themselves, and by themselves, perform all that belongs to government) I know of no such thing; and if it be in the world have nothing to say for it. In asserting the liberty, generally, as I suppose granted by God to all mankind, I neither deny, that so many as think fit to enter into a society, may give so much of their power as they please to one or more men, for a time, or perpetually, to them and to their heirs, according to such rules as they prescribe; nor approve the disorders that must arise if they keep it entirely in their own hands: and looking upon the several governments, which, under different forms and names, have been regularly constituted by nations, as so many undeniable testimonies that they thought it good for themselves, and their posterity, so to do, I infer, that as there is no man who would not rather chuse to be governed by such as are just, industrious, valiant, and wise, than by those that are wicked, slothful, cowardly, and foolish; and to live in society with such as are qualified like those of the first sort, rather than with those who will ever be ready to commit all manner of villanies, or want experience, strength, or courage, to join in repelling the injuries that are offered by others: so there are none who do not according to the measure of understanding they have, endeavour to set up those who seem to be best qualified, and to prevent the introduction of those vices, which render the faith of the magistrate suspected, or make him unable to perform his duty, in providing for the execution of justice, and the public defence of the state, against foreign and domestic enemies. For as no man who is not absolutely mad, will commit the care of a flock to a villain, that has neither skill, diligence, or courage, to defend them, or perhaps is maliciously set to destroy them, rather than to a stout, faithful, and wise shepherd; it is less to be imagined, that any would commit the same error in relation to that society which comprehends himself, with his children, friends, and all

that is dear to him.

The same considerations are of equal force in relation to the body of every nation: for since the magistrate, though the most perfect in his kind, cannot perform his duty, if the people be so base, vicious, effeminate and cowardly, as not to second his good intentions; those who expect good from him, cannot desire so to corrupt their companions that are to help him, as to ren

der it impossible for him to accomplish it. Though I believe there have been in all ages bad men in every nation; yet I doubt whether there was one in Rome, except a Catiline or a Cæsar, who designed to make themselves tyrants, that would not rather have wished the whole people as brave and virtuous as in the times of the Carthaginian wars, than vile and base as in the days of Nero and Domitian. But it is madness to think, that the whole body would not rather wish to be as it was when virtue flourished, and nothing upon earth was able to resist their power, than weak, miserable, base, slavish, and trampled under foot by any that would invade them; and forced as a chattel to become a prey to those that were strongest. Which is sufficient to shew, that a people acting according to the liberty of their own will, never advance unworthy men, unless it be by mistake, nor willingly suffer the introduction of, vices: whereas the absolute monarch always prefers the worst of those who are addicted to him, and cannot subsist unless the prevailing part of the people be base and vicious. * * * *

For,

That our author's book may appear to be a heap of incongruities and contradictions, it is not amiss to add to what has already been observed, that having asserted abso lute monarchy to be "the only natural government," he now says, "that the nature of all people is to desire liberty without restraint." But if monarchy be that power which above all restrains liberty, and subjects all to the will of one; this is as much as to say that all people naturally desire that which is against nature: and by wonderful excess of extravagance and folly to assert contrary propositions, that on both sides are equally absurd and false. as we have already proved that no government is imposed upon men by God or na ture, it is no less evident that man being a rational creature, nothing can be universally natural to him, that is not rational But this liberty without restraint, being inconsistent with any government, and the good which man naturally desires for himself, children, and friends, we find no place in the world where the inhabitants do not enter into some kind of society or government to restrain it: and to say that all men desire liberty without restraint, and yet that all restrain it is ridiculous. truth is, man is hereunto led by reason, which is his nature. Every one sees they cannot well live asunder, nor many to

The

Indian allies to hold the enemy in check at the foot of the monument. On the first landing, as well as on the several galleries above, and on the summit, the Aztec warriors were drawn up to dispute his passage. From their elevated position they showered down volleys of lighter missiles, together with heavy stones, beams and burning rafters, which, thundering along the stairway, overturned the ascending Spaniards, and carried desolation through their ranks. The more fortunate, eluding or springing over these obstacles, succeeded in gaining the first terrace, where, throwing themselves on their enemies, they compelled them, after a short resistance, to fall back. The assailants pressed on, effectually supported by a brisk fire of the musketeers from below, which so much galled the Mexicans in their exposed situation, that they were glad to take shelter on the broad summit of the teocalli.

Cortés and his comrades were close upon their rear, and the two parties soon found themselves face to face on this aërial battlefield, engaged in mortal combat in presence of the whole city, as well as of the troops in the courtyard, who paused, as if by mutual consent, from their own hostilities, gazing in silent expectation on the issue of those above. The area, though somewhat smaller than the base of the teocalli, was large enough to afford a fair field of fight for a thousand combatants. It was paved with broad, flat stones. No impediment occurred over its surface, except the huge sacrificial block, and the temples of stone which rose to the height of forty feet, at the further extremity of the arena. One of these had been consecrated to the cross; the other was still occupied by the Mexican war-god. The Christian and the Aztec contended for their religions under the very shadow of their respective shrines; while the Indian priests, running to and fro, with their hair wildly streaming over their sable mantles, seemed hovering in mid-air, like so many demons of darkness urging on the work of slaughter.

The parties closed with the desperate fury of men who had no hope but in victory. Quarter was neither asked nor given; and to fly was impossible. The edge of the area was unprotected by parapet or battlement. The least slip would be fatal; and the combatants, as they struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. Cortés himself is said to have had a narrow escape from this dreadful fate. Two warriors, of strong

VOL. III.

muscular frames, seized on him, and were dragging him violently towards the brink of the pyramid. Aware of their intention, he struggled with all his force, and, before they could accomplish their purpose, succeeded in tearing himself from their grasp, and hurling one of them over the walls with his own arm. The story is not improbable in itself, for Cortés was a man of uncommon agility and strength. It has been often re peated, but not by contemporary history.

