pleasure and sensual
gratification. Here and there a gleam of a higher philosophy lights
the sombre reflections of the bard; his thoughts turn toward the
infinite Creator of this universe, and he dimly apprehends that by
making Him the subject of his contemplation, there is boundless
consolation even in this mortal life.

Both these leading _motifs_ recur over and over again in the songs
printed in the original in the present volume, and this similarity is
a common token of the authenticity of the book.

Sec. 10. _THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT COLLECTION._

The most recent Mexican writers formally deny that any ancient
Mexican poetry is now extant. Thus the eminent antiquary, Don Alfredo
Chavero, in his elaborate work, _Mexico a traves de los Siglos_,
says, "the truth is, we know no specimens of the ancient poetry, and
those, whether manuscript or printed, which claim to be such, date
from after the Conquest."[55] In a similar strain the grammarian
Diario Julio Caballero, writes: "There has never come into our hands
a single poetic composition in this language. It is said that the
great King Nezahualcoyotl was a poet and composed various songs;
however that may be, the fact is that we have never seen any such
compositions, nor met any person who has seen them."[56]

It is important, therefore, to state the exact provenance of the
specimens printed in this volume, many of which I consider to have
been composed previous to the Conquest, and written down shortly
after the Nahuatl language had been reduced to the Spanish alphabet.

All of them are from a MS. volume in the library of the University of
Mexico, entitled _Cantares de los Mexicanos y otros opusculos_,
composed of various pieces in different handwritings, which, from
their appearance and the character of the letter, were attributed by
the eminent antiquary Don Jose F. Ramirez, to the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.

The copy I have used is that made by the late Abbe Brasseur (de
Bourbourg). It does not appear to be complete, but my efforts to have
it collated with the original have not been successful. Another copy
was taken by the late well-known Mexican scholar Faustino
Chimalpopoca, which was in the possession of Senor Ramirez and sold
at the vendue of his books in 1880. It is No. 511 of the catalogue.

The final decision of the age of the poems must come from a careful
scrutiny of the internal evidence, especially the thoughts they
contain and th