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$Title{History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Chapter IV: Part II}
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$Author{Prescott, William H.}
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country
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$Date{1864}
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Title:       History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Book:        Book II: Discovery Of Peru
Author:      Prescott, William H.
Date:        1864

Chapter IV: Part II

     Having now collected all the information essential to his object,
Pizarro, after taking leave of the natives of Tumbez, and promising a speedy
return, weighed anchor, and again turned his prow towards the south.  Still
keeping as near as possible to the coast, that no place of importance might
escape his observation, he passed Cape Blanco, and, after sailing about a
degree and a half, made the port of Payta.  The inhabitants, who had notice
of his approach, came out in their balsas to get sight of the wonderful
strangers, bringing with them stores of fruits, fish, and vegetables, with
the same hospitable spirit shown by their countrymen at Tumbez.

     After staying here a short time, and interchanging presents of trifling
value with the natives, Pizarro continued his cruise; and, sailing by the
sandy plains of Sechura for an extent of near a hundred miles, he doubled the
Punta de Aguja, and swept down the coast as it fell off towards the east,
still carried forward by light and somewhat variable breezes.  The weather
now became unfavorable, and the voyagers encountered a succession of heavy
gales, which drove them some distance out to sea, and tossed them about for
many days.  But they did not lose sight of the mighty ranges of the Andes,
which, as they proceeded towards the south, were still seen, at nearly the
same distance from the shore, rolling onwards, peak after peak, with their
stupendous surges of ice, like some vast ocean, that had been suddenly
arrested and frozen up in the midst of its wild and tumultuous career.  With
this landmark always in view, the navigator had little need of star or
compass to guide his bark on her course.

     As soon as the tempest had subsided, Pizarro stood in again for the
continent, touching at the principal points as he coasted along.  Everywhere
he was received with the same spirit of generous hospitality; the natives
coming out in their balsas to welcome him, laden with their little cargoes
of fruits and vegetables, of all the luscious varieties that grow in the
tierra caliente.  All were eager to have a glimpse of the strangers, the
"Children of the Sun," as the Spaniards began already to be called, from
their fair complexions, brilliant armour, and the thunderbolts which they
bore in their hands. ^22 The most favorable reports, too, had preceded them,
of the urbanity and gentleness of their manners, thus unlocking the hearts
of the simple natives, and disposing them to confidence and kindness.  The
iron-hearted soldier had not yet disclosed the darker side of his character.
He was too weak to do so.  The hour of Conquest had not yet come.

[Footnote 22: "Que resplandecian como el Sol. LIamabanles hijos del Sol por
esto." Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1528.]

     In every place Pizarro received the same accounts of a powerful monarch
who ruled over the land, and held his court on the mountain plains of the
interior, where his capital was depicted as blazing with gold and silver, and
displaying all the profusion of an Oriental satrap.  The Spaniards, except
at Tumbez, seem to have met with little of the precious metals among the
natives on the coast.  More than one writer asserts that they did not covet
them, or, at least, by Pizarro's orders, affected not to do so.  He would not
have them betray their appetite for gold, and actually refused gifts when
they were proffered! ^23 It is more probable that they saw little display of
wealth, except in the embellishments of the temples and other sacred
buildings, which they did not dare to violate.  The precious metals, reserved
for the uses of religion and for persons of high degree, were not likely to
abound in the remote towns and hamlets on the coast.

[Footnote 23: Pizarro wished the natives to understand, says Father Naharro,
that their good alone, and not the love of gold, had led him to their distant
land!  "Sin haver querido recibir el oro, plata i perlas que les ofrecieron,
a fin de que conociesen no era codicia, sino deseo de su bien el que les
habia traido de tan lejas tierras a las suyas." Relacion Sumaria, Ms.]

