Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/445

 12 3. ii. NOV. 25, Me.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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result, in greater or less degree, from responsi- bility. He is also blessed with what we may perhaps call an excellent pre-literary style.

This volume contains the account of the ex- pedition to Honduras. It is a tragic story, un- relieved by the glamour of gold and conquest. Nothing succeeded, and when, after many months of difficult march, untold hardships, and much wandering out of the way, the expedition arrived at Naco, it was to find that Cristobal de Olid, the captain for whose chastisement the enterprise had ostensibly been designed, had long since been beheaded. Bernal Diaz, as usual, did good service, especially in tight places, but it is not difficult to perceive that Cortes and most of the Conquistadores who accompanied him had suffered some deterioration both as to stoutness of heart and practical judgment. It was on this expedition that Cortes committed the crime, with which his memory has so often and severely been reproached, of putting to death Guatemoc, the Great Cacique of Mexico, whom he had forced to follow him.

Bernal Diaz was indignant at this ; and he gives us a striking picture of the remorse of Cortes who could not sleep for the thought of it, and, walking restlessly about at night, fell from a platform in a house where the Indians kept their idols about twice the height of a man, and badly hurt his head. But, if the expedition was gloomy and ill-fated, it did not altogether lack achievement of which the Spaniards could be proud ; and what Diaz himself most admired was the excellent building of the wooden bridges which Cortes caused to be made over the rivers. For their line of march they had to trust much to the interpreter Dona Marina, whose wedding with one of the Spanish captains was celebrated on the march ; and it may be that mistakes on her part or the wilful misleading of her by the natives, account for more than Diaz tells us of the miseries undergone. ^ Following the account of the expedition, we have a description of the setting up of the Royal Audiencia for the government of New Spain. The first men who constituted this either died, or, being taken from among the settlers, proved unsatisfactory ; but a new commission sent out from Spain proved worthy of their task.

Last comes a list of the Conquistadores, drawn up in order to vindicate the honour of the men who could justly claim that proud designation. This is not the least interesting part of the whole work ; and it is indeed astonishing how numerous are the details of name, fortune, personal ap- pearance, character, even of health and manner of death, which Diaz is able to recollect. He tells of seven men, good soldiers and rich, who gave up everything and became Franciscan or Dominican fnars ; and of one who became ? hermit. There was Pedro Gallego, " a pleasant man and a poet, who also owned an inn on the direct road from Vera Cruz to Mexico " ; there was a soldier named Espinosa, who " was callec Espinosa of the Blessing, for he always brought it into his conversation, and his talk was vcr\ pleasant, thanks to the good blessing " ; there was " the brave and daring soldier named Lerma who was annoyed because Cortes ordered him to be reprimanded for no fault whatever, went away among the Indians," and was never heard of again. Lively detail, of which these are small examples, is abundant.

Of the great captains, such as his own friend Sandoval, or Cristobal de Olea whom he admires- most of all, and who gave his life for Cortes he draws portraits at greater length. To Cortes

rimself, naturally, many paragraphs are devoted,- and they are interesting not only as depicting the great leader, but also as showing the honesty of" mind and justice of the writer himself. The

Conclusion of the book deals with the general results of the conquest in the matter of the-

jeneflts conferred by the Spaniards upon the

[ndians among which is counted the introduction

of bull-fights and the government of the country. .

Cortes in his fifth letter sent to Spain a

report of the Honduras ; Expedition, and this is

jiven as an appendix.

In these five volumes of Bernal Diaz's ' Conquest of New Spain ' we have, it is hardly necessary to- say, one of the most important of the publications of the Hakluyt Society, and one upon which the

translator and all concerned are much to be- congratulated.

BOOKS OF THE LAST QUARTER, OF THE: NINETEENTH CENTURY.

OP the half -sco re or so of great names which in- ptantly occur to every one with the thought of the eighties and nineties, most are well represented in the long and highly interesting Catalogue (No. 350) which we received a few days ago from Messrs. Maggs. If we turn to the Brownings we find some fifty items, every one good. Of those within our present limits we liked best the first editions of ' Dramatic Idyls ' (1879-80), 261., and the two volumes of Browning's ' Letters to Various Correspondents," which were privately printed (on vellum), in 1895, under the editorship of Mr. T. J. Wise only about five copies being done. This book, bound by Ramage in olive levant morocco, is offered for SI. 8s. There are ten items connected with Randolph Caldecott. The most important is a copy of Mr. Blackburn's Memoir of the artist, which is unique in that it contains no fewer than fifty autograph letters of Caldecott all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Blackburn illustrated by a number of amusing sketches, . many of them the source of the illustrations in the text of the book (1886), 1051. Another at- tractive Caldecott book is a first edition of the ' Washington Irving' with his illustrations (' Old Christmas,' 1876 ; ' Bracebridge Hall,' 1877), 2 vols., bound by Riviere, 4Z. 4s. The list under Fitzgerald includes a first edition of that writer's ' Agamemnon ' (1876), 4L 4s., and a copy of W. Aldis Wright's collected edition of his works,. ' Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitz- gerald' (1889), 21. 5s. We were interested to notice that as much as 161. 16s. may be asked for the first edition, in four vols., of ' Daniel Deronda.' The Kelmscott Press publications form another pleasant series, and we may mention as examples Ellis's ' Shelley,' printed in 1894-5, 15*. 15s., and the ' Godfrey of Boloyne ' (1893), III. Us. A first edition of ' Roderick Hudson ' (1876), con- taining Henry James's autograph, is offered for 31. 3s. A considerable prize for the buyer who- affects this sort of collecting, and can afford 175i. . for it, is the original MS. of ' Jump to Glory Jane.' The Stevenson items include a first edition of ' A Child's Garden of Verses ' (1885), 61. 6s., and the rare ' Story of a Lie ' (1882), 18/. 18s. There is a long and entertaining list of presentation