Ch. VIII.]

SAHAGUN.

229

principal languages of Europe ; and such is the charm of its composi-tion, and its exquisite finish as a work of art, that it will doubtless beas imperishable as the language in which it is written, or the memoryof the events which it records.

At this place, also, we are to take leave of father Sahagun, who hasaccompanied us through our narrative. As his information was col-lected from the traditions of the natives, the contemporaries of theConquest, it has been of considerable importance in corroborating orcontradicting the statements of the Conquerors. Yet its value in thisrespect is much impaired by the wild and random character of manyof the Aztec traditions, — so absurd, indeed, as to carry their own re-futation with them. Where the passions are enlisted, what is tooabsurd to find credit 1

The Twelfth Book — as it would appear from his Preface, the-Ninth Book originally— of his Historia de la Nueva España is devotedto the account of the Conquest. In 1585, thirty years after the firstdraft, he rewrote this part of his great work, moved to it, as hetells us, “by the desire to correct the defects of the first account, inwhich some things had found their way that had better been omitted,and other things omitted which were well deserving of record.” * Itmight be supposed, that the obloquy, which the missionary had broughton his head by his honest recital of the Aztec traditions, would havemade him more circumspect in this rifacimento of his former narrative.But I have not found it so ; or that there has been any effort to miti-gate the statements that bore hardest on his countrymen. As thismanuscript copy must have been that which the author himself deemedthe most correct, since it is his last revision, and as it is more copiousthan the printed narrative, I have been usually guided by it.

Señor de Bustamante is mistaken in supposing that the edition ofthis Twelfth Book, which he published in Mexico , in 1829, is from thereformed copy of Sahagun. The manuscript cited in these pages isundoubtedly a transcript of that copy. For in the Preface to it, as wehave seen, the author himself declares it. — In the intrinsic value ofthe two drafts there is, after all, but little difference.

* “ En el libro nono, donde se trata esta Conquista, se hiciéron ciertos defectos; yfué, que algunas cosas se pusiéron en la narración de este Conquista que fuéron mal pu-estas ; y otras se calláron, que fuéron mal calladas. Por esta causa, este «5» de mil quiñi*entos ochenta y cinco, enmendó este Libro.” MS.