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friended and wished to know him, yet he says he obeyed his instinct in not visiting "l'homme des deux mondes," whose glories he had so well sung. Talleyrand was very desirous to meet him: "Why do you not invite him to dinner?" one asked. "I am too great a lord to expose myself to a refusal," was the answer.* He steadily refused to go to court and be presented to Louis Philippe, though the monarch sought his acquaintance. He firmly declined to allow his friends to urge his admission into the French Academy, because, while recognizing the advantages which such a position would secure to him, he believed he should be out of place there. After much entreaty he consented to become a member of the Constituent Assembly of the Republic, in 1848, for which he received more than two hundred thousand suffrages, but offered his resignation soon afterward.

The latter years of Béranger's life were passed in opulence, among hosts of ardent friends, and in the enjoyment of a fame which is vouchsafed to few. He was satisfied with the reputation of the greatest song-writer of his age, and never attempted to succeed in other departments of literature. Having acquired sufficient fame, he rested content. His death took place in 1857. The government took charge of the obsequies, and the magnificent city of Paris

"Had seldom seen a costlier funeral."

This pomp was not of Béranger's seeking. Years before, in "Mon Tombeau," he had given his opinion upon the proposal of his friends to erect to his memory a costly tomb, and his sentiments did not change. We doubt not that, could he have had his way, he would gladly have directed the expense of his costly funeral to be given to the poor of Paris. Yet the government did well in honoring literature and humanity by thus glorifying the memory of the departed poet.

Béranger had written an epitaph for his muse when at Sainte Pelagie, and it is worthy of her:

"Venez tous, passants, venez lire

L'épitaphe que je me fait:

* Ma Biographie, p. 242.

J'ai chanté l'amoreux délire,

Le vin, la France et ses hauts faits.
J'ai plaint les peuples qu'on abuse;
J'ai chansonné les gens du roi :

Béranger m'appelait sa muse.
Pauvres pécheurs priez pour moi!

Priez pour moi, priez pour moi!”*

Thiers called Béranger on his death-bed the Horace of France. The title was well bestowed and the parallel has been carried out in detail by French critics.

Béranger could say on his death-bed, "My life has been that of an honest man," and we believe him. His standard was not the highest, but considering his education and surroundings, we have abundant reason for admiring the man. In no relation of life does he appear to have been false to his better nature. He had some enemies during life, but no one who could appreciate his warm sympathies could long feel resentment toward him. He always loved others better than himself. "Le bonheur de l'humanité a été le songe de ma vie," + he declares, and we cannot doubt it.

It was his deep sympathy with humanity that made him a poet and secured his success. He did not attempt to reform mankind, but simply to please them. Yet his works have not been without their use in contributing to the progress of humanity.

What is needed to make men love each other is that they shall know each other better. The principal chords in all our hearts are tuned in unison; it is only our ignorance and distrust that prevent us from recognizing this fact. As soon as this harmony is perceived we learn to love each other. Christianity teaches us to act charitably from principle. Few however, are so enlightened, or so devoted to duty, as to act from this impulse. Man is by nature selfish, and only when he learns that love is the most enlightened selfishness will he act in accordance with its laws. We learn to repress our highest and finest emotions, and suffer accordingly. Let the flood-gates of our hearts once be opened, and we are astonished

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to learn what genuine enjoyment there is in human sympathy -how helping to bear the burdens of others makes our own lighter. To those who, like Béranger, assist to open those floodgates of feeling-to the poets of humanity-we owe a debt of gratitude. Let us pay that debt, not because the poet needs it, but because it is good for us to do so. By our sympathies with them we shall be raised to a higher life.

ART. IV.-1. Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de PAmérique Centrale durant les Siècles anterieurs à Christophe Colomb, écrite sur des documens originaux et entièrement inédits, puisés aux anciennes archives des indigènes. Par M. l'Abbé BRASSEUR de BOURBOURG, ancien aumonier de la Legation de France au Mexique, et administrateur ecclesiastique des Indiens de Rabinal (Guatemala.) Paris: Arthur Bertrand. 1857.

2. Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City discovered near Palenque, in the Kingdom of Guatemala in Spanish America. Translated from the original report of Don Antonio del Rio; followed by a critical investigation and research into the history of the Americans, by Dr. PAUL FELIX CABRERA. London. 1822.

