n you know
about death?"'

And again (p. 190):

'The Master said, "I would prefer not speaking."

Tsze-Kung said, "If you, Master, do not speak, what shall
we, your disciples, have to record?"

The Master said, "Does Heaven speak? The four seasons pursue
their courses, and all things are continually being
produced; but does Heaven say anything?"'

_November, 1861._

XIV.

POPOL VUH.

A book called 'Popol Vuh,'[94] and pretending to be the original text
of the sacred writings of the Indians of Central America, will be
received by most people with a sceptical smile. The Aztec children who
were shown all over Europe as descendants of a race to whom, before
the Spanish conquest, divine honours were paid by the natives of
Mexico, and who turned out to be unfortunate creatures that had been
tampered with by heartless speculators, are still fresh in the memory
of most people; and the 'Livre des Sauvages,'[95] lately published by
the Abbe Domenech, under the auspices of Count Walewsky, has somewhat
lowered the dignity of American studies in general. Still, those who
laugh at the 'Manuscrit Pictographique Americain' discovered by the
French Abbe in the library of the French Arsenal, and edited by him
with so much care as a precious relic of the old Red-skins of North
America, ought not to forget that there would be nothing at all
surprising in the existence of such a MS., containing genuine
pictographic writing of the Red Indians. The German critic of Abbe
Domenech, M. Petzholdt,[96] assumes much too triumphant an air in
announcing his discovery that the 'Manuscrit Pictographique' was the
work of a German boy in the backwoods of America. He ought to have
acknowledged that the Abbe himself had pointed out the German scrawls
on some of the pages of his MS.; that he had read the names of Anna
and Maria; and that he never claimed any great antiquity for the book
in question. Indeed, though M. Petzholdt tells us very confidently
that the whole book is the work of a naughty, nasty, and profane
little boy, the son of German settlers in the backwoods of America, we
doubt whether anybody who takes the trouble to look through all the
pages will consider this view as at all satisfactory, or even as more
probable than that of the French Abbe. We know what boys are capable
of in pictographic art from the occasional defacements of our walls
and railings; but we still feel a little sceptic