Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/380



HE little that survives of primitive Mexican literature comes down to us from a period of barbarism, which, though clothed in external and material splendor, was destitute of intellectual culture and moral enlightenment.

It is hard to believe that the noble and poetic verses of Netzahualcoyotl, the most noted of early Mexican writers, had their birth and growth in the midst of such an environment. This fact, however, but serves to emphasize another fact which the modern writers of Mexico so brilliantly sustain, which is, that the literary and poetic faculty is inherent in the Mexican race. And from those early days down to the present time we see the unusual triple combination of soldier, statesman, and writer. This statement receives its verification by a glance downward from the fifteenth century, when Netzahualcoyotl was the poet-chief of Texcoco, through a long list of warrior-authors to the brave and accomplished Guillermo Prieto, who has nobly served his country by both sword and pen.

The twelve Franciscan friars sent over after the conquest by the General of the Order, were men of profound learning, and may be