ainted with the history and causes of the incessant
revolutions in his unfortunate country, and that his work on this
subject is considered by all respectable men in Mexico a
_chef-d'oevre_ for purity of sentiments and patriotic convictions."

It is on account of the valedictory words of this History that I have
introduced the name of Alaman on this occasion. They are as follows:--

"Mexico will be, without doubt, a land of prosperity from its natural
advantages, _but it will not be so for the races which now inhabit it_.
As it seemed the destiny of the peoples who established themselves
therein at different and remote epochs to perish from the face of it,
leaving hardly a memory of their existence; even as the nation which
built the edifices of Palenque, and those which we admire in the
peninsula of Yucatan, was destroyed without its being known what it was
nor how it disappeared; _even as the Toltecs perished by the hands of
barbarous tribes coming from the North_, no record of them remaining but
the pyramids of Cholulu and Teotihuacan; and, finally, even as the
ancient Mexicans fell beneath the power of the Spaniards, _the country
gaining infinitely by this change of dominion, but its ancient masters
being overthrown_;--so likewise its present inhabitants shall be ruined
and hardly obtain the compassion they have merited, and the Mexican
nation of our days shall have applied to it what a celebrated Latin poet
said of one of the most famous personages of Roman history, STAT MAGNI
NOMINIS UMBRA,[95]--nothing more remains than the shadow of a name
illustrious in another time.

"May the Almighty, in whose hands is the fate of nations, and who by
ways hidden from our sight abases or exalts them, according to the
designs of his providence, be pleased to grant unto ours the protection
by which he has so often deigned to preserve it from the dangers to
which it has been exposed."[96]

Most affecting words of prophecy! Considering the character of the
author as statesman and historian, it could have been only with
inconceivable anguish that he made this terrible record with regard to
the land whose child and servant he was. Born and reared in Mexico,
honored by its important trusts, and writing the history of its
independence, it was his country, having for him all that makes a
country dear; and yet thus calmly he consigns the present people to
oblivion, while another enters into those happy places where nature is
so boun