3. Mémoire sur l'Ecriture figurative et la Peinture didactique des anciens Mexicains. Par M. AUBIN. Paris. 1849.

4. The History of Mexico, collected from Spanish and Mexican historians: to which are added critical dissertations on the land, animals, and inhabitants of Mexico. By the Abbé D. FRANCISCO SEVERIO CLAVIGERO. Translated from the Italian by Charles Cullen, Esq. 3 vols. Philadelphia. 1834.

UNTIL the recent researches of Messrs. Aubin and Brasseur de Bourbourg it had been generally believed that but little in the shape of a connected history of ancient Mexico and Central America existed. The unconnected, and not always impartial, accounts given by the Spanish historians of the nations subdued by Cortez and his successors have mainly contributed to this belief; and owing to the barbarous fanaticism of

Diego Landa, who destroyed all the native archives and records he could find, no connected history has been found of the long period which elapsed between the era of Zamna, (or Itzamal,) the carly law-giver of Yucatan, and the foundation of the Toltec empire in Mexico. The attention of the Spanish historians was directed more to the religion and religious ceremonies which they found prevailing in Central America than to the early history of the people; and their works abound in descriptions of the magnificent temples, pyramids, monuments, and ruins of ancient cities, which filled them with astonishment. Las Casas, Clavigero, Lizana, Cogolludo, and other of these early Spanish writers seem to have fancied themselves in a land of magicians and powerful demons, and the zeal of the missionaries who followed in the footsteps of Cortez was proportionably excited to accomplish the expulsion of these evil spirits, and the extermination of idolatry among the natives. The military adventurers cared for nothing but gold and silver, and to the acquisition of the precious metals they sacrificed everything. Hence it is not to be wondered at that the antiquities and early history of Mexico should have been neglected.

It was reserved for the learning and enterprise of modern explorers to decipher the Mexican hieroglyphics and inscriptions, collect the scattered records of the past, and form them into a connected history. Foremost among these is the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, who undertook the task in fulfilment of the grand object of his life. From early youth he had been fired with the idea of making as important discoveries among the relics of antiquity on this continent as Young, Champollion, Layard, Rawlinson, Hinckes, and others had made in Egypt and Assyria.* Circumstances at length opened the way for the accomplishment of his desires. Under the auspices of M. Levasseur, Minister Plenipotentiary of France in Mexico, he went to Central America, in 1848, as Almoner

*He says, in the introduction to his work, p. 111: "Un vague pressentiment me montra, dans le lointain, je ne sais quels voiles mysterieux, qu'un instinct secret me pensait à soulever, et entendant parler de Champollion, dont la renommée commençait à pénétrer même dans les colléges de la province. je me demandais vaguement si le continent occidental n'apporterait pas aussi un jour sa part dans le grand travail scientifique qui s'opérait en Europe."

of the French Legation. ples and cities in Mexico, and was diligent in searching after native histories and the records of the old Spanish writers. He was so fortunate as to find many-a list of which he has given in the preface to his work above referred to.* With particular joy he records the finding of two ancient Mexican books, to which he gave the names of Codex Chimalpopoca and the Memorial of Culhuacan, and which he describes as most precious documents relating to Mexican chronology.+

He visited the ruins of ancient tem

The eminent archæologist, M. Aubin, of Paris, who had collected a large number of manuscripts and histories relating to the antiquities of Mexico and Central America, visited those countries in 1830, and on his return to France published part of his researches in his Memoire sur l'Ecriture figurative et la Peinture didactique des anciens Mexicains. Brasseur de Bourbourg returned to Europe in 1832, and collated his researches with those of M. Aubin. He went back to Mexico in 1854, and visited Nicaragua and Guatemala, returning to Paris in 1856. In 1857 he published his great work, in which it is evident he had the assistance of M. Aubin; so that it may be considered their joint composition. They have most ingeniously made out not only a connected but a detailed history of the Mexicans; and if it be not altogether authentic it is at all events interesting. We gain from the perusal of it considerable light respecting this mysterious people.

That the original population of Central America and Mexico is of very high antiquity there can be little doubt. The traditions of the various nations by which these countries were peopled bear ample testimony to this. A still stronger argument is found in the number of languages spoken there at the time of their conquest by the Spaniards. Now, unless we suppose that by some miraculous operation these languages and dialects were brought suddenly into being, we can assign but two modes in which they could have come into existence; the one is by the immigration of foreigners, the other by the slow and gradual operation of the laws of Providence, which regulates the multiplication and distribution of the human race and the formation of languages.

* Introduction, pp. lxxiv-xci.

+ Introduction, p. xiii.

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