present instance, but little need be said. Of its earnestness, we may make the most ample admissions. It must be remembered that he was still only seventeen. Impetuosity of character is scarcely matter of reproach at such a period. As eager after beauty in that day, as, in after years, in pursuit of less hazardous conquests, we find him incurring, with blind passion, dangers almost as serious. He must serenade his mistress before parting. Nay, there are fond last words to be spoken, and he attempts to scale her windows. We must not look too austerely on this achievement. The gallantry of Spain was never of a very sensual order. It was so much mingled with pride and romance, that it became elevated with sentiment. The guitar and the serenade, borrowed from the tender and voluptuous Moor, implied, in the practice of the graver Spaniard, little more than a platonic passion. At least, it is but charity, at this late period, and in the case of a person so very young, to prefer such a conclusion. Besides, in the absence of any knowledge on the subject of the damsel, it would be improper to put any scandalous interpretation on the adventure. A last song, a lastsigh-nay, a last kiss-may be permitted to the parting lover, about to pass, seeking his fortune, over that wilderness of sea, into that wilderness of savages that lay beyond. Certain it is, that, whether encouraged or not, our hero, hurried by passion beyond propriety, was precipitated from a crumbling wall, and spared more serious injuries at the expense of a broken limb.

The expedition sailed without him, and, tossing with feverish, fiery pulses on a bed of sickness, he was compelled to stifle his impatient yearnings for adventure, with what composure was at his command. His eager, impetuous nature, drew good from these disappointments. They formed portions of a necessary training for the tasks that were beyond. They taught him to curb his eager soul, to submit to baffling influences, to meditate calmly his resolves, to wait upon events and bide his time. Did the world go smoothly with the boy, he might never be the man. Rough currents bring out the strength, and teach the straining muscles of the swimmer.

But Cortés was not always to be baffled. He sailed for Hispaniola in 1504, when but twenty years of age,—and reached the desired port in safety. Here he was well re

ceived by his relation, Ovando, honored with a public office, with lands and slaves assigned him. He became a farmer. In this mode of life, we may well ask what becomes of his ambition, his military passion,-that eager temperament whose tides were perpetually driving him upon the rocks. The life of agriculture seems an unperforming one. Its requisitions are grave, subdued and methodical. A quiet nature, a dogged devotion to the soil, would seem its chief requisites. And yet, a purely agricultural people, particularly where they possess slaves, is usually a martial one,delighting in exercises of the body,-famous in the chase,— admirable in the use of weapons. The management of slaves, such slaves as the Spaniards had to subdue,-the restless, roving savage of the Mexican archipelago, the bloodthirsty Caribbean, the revengeful and kidnapped native of the Combahee,-required the vigilant eye of a master-spirit. We are not to suppose that the true nature of Cortés was left unexercised, while he clung to the sober tastes of agriculture. For six years he pursued this vocation, showing no impatience, none of that feverish, froward temper, which had marked his boyhood. He indulged, as far as we can learn, in no repinings. That he learnt many good lessons in the management of his subjects,-many useful lessons of government as well as of patience and forbearance,schooling into strength that fiery nature, which, as we have seen, was only apt to lead him into mischief,-we may not unreasonably imagine.. At all events, we may conclude him to be exercising a necessary nature in all this period, as it is at variance with all human experience, to suppose a great mind to remain satisfied, for any length of time, with a condition which is uncongenial with its ruling characteristics. In 1511, we find him connected with a military expedition. for the conquest of the Island of Cuba,-but not in a military capacity. This duty over, he resumed his farm, with a diligence that looked like devotion. He was successful as a planter. He was the first among the Spaniards to stock his plantation with cattle,-to raise sheep, cows and horses,-in the management of which he betrayed equal pains-taking and success. This was showing singular thoughtfulness in one so young;-singular flexibility of the mental nature, which could thus so readily adapt itself to tasks and exercises, in which it had never had any training. Strange, too, that one so ardent, so ambitious, so eager, should thus so VOL. VI.—NO, 11,