     Yet the Spaniards met with sufficient evidence of general civilization
and power to convince them that there was much foundation for the reports of
the natives.  Repeatedly they saw structures of stone and plaster, and
occasionally showing architectural skill in the execution, if not elegance
of design.  Wherever they cast anchor, they beheld green patches of
cultivated country redeemed from the sterility of nature, and blooming with
the variegated vegetation of the tropics; while a refined system of
irrigation, by means of aqueducts and canals, seemed to be spread like a
net-work over the surface of the country, making even the desert to blossom
as the rose.  At many places where they landed they saw the great road of the
Incas which traversed the sea-coast, often, indeed, lost in the volatile
sands, where no road could be maintained, but rising into a broad and
substantial causeway, as it emerged on a firmer soil.  Such a provision for
internal communication was in itself no slight monument of power and
civilization.

     Still beating to the south, Pizarro passed the site of the future
flourishing city of Truxillo, founded by himself some years later, and
pressed on till he rode off the port of Santa.  It stood on the banks of a
broad and beautiful stream; but the surrounding country was so exceedingly
arid that it was frequently selected as a burial-place by the Peruvians, who
found the soil most favorable for the preservation of their mummies.  So
numerous, indeed, were the Indian guacas, that the place might rather be
called the abode of the dead than of the living. ^24

[Footnote 24: "Lo que mas me admiro, quando passe por este valle, fue ver la
muchedumbre que tienen de sepolturas: y que por todas las sierras y secadales
en los altos del valle: ay numero grande de apartados, hechos a su usanca,
todo cubiertas de huessos de muertos.  De manera que lo que ay en este valle
mas que ver, es las sepolturas de los muertos, y los campos que labraron
siendo vivos." Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 70.]

     Having reached this point, about the ninth degree of southern latitude,
Pizarro's followers besought him not to prosecute the voyage farther.  Enough
and more than enough had been done, they said, to prove the existence and
actual position of the great Indian empire of which they had so long been in
search.  Yet, with their slender force, they had no power to profit by the
discovery.  All that remained, therefore, was to return and report the
success of their enterprise to the governor at Panama.  Pizarro acquiesced
in the reasonableness of this demand.  He had now penetrated nine degrees
farther than any former navigator in these southern seas, and, instead of the
blight which, up to this hour, had seemed to hang over his fortunes, he could
now return in triumph to his countrymen.  Without hesitation, therefore, he
prepared to retrace his course, and stood again towards the north.

     On his way, he touched at several places where he had before landed.
At one of these, called by the Spaniards Santa Cruz, he had been invited on
shore by an Indian woman of rank, and had promised to visit her on his
return.  No sooner did his vessel cast anchor off the village where she
lived, than she came on board, followed by a numerous train of attendants.
Pizarro received her with every mark of respect, and on her departure
presented her with some trinkets which had a real value in the eyes of an
Indian princess.  She urged the Spanish commander and his companions to
return the visit, engaging to send a number of hostages on board, as security
for their good treatment.  Pizarro assured her that the frank confidence she
had shown towards them proved that this was unnecessary.  Yet, no sooner did
he put off in his boat, the following day, to go on shore, than several of
the principal persons in the place came along-side of the ship to be received
as hostages during the absence of the Spaniards, - a singular proof of
consideration for the sensitive apprehensions of her guests.

     Pizarro found that preparations had been made for his reception in a
style of simple hospitality that evinced some degree of taste.  Arbours were
formed of luxuriant and wide-spreading branches, interwoven with fragrant
flowers and shrubs that diffused a delicious perfume through the air.  A
banquet was provided, teeming with viands prepared in the style of the
Peruvian cookery, and with fruits and vegetables of tempting hue and luscious
to the taste, though their names and nature were unknown to the Spaniards.
After the collation was ended, the guests were entertained with music and
dancing by a troop of young men and maidens simply attired, who exhibited in
their favorite national amusement all the agility and grace which the supple
limbs of the Peruvian Indians so well qualified them to display.  Before his
departure, Pizarro stated to his kind host the motives of his visit to the
country, in the same manner as he had done on other occasions, and he
concluded by unfurling the royal banner of Castile, which he had brought on
shore, requesting her and her attendants to raise it in token of their
allegiance to his sovereign.  This they did with great good-humor, laughing
all the while, says the chronicler, and making it clear that they had a very
imperfect conception of the serious nature of the ceremony.  Pizarro was
contented with this outward display of loyalty, and returned to his vessel
well satisfied with the entertainment he had received, and meditating, it may
be, on the best mode of repaying it, hereafter, by the subjugation and
conversion of the country.

