Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/89

 Rh and a subject of extreme difficulty and most involved character, his principal work on this vexed question being Los dioses astronomicos de los antiguos Mexicanos (The Astronomical Gods of the Ancient Mexicans). Excellent lives of several Mexican worthies of distinction must also be placed to his credit, the most outstanding of which are those of Sahagun (a missionary priest of the Colonial period, who wrote a valuable treatise on the native religion) and Montecuhzoma, the ill-fated Aztec monarch.

But archaeology and history were not Señor Chavero's sole literary interests. He was a playwright, and although his dramas deal with the ancient native life of Mexico, some of them have been well received. Quetzalcoatl, which takes its title from the ancient solar deity of old Mexico, and Xochitl, picture native life in the stirring days of the Conquest. Although he was good-naturedly rallied upon his antiquarian dramatic tastes, it is generally admitted by native critics that his plays breathe a strong patriotic spirit, and are nobly conceived and powerfully if simply executed. It is pointed out, however, by Riva Palacio in his Los Ceros that "our society, our nation, has no love for its traditions"; and that on the strength of native themes alone, "no one gains a reputation here in Mexico." The fantastic taste for the mediaeval in the native novel is blamed for this neglect of native subjects, and preference for the environment of Rhine castles and Spanish court is rightly and sarcastically alluded to.

Chavero was more than an author. He was in younger days a man of affairs, a shrewd lawyer, and was one of Juarez's right-hand men during the period of French intervention. Born in 1841, he commenced the practice of law at the age of 20, and became a member of the House of Deputies in 1862. When the Empire fell in 1867, he abandoned politics for literature, but on the collapse of Lerdo's government was sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs as second in command. He also acted as City Treasurer and Governor of the Federal District, besides