the briefest summary of the enterprise, to pass from the topic without awarding to the moving spirit of the romantic drama the fair estimate which his character and deeds demand.
We have ever regarded Hernando Cortéz as the great controlling spirit and embodiment of the conquest, regardless of the brilliant and able men who were grouped around him, all of whom, tempered and regulated by his genius, moved the military machine, step by step, and act by act, until the capital fell before the united armies of discontented Indians and invading Spaniards. It was in the mind of this remarkable personage that every scheme appears to have originated and ripened. This is the report of the most authentic contemporaries. He took counsel, it is true, of his captains, and heard the reports of Sandoval, Olid, and Alvarado; but whenever a great enterprise, in all the wonderful and varied combinations of this adventure, was to be carried into successful execution, it was Cortéz himself who planned it, placed himself at its head, and fought in its midst. The rash youth whom we saw either idling over his tasks at school, or a reckless stripling as he advanced in life, seems to have mellowed suddenly into greatness under the glow of Indian suns which would have emasculated a character of less rude or nervous strength. As soon as a project, worthy of the real power of his genius, presented itself to his mind and opened to his grasp, he became a sobered, steadfast, serious, discreet man. He was at once isolated by his superiority, and contrived to retain, by his wisdom in command, the superiority which was so perfectly manifested by this isolation. This alone, was no trifling task. His natural adroitness not only taught him quickly the value of every man in his command, but also rendered keener the tact by which he strove to use those men when their talents, for good or evil, were once completely ascertained. There were jealousies of Cortéz, but no rivalries. Men from the ranks conspired to displace him, but no leader ever ventured, or perhaps even conceived the idea, whilst under his orders, of superceding the hero of the Mexican conquest. The