     The Spanish commander did not omit to touch also at Tumbez, on his
homeward voyage.  Here some of his followers, won by the comfortable aspect
of the place and the manners of the people, intimated a wish to remain,
conceiving, no doubt, that it would be better to live where they would be
persons of consequence than to return to an obscure condition in the
community of Panama.  One of these men was Alonso de Molina, the same who had
first gone on shore at this place, and been captivated by the charms of the
Indian beauties.  Pizarro complied with their wishes, thinking it would not
be amiss to find, on his return, some of his own followers who would be
instructed in the language and usages of the natives.  He was also allowed
to carry back in his vessel two or three Peruvians, for the similar purpose
of instructing them in the Castilian.  One of them, a youth named by the
Spaniards Felipillo, plays a part of some importance in the history of
subsequent events.

     On leaving Tumbez, the adventurers steered directly for Panama, touching
only, on their way, at the ill-fated island of Gorgona to take on board their
two companions who were left there too ill to proceed with them.  One had
died, and, receiving the other, Pizarro and his gallant little band continued
their voyage; and, after an absence of at least eighteen months, found
themselves once more safely riding at anchor in the harbour of Panama. ^25

[Footnote 25: Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano
1528. - Naharro, Relacion Sumaria, Ms. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.
- Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 4, lib. 2, cap. 6, 7. - Relacion del Primer.
Descub. Ms.]

     The sensation caused by their arrival was great, as might have been
expected.  For there were few, even among the most sanguine of their friends,
who did not imagine that they had long since paid for their temerity, and
fallen victims to the climate or the natives, or miserably perished in a
watery grave.  Their joy was proportionably great, therefore, as they saw the
wanderers now returned, not only in health and safety, but with certain
tidings of the fair countries which had so long eluded their grasp.  It was
a moment of proud satisfaction to the three associates, who, in spite of
obloquy, derision, and every impediment which the distrust of friends or the
coldness of government could throw in their way, had persevered in their
great enterprise until they had established the truth of what had been so
generally denounced as a chimera.  It is the misfortune of those daring
spirits who conceive an idea too vast for their own generation to comprehend,
or, at least, to attempt to carry out, that they pass for visionary dreamers.
Such had been the fate of Luque and his associates.  The existence of a rich
Indian empire at the south, which, in their minds, dwelling long on the same
idea and alive to all the arguments in its favor, had risen to the certainty
of conviction, had been derided by the rest of their countrymen as a mere
mirage of the fancy, which, on nearer approach, would melt into air; while
the projectors, who staked their fortunes on the adventure, were denounced
as madmen.  But their hour of triumph, their slow and hard-earned triumph,
had now arrived.

     Yet the governor, Pedro de los Rios, did not seem, even at this moment,
to be possessed with a conviction of the magnitude of the discovery, - or,
perhaps, he was discouraged by its very magnitude.  When the associates, now
with more confidence, applied to him for patronage in an undertaking too vast
for their individual resources, he coldly replied, "He had no desire to build
up other states at the expense of his own; nor would he be led to throw away
more lives than had already been sacrificed by the cheap display of gold and
silver toys and a few Indian sheep!" ^26

[Footnote 26: "No entendia de despoblar su Governacion, para que se fuesen
a poblar nuevas Tierras, muriendo en tal demanda mas Gente de la que havia
muerto, cebar do a los Hombres con la muestra de las Ovejas, Oro, i Plata,
que havian traido." Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 4, lib 3, cap. 1.]