The battle lasted with unintermitting fury for three hours. The number of the enemy was double that of the Christians; and it seemed as if it were a contest which must be determined by numbers and brute force, rather than by superior science. But it was not so. The invulnerable armour of the Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of physical strength and numbers. After doing all that the courage of despair could enable men to do, resistance grew fainter and fainter on the side of the Aztecs. One after another they had fallen. Two or three priests only survived to be led away in triumph by the victors. Every other combatant was stretched a corpse on the bloody arena, or had been hurled from the giddy heights. Yet the loss of the Spaniards was not inconsiderable: it amounted to forty-five of their best men; and nearly all the remainder were more or less injured in the desperate conflict.

The victorious cavaliers now rushed toward the sanctuaries. The lower story was of stone, the two upper were of wood. Penetrating into their recesses, they had the mortification to find the image of the Virgin and Cross removed. But in the other edifice they still beheld the grim figure of Huitzilopotchli, with his censer of smoking hearts, and the walls of his oratory reeking with gore-not improbably of their own countrymen. With shouts of triumph the Christians tore the uncouth monster from his niche, and tumbled him, in the presence of the horror-struck Aztecs, down the steps of the teocalli. They then set fire to the accursed building. The flame speedily ran up the slender towers, sending forth an ominous light over city, lake, and valley, to the remotest hut among the mountains. It was the funeral pyre of paganism, and proclaimed the fall of that sanguinary religion which had so long hung like a dark cloud over the fair regions of Anahuac.

62

W. H. PRESCOTT.

AUGUSTUS CÆSAR (31 B. c.—14 a. D.) [CHARLES MERIVALE, an English historian, born in 1808, was educated at Cambridge, becoming an eminent preacher. His "History of the Romans under the Empire," (7 vols., 1850-62,) "Conversion of the Roman Empire," (1864,) and "General History of Rome," (1875,) are his principal works.]

In stature Augustus hardly exceeded the middle height, but his person was lightly and delicately formed, and its proportions were such as to convey a favourable and even a striking impression. His countenance was pale, and testified to the weakness of his health, and almost constant bodily suffering; but the hardships of military service had imparted a swarthy tinge to a complexion naturally fair, and his eyebrows meeting over a sharp and aquiline nose gave a serious and stern expression to his countenance. His hair was light, and his eyes blue and piercing; he was well pleased if a any one on approaching him looked on the ground and affected to be unable to meet their dazzling brightness. It was said that his dress concealed many imperfections and blemishes on his person; but he could not disguise all the infirmities under which he laboured; the weakness of the forefinger of his right hand and a lameness in the left hip were the results of wounds he incurred in a battle with the Iapydæ in early life; he suffered repeated attacks of fever of the most serious kind,especially in the course of the campaign of Philippi and that against the Cantabrians, and again two years afterwards at Rome, when his recovery was despaired of. From that time, although constantly liable to be affected by cold and heat, and obliged to nurse himself throughout with the care of a valetudinarian, he does not appear to have had any return of illness so serious as the preceding; and dying at the age of seventyfour, the rumour obtained popular currency that he was prematurely cut off by poison administered by the empress. As the natural consequence of this bodily weakness and sickly constitution, Octavian did not attempt to distinguish himself by active exertions or feats of personal prowess. The splendid examples of his uncle the dictator and of Antonius his rival, might have early discouraged him from attempting to shine as a warrior and hero: he had not the vivacity and animal spirits necessary to carry him through such exploits as theirs; and, al

himself to personal danger, he prudently though he did not shrink from exposing declined to allow a comparison to be instituted between himself and rivals whom he could not hope to equal. Thus necessarily thrown back upon other resources, he trusted to caution and circumspection, first to preserve his own life, and afterwards to obtain the splendid prizes which had hitherto been carried off by daring adventure, and the good fortune which is so often its attendant. His contest therefore with Antonius and Sextus Pompeius was the contest of cunning with bravery; but from his youth upwards he was accustomed to overreach, not the bold and reckless only, but the most considerate and wily of his contemporaries, such as Cicero and Cleopatra; he succeeded in the end in deluding the senate and people of Rome in the establishment of his tyranny; and finally deceived the expectations of the world, and falsified the lessons of the Republican history, in reigning himself forty years in disguise, and leaving a throne to be claimed without a challenge by his successors for fourteen centuries.

But although emperor in name, and in fact absolute master of his people, the manners of the Cæsar, both in public and private life, were still those of a simple citizen. On the most solemn occasions he was dis tinguished by no other dress than the robes and insignia of the offices which he exercised; he was attended by no other guards than those which his consular dignity rendered customary and decent. In his court there was none of the etiquette of modern monarchies to be recognized, and it was only by slow and gradual encroachment that it came to prevail in that of his successors. Augustus was contented to take up his residence in the house which had belonged to the orator Licinius Calvus, in the neighbourhood of the Forum; which he afterwards abandoned for that of Hortensius on the Palatine, of which Suetonius observes that it was remarkable neither for size nor splendour. Its halls were small, and lined, not with marble, after the luxu rious fashion of many patrician palaces, but with the common Alban stone, and the pat tern of the pavement was plain and simple. Nor when he succeeded Lepidus in the pon tificate would he relinquish this private dwelling for the regia or public residence assigned that honourable office.

Many anecdotes are recorded of the mo deration with which the emperor received