Nic., June 24, 1865. It was given for perusal to different persons, and several copies made; but none cared to assume its publication. Sixty years later, however, Friar Alonso Remon, chronicler of the Merced order in Spain, found one set in the library of Ramirez del Prado, of the Council of the Indies, and perceiving the importance of the narrative, he caused it to be printed at Madrid in 1632 under the title of Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva-España. Remon dying during the publication, Friar Gabriel Adarzo, “nunc Hydruntinus præsul,” Antonio, Bib. Hisp. Nova, iii. 224, took it in charge. Several discrepancies indicate that revisions have been made, and Vazquez, Chron. Guat.*, 524, whose jealousy as a friar was aroused by allusions to Father Olmedo, Cortés’ companion, compared the print with the original copy and pointed out several differences. A second edition, bearing the date 1632, though published later probably, contains an additional chapter on omens, which appears in others of the many editions and translations issued in different countries, even of late years.
Perhaps the most clear-sighted writer on Mexico during the last century was Francisco Javier Clavigero, himself a native of that country, and born at Vera Cruz in 1731. His father was a Leonese, whose official duties called him to different parts of the country, and young Francisco profited by this to acquire a knowledge of its resources and idioms. After a novitiate of three years at the Jesuit college of Tepozotlan, he passed to that at Puebla, and there studied philosophy and theology, and showed particular fondness for languages, both classic and native. He taught rhetoric and philosophy in the principal schools of the country, though restricted somewhat by the superiors in his too liberal ideas, for which Mexico was not yet considered ripe. Meanwhile his enthusiasm centred on the study of Aztec history and hieroglyphs, which received a serious check in the expulsion of Jesuits from America in 1767. He sought refuge in Italy, staying chiefly at Bologna, where he founded an academy, and having considerable leisure he began to shape the results of his late