     Sorely disheartened by this repulse from the only quarter whence
effectual aid could be expected, the confederates, without funds, and with
credit nearly exhausted by their past efforts, were perplexed in the extreme.
Yet to stop now, - what was it but to abandon the rich mine which their own
industry and perseverance had laid open, for others to work at pleasure?  In
this extremity the fruitful mind of Luque suggested the only expedient by
which they could hope for success.  This was to apply to the Crown itself.
No one was so much interested in the result of the expedition.  It was for
the government, indeed, that discoveries were to be made, that the country
was to be conquered.  The government alone was competent to provide the
requisite means, and was likely to take a much broader and more liberal view
of the matter than a petty colonial officer.

     But who was there qualified to take charge of this delicate mission?
Luque was chained by his professional duties to Panama; and his associates,
unlettered soldiers, were much better fitted for the business of the camp
than of the court.  Almagro, blunt, though somewhat swelling and ostentatious
in his address, with a diminutive stature and a countenance naturally plain,
now much disfigured by the loss of an eye, was not so well qualified for the
mission as his companion in arms, who, possessing a good person and
altogether a commanding presence, was plausible, and, with all his defects
of education, could, where deeply interested, be even eloquent in discourse.
The ecclesiastic, however, suggested that the negotiation should be committed
to the Licentiate Corral, a respectable functionary, then about to return on
some public business to the mother country.  But to this Almagro strongly
objected.  No one, he said, could conduct the affair so well as the party
interested in it.  He had a high opinion of Pizarro's prudence, his
discernment of character, and his cool, deliberate policy. ^27 He knew enough
of his comrade to have confidence that his presence of mind would not desert
him, even in the new, and therefore embarrassing, circumstances in which he
would be placed at court.  No one, he said, could tell the story of their
adventures with such effect, as the man who had ben the chief actor in them.
No one could so well paint the unparalleled sufferings and sacrifices which
they had encountered; no other could tell so forcibly what had been done,
what yet remained to do, and what assistance would be necessary to carry it
into execution.  He concluded, with characteristic frankness, by strongly
urging his confederate to undertake the mission.

[Footnote 27: "E por pura importunacion de Almagro cupole a Pizarro, por que
siempre Almagro le tubo respeto, e deseo honrarle." Oviedo, Hist. de las
Indias Ms, Parte 3. lib. 8, cap. 1.]

     Pizarro felt the force of Almagro's reasoning, and, though with
undisguised reluctance, acquiesced in a measure which was less to his taste
than an expedition to the wilderness.  But Luque came into the arrangement
with more difficulty.  "God grant, my children," exclaimed the ecclesiastic,
"that one of you may not defraud the other of his blessing!" ^28 Pizarro
engaged to consult the interests of his associates equally with his own.  But
Luque, it is clear, did not trust Pizarro.

[Footnote 28: "Plegue a Dios, Hijos, que no os hurteis la bendicion el uno
al otro que yo todavia holgaria, que a lo menos fuerades entrambos." Herrera,
Hist. General, dec. 4. lib. 3, cap. 1.]

     There was some difficulty in raising the funds necessary for putting the
envoy in condition to make a suitable appearance at court; so low had the
credit of the confederates fallen, and so little confidence was yet placed
in the result of their splendid discoveries.  Fifteen hundred ducats were at
length raised; and Pizarro, in the spring of 1528, bade adieu to Panama,
accompanied by Pedro de Candia. ^29 He took with him, also, some of the
natives, as well as two or three llamas, various nice fabrics of cloth, with
many ornaments and vases of gold and silver, as specimens of the civilization
of the country, and vouchers for his wonderful story.

[Footnote 29: "Juntaronle mil y quinientos pesos de oro, que dio de buena
voluntad Dn Fernando de Luque." Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1528."]

