fifteen years of age, is as romantic as that of Alfred the Great, of Scanderbeg, or of Charles the Second. The usurper was succeeded on the throne of the Tepanecs by his son Maxtla, a man of a fierce, suspicious, and tyrannical disposition, who awakened the sympathy of all classes by his incessant persecution of the royal prince, while he estranged the hearts of his subjects and neighbours from himself by his oppressions. Recalling to mind the mild rule of the Tezcucan princes, the people were beginning to sigh for their restoration at the moment when the active friends of the royal exile, loving him for his worth, were forming a coalition for his relief. An insurrection followed, Nezahualcoyotl soon found himself at the head of a strong force, with which he routed the Tepanec army, and seated himself on the re-established throne of Tezcuco. The Mexicans lent him their aid, and the allied powers, after several bloody battles, routed the usurper under the walls of his own capital. He fled to the baths, whence he was dragged forth to be sacrificed by the Aztecs. His city was razed to the ground, and his territories were awarded to the Mexicans in return for their valuable assistance.

A league offensive and defensive was then made between the three states, Tezcuco, Mexico, and Tlacopan, in agreement with the terms of which they all shared in each other's councils, embarked in each other's enterprises, and moved together until just before the coming of the Spaniards. This league provided for the distribution of the subjugated lands among the parties, and it is one of the most re markable facts in history, that du. ing a century of uninterrupted warfare which ensued, no quarrel occurred over the division of the spoil, but the treaty was maintained inviolate.

THE AZTEC EMPIRE.

31

The first measure of Nezahualcoyotl, on his restoration, was the declaration of a general amnesty. He then established a code of laws, which, for their severity, entitle him to the name of the Draco of Anahuac, but which were esteemed so admirable that the other twc tribes adopted them as their own. The duties of the government he divided among a number of departments, the Council of State, the Council of War, the Council of Finance, the Council of Justice, and, what is most remarkable, the Council of Music, whose province it was to encourage the arts and sciences, and to exercise a censorship over all works presented for publication, and to constitute a general board of education for the country. On stated days, historical compositions, poems, &c., were read before a session, which the three kings of the empire honoured with their presence.

"Architecture," says Mr. Prescott, "is the form in which the revenues of a semi-civilized people are most likely to be lavished. The most gaudy and ostentatious specimens of it, and sometimes the most stupendous have been reared by such hands. It is one of the first steps in the great march of civilization.

UT the institution in question was evidence of still higher refinement. It was a literary luxury; and argued the exist ence of a taste in the nation, which relied for its gratification on pleasures of a purely intellectual character. Its influence was felt throughout the empire, and its institution fairly entitles the capital to the glory of being the Athens of the Western world.

The Tezcucan monarch himself entered the field of literary competition as a poet, and specimens of his works, preserved by his descendants, evince signal ability. But his time was not wholly given to the labours of the study and the cabinet. The camp received an equal share of his attention. He led the armies of the allied nations in their annual expeditions in person, and annually enlarged his realm and its resources. The captives taken in war were employed as labourers on the public works, and the immense royal palace and the villas of the king. These latter were embel lished with all that could make a rural retreat delightful, and some remains of their magnificence are still extant, among which, an excavation in the solid porphyry is shown to the traveller by the ignorant people as the Bath of Montezuma."

The history of Nezahualcoyotl has been preserved by his son and grandson, and repeated from their accounts by a later descendant,

Ixtlilxochitl. It is filled with the most pleasing anecdotes of his clemency and justice, and on the other hand narrates as the basest action in their ancestor's life, an account of his obtaining to wife the betrothed of another by sending him to be slain in battle against the Tlascalans. This lady he made his wife, but for a long time had no issue by her. He at length suffered himself to be persuaded by the priests to endeavour to propitiate the gods by a human sacrifice, but it was of none effect, and the king exclaimed, "These idols of wood and stone can neither hear nor feel; much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all powerful and unknown God, creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support."

He withdrew to his rural palace of Tezcotzinco, and commenced the worship of "the unknown God, the cause of causes," by a fast of forty days, offering no other sacrifices than the incense of copa! and aromatic herbs and gums. He afterwards built a temple to the invisible God, without images. Shortly after his abandonment of idolatry, his desires for an heir were realized, an event which tended still further to fix him in his new faith. As he grew old, he retired to the delicious solitudes of Tezcotzinco, where he devoted himself to study and to meditation on his immortal destiny.

His death occurred about the year 1470, nearly half a century after the commencement of his reign. He was succeeded on the throne by his son, Nezahualpilli, then only eight years of age. This prince was only less remarkable than his father for his wisdom, piety, and rigid justice. Of the latter, we need only quote as an example the delivery of his eldest son into the hand of the executioner, in accordance with the sentence of the tribunal before which he was brought for maintaining a correspondence with one of the ladies of the court. That he had the feelings of a father, however, is proved by his grief at the occurrence. He shut himself up for many weeks, and commanded the doors and windows of his son's residence to be walled up, that it might never again be occupied.

Nezahualpilli was warlike in his youth, but became more and more wedded to the pursuit of learning as he advanced in years. Astronomical lore was his chief delight, and he spent the most of his time in the study of that science, and the enjoyment of the pleasures of Tezcotzinco. This quiet life, however, did not accord with the temper of the times, nor with that of the wily head of the Aztec race, Montezuma. The distant provinces threw off their allegiance; dis affection and turbulence entered the army; and Montezuma, by a mixture of cunning and force, plundered his amiable rival of a large part of his most valuable domains, and then arrogated to himself the title and supremacy of emperor, which the Tezcucan princes had heretofore borne by virtue of their position as head of the alliance.

These misfortunes hastened the death of Nezahualpilli, who sank into the grave in 1515, at the age of fifty-two.

Under the sway of Montezuma, the arms of the allied nations, which had before extended the imperial dominion over all the valley, spread his rule down the sides of the table-land to the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. The progress of the empire was accompanied by a corresponding improvement in the capital, Tenochtitlan, which extended itself over an area exceeding that which it now occupies. A succession of able princes filled the throne, who returned annually from the scenes of their conquests, attended by crowds of captives, laden with the spoils of their own cities. When the Spaniards landed on their coast, their dominion extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, and into the farthest corners of Guatimala and Nicaragua, whither their arms had been led by the great Ahuitzotl