The materials thus obtained he arranged with a symmetry little understood by the chroniclers of the time. Instead of their rambling incoherencies, his style displays an elegant brevity; it is as clear as it is concise. If the facts are somewhat too thickly crowded on the reader, and occupy the mind too busily for reflection, they at least all tend to a determinate point, and the story, instead of dragging its slow length along till our patience and interest are exhausted, steadily maintains its onward march. In short, the execution of the work is not only superior to that of most contemporary narratives, but, to a certain extent, may aspire to the rank of a classical composition.
Owing to these circumstances, Gomara’s History soon obtained general circulation and celebrity; and, while many a letter of Cortés, and the more elaborate compositions of Oviedo and Las Casas, were suffered to slumber in manuscript, Gomara’s writings were printed and reprinted in his own day, and translated into various languages of Europe. The first edition of the Crónica de la Nueva-España appeared at Medina, in 1553; it was republished at Antwerp the following year. It has since been incorporated in Barcia’s collection, and lastly, in 1826, made its appearance on this side of the water from the Mexican press. The circumstances attending this last edition are curious. The Mexican government appropriated a small sum to defray the expense of translating what was supposed to be an original chronicle of Chimalpain, an Indian writer who lived at the close of the sixteenth century. The care of the translation was committed to the laborious Bustamante. But this scholar had not proceeded far in his labor when he ascertained that the supposed original was itself an Aztec translation of Gomara’s Chronicle. He persevered, however, in his editorial labors, until he had given to the public an American edition of Gomara. It is a fact more remarkable that the editor in his different compilations constantly refers to this same work as the Chronicle of Chimalpain.