     Of all the writers on ancient Peruvian history, no one has acquired so
wide celebrity, or been so largely referred to by later compilers, as the
Inca Garcilasso de la Vega.  He was born at Cuzco, in 1540; and was a
mestizo, that is, of mixed descent, his father being European, and his mother
Indian.  His father, Garcilasso de la Vega, was one of that illustrious
family whose achievements, both in arms and letters, shed such lustre over
the proudest period of the Castilian annals.  He came to Peru, in the suite
of Pedro de Alvarado, soon after the country had been gained by Pizarro.
Garcilasso attached himself to the fortunes of this chief, and, after his
death, to those of his brother Gonzalo, - remaining constant to the latter,
through his rebellion, up to the hour of his rout at Xaquixaguana, when
Garcilasso took the same course with most of his faction, and passed over to
the enemy.  But this demonstration of loyalty, though it saved his life, was
too late to redeem his credit with the victorious party; and the obloquy
which he incurred by his share in the rebellion threw a cloud over his
subsequent fortunes, and even over those of his son, as it appears, in after
years.

     The historian's mother was of the Peruvian blood royal.  She was niece
of Huayna Capac, and granddaughter of the renowned Tupac Inca Yupanqui.
Garcilasso, while he betrays obvious satisfaction that the blood of the
civilized European flows in his veins, shows himself not a little proud of
his descent from the royal dynasty of Peru; and this he intimated by
combining with his patronymic the distinguishing title of the Peruvian
princes, - subscribing himself always Garcilasso Inca de la Vega.

     His early years were passed in his native land, where he was reared in
the Roman Catholic faith, and received the benefit of as good an education
as could be obtained amidst the incessant din of arms and civil commotion.
In 1560, when twenty years of age, he left America, and from that time took
up his residence in Spain.  Here he entered the military service, and held
a captain's commission in the war against the Moriscos, and, afterwards,
under Don John of Austria.  Though he acquitted himself honorably in his
adventurous career, he does not seem to have been satisfied with the manner
in which his services were requited by the government.  The old reproach of
the father's disloyalty still clung to the son, and Garcilasso assures us
that this circumstance defeated all his efforts to recover the large
inheritance of landed property belonging to his mother, which had escheated
to the Crown.  "Such were the prejudices against me," says he, "that I could
not urge my ancient claims or expectations; and I left the army so poor and
so much in debt, that I did not care to show myself again at court; but was
obliged to withdraw into an obscure solitude, where I lead a tranquil life
for the brief space that remains to me, no longer deluded by the world or its
vanities."

     The scene of this obscure retreat was not, however, as the reader might
imagine from this tone of philosophic resignation, in the depths of some
rural wilderness, but in Cordova, once the gay capital of Moslem science, and
still the busy haunt of men.  Here our philosopher occupied himself with
literary labors, the more sweet and soothing to his wounded spirit, that they
tended to illustrate the faded glories of his native land, and exhibit them
in their primitive splendor to the eyes of his adopted countrymen.  "And I
have no reason to regret," he says in his Preface to his account of Florida,
"that Fortune has not smiled on me, since this circumstance has opened a
literary career which, I trust, will secure to me a wider and more enduring
fame than could flow from any worldly prosperity."

     In 1609, he gave to the world the First Part of his great work, the
Commentarios Reales, devoted to the history of the country under the Incas;
and in 1616, a few months before his death, he finished the Second Part,
embracing the story of the Conquest, which was published at Cordova the
following year.  The chronicler, who thus closed his labors with his life,
died at the ripe old age of seventy-six.  He left a considerable sum for the
purchase of masses for his soul, showing that the complaints of his poverty
are not to be taken literally.  His remains were interred in the cathedral
church of Cordova, in a chapel which bears the name of Garcilasso; and an
inscription was placed on his monument, intimating the high respect in which
the historian was held both for his moral worth and his literary attainments.

