Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/675

Rh, undertaking a new examination of the whole subject. The result was a work which for comprehensiveness and value in this respect surpasses any other native effort.

The circulation of prose fiction was strictly restricted in colonial times. Mexican novelists, who may be said to have come into existence within the last few decades, find comparatively little encouragement. The most pretentious of these are historic novels, by Juan Mateos and Riva Palacio. Toward the end of the last century figured Gama, Velazquez, Becerra, Alzate, and the earlier Sigüenza, in archæology and aboriginal astronomy. So About the same time figured Villarroel, the essayist, and Fausto de Elhuyar, on coinage.

The most noted bibliographers of New Spain have been Eguiara y Eguren, Biblioteca Mexicana, etc., Mexico, 1755, and Beristain, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana Septentrional, Mexico, 1816-21. Oratory was cultivated from the earliest colonial days, its chief efforts proceeding from the pulpit. The discourses were usually interspersed with Latin quotations, metaphors, mysticisms, and occasionally with anecdotes — all conveyed in florid redundancy. There were, nevertheless, honorable exceptions of pure and pointed eloquence, such as that of Archbishop Nuñez de Haro, and the Cuban Conde y Oquendo, who distinguished himself both in the forum and temple. The forum was also a proper field for the display of oratory. But after Mexico became a nation, with democratic institutions, the field for oratorical displays was greatly widened, and the number of men who