JOAQUÍN GARCÍA ICAZBALCETA.

publishing this matter our author always added notes and explanations, characterized by lucidity, interest, and learning. Two important works were published in 1875 and 1877—México en 1554 (Mexico in 1554) and Coloquios espirituales y sacramentales y Poesias sagradas (Spiritual and Sacramental Colloquies and Sacred Poems). The former was a reprint of three interesting dialogues in Latin by Francisco Cervantes Salazar; the book is most rare; Icazbalceta printed the original Latin text with a Spanish translation and added his usual valuable notes. The other book, chiefly composed of religious dramas for popular representation, was by Fernan Gonzales de Eslava, who was by no means a mean poet. In reprinting this curious sixteenth century book Icazbalceta practically traced the whole history of the religious play in Mexico of the past. No Mexican bibliographer has done more important work than Icazbalceta. Two works in this line need special mention. His Apuntes para un Catalogo de Escritores en lenguas indigenas de America (Notes for a Catalogue of Writers in the Native Languages of America) is not only interesting in itself, but has been the necessary foundation for everything since written regarding Mexican languages. As for his Bibliografía Mexicana del siglo xvi. (Mexican Bibliography of the Sixteenth Century), it is a wonderful work, representing forty years of labor. “It is a systematic catalogue of books printed in Mexico in the years between 1539 and 1600, with biographies of authors and various illustrations, facsimiles of ancient title pages, extracts from rare books, bibliographic notes, etc., etc.” It is far more—it is really a restoration of the life of that wonderful age in American letters. In biography our author is eminently happy; he usually loves and reverences his subject. In 1881 he published his Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga, Primer Obispo y Arzobispo de México (Friar Juan de Zumarraga, first bishop and archbishop of Mexico). It is a magnificent example of such work. Another subject of his love was Alegre, and besides a biography of him he wrote—1889—Opusculos ineditos Latinos y Castellanos de Francisco Javier Alegre (The Unpublished Works, Latin and Spanish, of Francisco Javier Alegre).