     The First Part of the Commentarios Reales is occupied, as already
noticed, with the ancient history of the country, presenting a complete
picture of its civilization under the Incas, - far more complete than has
been given by any other writer.  Garcilasso's mother was but ten years old
at the time of her cousin Atahuallpa's accession, or rather usurpation, as
it is called by the party of Cuzco.  She had the good fortune to escape the
massacre which, according to the chronicler, befell most of her kindred, and
with her brother continued to reside in their ancient capital after the
Conquest.  Their conversations naturally turned to the good old times of the
Inca rule, which, colored by their fond regrets, may be presumed to have lost
nothing as seen through the magnifying medium of the past.  The young
Garcilasso listened greedily to the stories which recounted the magnificence
and prowess of his royal ancestors, and though he made no use of them at the
time, they sunk deep into his memory, to be treasured up for a future
occasion.  When he prepared, after the lapse of many years, in his retirement
at Cordova, to compose the history of his country, he wrote to his old
companions and schoolfellows, of the Inca family, to obtain fuller
information than he could get in Spain on various matters of historical
interest.  He had witnessed in his youth the ancient ceremonies and usages
of his countrymen, understood the science of their quipus, and mastered many
of their primitive traditions.  With the assistance he now obtained from his
Peruvian kindred, he acquired a familiarity with the history of the great
Inca race, and of their national institutions, to an extent that no person
could have possessed, unless educated in the midst of them, speaking the same
language, and with the same Indian blood flowing in his veins.  Garcilasso,
in short, was the representative of the conquered race; and we might expect
to find the lights and shadows of the picture disposed under his pencil, so
as to produce an effect very different from that which they had hitherto
exhibited under the hands of the Conquerors.

     Such, to a certain extent, is the fact; and this circumstance affords
a means of comparison which would alone render his works of great value in
arriving at just historic conclusions.  But Garcilasso wrote late in life,
after the story had been often told by Castilian writers.  He naturally
deferred much to men, some of whom enjoyed high credit on the score both of
their scholarship and their social position.  His object, he professes, was
not so much to add any thing new of his own, as to correct their errors and
the misconceptions into which they had been brought by their ignorance of the
Indian languages and the usages of his people.  He does, in fact, however,
go far beyond this; and the stores of information which he has collected have
made his work a large repository, whence later laborers in the same field
have drawn copious materials.  He writes from the fulness of his heart, and
illuminates every topic that he touches with a variety and richness of
illustration, that leave little to be desired by the most importunate
curiosity.  The difference between reading his Commentaries and the accounts
of European writers is the difference that exists between reading a work in
the original and in a bald translation.  Garcilasso's writings are an
emanation from the Indian mind.

     Yet his Commentaries are open to a grave objection, - and one naturally
suggested by his position.  Addressing himself to the cultivated European,
he was most desirous to display the ancient glories of his people, and still
more of the Inca race, in their most imposing form.  This, doubtless, was the
great spur to his literary labors, for which previous education, however good
for the evil time on which he was cast, had far from qualified him.
Garcilasso, therefore, wrote to effect a particular object.  He stood forth
as counsel for his unfortunate countrymen, pleading the cause of that
degraded race before the tribunal of posterity.  The exaggerated tone of
panegyric consequent on this becomes apparent in every page of his work.  He
pictures forth a state of society, such as an Utopian philosopher would
hardly venture to depict.  His royal ancestors became the types of every
imaginary excellence, and the golden age is revived for a nation, which,
while the war of proselytism is raging on its borders, enjoys within all the
blessings of tranquillity and peace.  Even the material splendors of the
monarchy, sufficiently great in this land of gold, become heightened, under
the glowing imagination of the Inca chronicler, into the gorgeous illusions
of a fairy tale.

     Yet there is truth at the bottom of his wildest conceptions, and it
would be unfair to the Indian historian to suppose that he did not himself
believe most of the magic marvels which he describes.  There is no credulity
like that of a Christian convert, - one newly converted to the faith.  From
long dwelling in the darkness of paganism, his eyes, when first opened to the
light of truth, have not acquired the power of discriminating the just
proportions of objects, of distinguishing between the real and the imaginary.
Garcilasso was not a convert, indeed, for he was bred from infancy in the
Roman Catholic faith.  But he was surrounded by converts and neophytes, - by
those of his own blood, who, after practising all their lives the rites of
paganism, were now first admitted into the Christian fold.  He listened to
the teachings of the missionary, learned from him to give implicit credit to
the marvellous legends of the Saints, and the no less marvellous accounts of
his own victories in his spiritual warfare for the propagation of the faith.
Thus early accustomed to such large drafts on his credulity, his reason lost
its heavenly power of distinguishing truth from error, and he became so
familiar with the miraculous, that the miraculous was no longer a miracle.