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easily content himself. We are reminded of other great men;-of Scipio, and Cincinnatus, and Washington. The list might be extended. In this very flexibility-in this singular capacity to subdue and keep back, until the coming of the proper season,-this resolute forbearance of all vain and immature endeavor,-we behold the essential proofs of greatness. He was able to wait--the most difficult duty of the ambitious. He was able to conceal his true desires-without which capacity, few succeed in their development, surrounded as they are by a world of rivals. Very like, there was no will of our hero in this forbearance. This passiveness was none of his own. His moods were in abeyance, under the control of influences, moral and social, to which he was ready to submit, and which he might not seek to fathom. It will not lessen the merits of a great man, to believe that he is patient under the direction of a destiny, which can better determine than himself the true modes and periods for the application of his powers. To submit, while in the full consciousness of his powers, is, in itself, no small proof of superiority.

But agriculture, however successfully conducted, did not furnish the necessary employment for his genius. His will was shaping out another course. He embarked in commerce, and prospered as he had done in planting. He was a man to prosper. He carried into trade the same keen vigilance, fixed resolve, persevering endeavor, watchful forethought. This field afforded him occasions for enterprizebrought him extensively known among the men whom he was to guide,-increased greatly the resources of money and credit, without which, at that time and in that community, the opportunity for great adventure was not easily to be found. He became a man of substance, a capitalist, and was called and considered, accordingly, as he would be now, a very reputable person. So his neighbors thought him. He every where secured their confidence, his word became an authority, his word had a significance. He, somehow, compelled their regard and veneration, and his judgment swayed that of older men. That they knew the audacious character of his mood, we may also infer, as we find them choosing him as their representative when a great danger was to be incurred. He did not shrink from their trust, offended Velasquez, the Governor of Cuba, and was honored with imprisonment in consequence.

From this imprisonment he was soon set free. He was not a man to remain long in any meshes. But this governor of Cuba, who was of a temper equally mean, jealous and vindictive, was of capricious humors, which constantly found cause of annoyance in the character of Cortés. One of these provocations sprang from a cause equally natural and annoying. The constitutional infirmity of our hero-his passion for the sex-does not seem to have suffered much abatement in his farmer and merchant life. An intrigue with Dona Catalina Xuarez de Pacheco, a lady of noble blood-a sister of whom had been married by Velasquez-was revealed to this suspicious dignitary. The governor "was something more than wroth," and the storm which ensued was only hushed by the marriage of Cortés with the lady. This union, which he seems to have been reluctant to approach, he had no reason to regret. Dona Catalina made him a good wife, and followed him to Mexico, where she died some years after the conquest. He was wont to say that he prized her as highly as if she had been the daughter of a Duke.

Though not yet a conqueror, Cortés, as we have seen, has not been living entirely in vain. His career, though comparatively humble, has yet been honorable. It is worthy of remark, that, in all this period-a space of nearly eight years since his arrival in America, he has not only achieved no military enterprizes, but has shown no disposition for arms; a fact sufficiently striking, when his previous aspirations are remembered, doubly so, now that his after career is known, and particularly surprising when we consider how frequent were the examples of military adventure, shown daily by the daring hidalgos of Cuba and Hispaniola. The singular avidity with which, in that day, Spaniards of all classes embarked in schemes, however wild and visionary, which involved. peril, stimulated avarice, and gave provocation to valor, might well, we may suppose, awaken that impatient temper, which we have seen breaking away from academic walks in eager desire for fields of war,-scaling walls in obedience to the working passions of youth-and altogether, betraying that forward impetuosity of character, which seldom desires weightier suggestion to action than what springs from its own inner tendencies. It would be idle, at this late moment, to seek to account for this remarkable forbearance, or to endeavor to reconcile those seeming caprices of temper, which, were we more familiar with the moral influences