policy which so often makes the weak the prey of the strong, helped to rivet chains for themselves which proved, in the end, more galling than the tyranny of native princes.

Having accompanied Cortes, step by step, thus far in his career of conquest, we must content ourselves with a brief summary of his subsequent adventures. Guatemozin was in his power; every opposing force had melted away; from the great lake to the sea, not a single prince or tribe dared to take the field against the Conqueror of Mexico. What more could he desire ? After such achievements, might he not be well sated with triumph? Alas! it was gold he had coveted from the moment he beheld the presents of Montezuma; and it was gold he wanted, now that his name was a word of terror to twenty provinces. Diligently did he, and his hungry followers, search for it among the smoking ruins of the deserted city; and bitter were their disappointment and indignation when scarcely any could be found. Much had been carried off by their Indian allies. Great stores, collected by former monarchs, rumour said, had been thrown by Guatemozin into the lake. The soldiers were clamorous in their complaints. Threats began to be muttered against the barbarian who had defied their arms, sacrificed their companions, and now was cheating them of their spoil. Means must be taken to subdue his obstinacy. The tongue, that would not speak of itself, must speak upon compulsion. The hidingplace of his treasure should be divulged, whatever it might cost. Cortes listened, and, to his eternal disgrace, complied with the wishes of his followers. The royal captive was put to the torture, and proved himself as unconquerable in that last extremity as he had done before. His oppressors gained nothing by their cruelty, for he kept silence, till for very shame he was released; and they have roused against them the indignation of posterity for an act bespeaking more of utter

baseness and hard-hearted cruelty than any other which has stained their name.

The conqueror, therefore, was left with a wasted city for his booty, and an army almost mutinous for lack of the reward on which they had reckoned so surely. This, however, was but the beginning of vexations. In fact, he had served Spain. too well, and had conferred on its monarch benefits too vast to be repaid in the current coin of honours and rewards. From spies and rivals in the newly conquered countries, as from his old enemies in Cuba, accusations were heaped upon him as a refractory subject, whom it became the Emperor to watch and restrain. After he had received a full acquittal, and been appointed Governor of New Spain with ample powers, new charges were invented, and a fresh commission of inquiry was despatched to Mexico, with orders, if necessary, to degrade Cortes and send him home. Like Columbus, he would probably have crossed the Atlantic as a prisoner, if the Commissioner had not died soon after his landing.

Then it was that, tired of pleading his cause in the country where he, of all others, had the best right to rule, he sailed to Spain, and confronted his accusers before Charles the Fifth himself. The splendour of his reception at court, the flight of his enemies from the royal presence, the acclamations of his countrymen which greeted him in every town, would be to him like a gleam of sunshine in the long winter of his fortunes; but new indignities remained behind. Grandees, who knew more of the court than the camp, were sent out as Viceroys, while the less honourable, and more barren, post of captain-general, was reserved for the conqueror. For a time he busied himself with the cultivation and improvement of the princely domains which had been granted him in Mexico. Then his active mind longed for more exciting employments, and armaments were fitted out to push the Spanish discoveries

yet farther to the west. Nothing resulted, however, from these expeditions, but some contributions to the cause of science; while the expenses for which he had made himself responsible embarrassed and burdened him through the remainder of his life. Next came collisions with the Viceroy— fresh appeals to the Emperor,—a second journey to Spaincold civilities from the royal courts, but no redress-years of tedious and fruitless attendance upon officials, whom the greatness of his services could not move from their usual tardiness of deliberation- -a brief illness, brought on or aggravated by anxiety-and at last, an unhonoured death.

Thus ended a life adorned with brilliant achievements, and disgraced by some outrageous crimes. Thus barren to himself proved the soil which he had taken such pains to win for his country. Cortes had the hero's portion of splendid success and lasting fame; and he paid for it the usual price. Montezuma and Guatemozin were more to be envied than the man who first spoiled them of their inheritance, and then found no rest, on either continent, to his dying hour. Twenty-six years of bitter, humbling, heart-wearing disappointment, succeeded to the stirring scenes we have described, stretching over about as many months. If some priest of Huitzilopotchli, on the day that Cortes entered Mexico in triumph, had met him amidst the smoking ruins, and greeted him with curses, after the fashion of Gray's prophetic bard, a worse fate need hardly have been wished for the conqueror than that which Providence appointed for him during the remainder of his life. He won for Spain gold and empire; and she requited him with coldness and ingratitude while he lived, and with the praises of her poets and chroniclers from that day to this.

The Starry Heavens.

A LECTURE

BY THE

REV. BROWNLOW MAITLAND, M.A.,

MINISTER OF BRUNSWICK CHAPEL, MARYLEBONE.