     Yet, while large deductions are to be made on this account from the
chronicler's reports, there is always a germ of truth which it is not
difficult to detect, and even to disengage from the fanciful covering which
envelopes it; and after every allowance for the exaggerations of national
vanity, we shall find an abundance of genuine information in respect to the
antiquities of his country, for which we shall look in vain in any European
writer.

     Garcilasso's work is the reflection of the age in which he lived.  It
is addressed to the imagination, more than to sober reason.  We are dazzled
by the gorgeous spectacle it perpetually exhibits, and delighted by the
variety of amusing details and animated gossip sprinkled over its pages.  The
story of the action is perpetually varied by discussions on topics
illustrating its progress, so as to break up the monotony of the narrative,
and afford an agreeable relief to the reader.  This is true of the First Part
of his great work.  In the Second there was no longer room for such
discussion.  But he has supplied the place by garrulous reminiscences,
personal anecdotes, incidental adventures, and a host of trivial details, -
trivial in the eyes of the pedant, - which historians have been too willing
to discard, as below the dignity of history.  We have the actors in this
great drama in their private dress, become acquainted with their personal
habits, listen to their familiar sayings, and, in short, gather up those
minutiae which in the aggregate make up so much of life, and not less of
character.

     It is this confusion of the great and the little, thus artlessly blended
together, that constitutes one of the charms of the old romantic chronicle,
- not the less true that, in this respect, it approaches nearer to the usual
tone of romance.  It is in such writings that we may look to find the form
and pressure of the age.  The worm-eaten state-papers, official
correspondence, public records, are all serviceable, indispensable, to
history.  They are the framework on which it is to repose; the skeleton of
facts which gives it its strength and proportions.  But they are as worthless
as the dry bones of the skeleton, unless clothed with the beautiful form and
garb of humanity, and instinct with the spirit of the age. - Our debt is
large to the antiquarian, who with conscientious precision lays broad and
deep the foundations of historic truth; and no less to the philosophic
annalist who exhibits man in the dress of public life, - man in masquerade;
but our gratitude must surely not be withheld from those, who, like
Garcilasso de la Vega, and many a romancer of the Middle Ages, have held up
the mirror - distorted though it may somewhat be - to the interior of life,
reflecting every object, the great and the mean, the beautiful and the
deformed, with their natural prominence and their vivacity of coloring, to
the eye of the spectator.  As a work of art, such a production may be thought
to be below criticism.  But, although it defy the rules of art in its
composition, it does not necessarily violate the principles of taste; for it
conforms in its spirit to the spirit of the age in which it was written.  And
the critic, who coldly condemns it on the severe principles of art, will find
a charm in its very simplicity, that will make him recur again and again to
its pages, while more correct and classical compositions are laid aside and
forgotten.

     I cannot dismiss this notice of Garcilasso, though already long
protracted, without some allusion to the English translation of his
Commentaries.  It appeared in James the Second's reign, and is the work of
Sir Paul Rycaut, Knight.  It was printed at London, in 1688, in folio, with
considerable pretension in its outward dress, well garnished with wood-cuts,
and a frontispiece displaying the gaunt and rather sardonic features, not of
the author, but his translator.  The version keeps pace with the march of the
original, corresponding precisely in books and chapters, and seldom, though
sometimes, using the freedom, so common in these ancient versions, of
abridgment and omission.  Where it does depart from the original, it is
rather from ignorance than intention.  Indeed, as far as the plea of
ignorance will avail him, the worthy knight may urge it stoutly in his
defence.  No one who reads the book will doubt his limited acquaintance with
his own tongue, and no one who compares it with the original will deny his
ignorance of the Castilian.  It contains as many blunders as paragraphs, and
most of them such as might shame a schoolboy.  Yet such are the rude charms
of the original, that this ruder version of it has found considerable favor
with readers; and Sir Paul Rycaut's translation, old as it is, may still be
met with in many a private, as well as public library.