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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Ti with one great idea, that of the subversion of the capital, may feel the prolongation of the story beyond that point superfluous, if not tedious; and may find it difficult, after the excitement caused by witnessing a great national catastrophe, to take an interest in the adventures of a private individual. Solis took the more politic course, of concluding his narrative with the fall of Mexico, and thus leaves his readers with the full impression of that memorable event undisturbed on their minds. To prolong the narrative is to expose the historian to the error so much censured by the Trench critics in some of their most celebrated dramas, where the author by a premature denouement has impaired the interest of his piece. It is the defect that necessarily attaches, though in a greater degree, to the history of Columbus, in which petty adventures among a group of islands make up the sequel of a life that opened with the magnificent discovery of a World; a defect, in short, which it has required all the genius of Irving, and the magical charm of his style, perfectly to overcome. Notwithstanding these objections, I have been induced to continue the narrative partly from deference to the opinion of several Spanish scholars, who considered that the biography of Cortes had not been fully exhibited, and partly from the circumstance of my having such a body of original materials for this biography at my command. And I cannot regret that I have adopted this course ; since, whatever lustre the Conquest may reflect on Cortes as a military achievement, it gives but an imperfect idea of his enlighened spirit, and of his comprehensive and versatile genius. To the eye of the critic there may seem some incongruity in a plan which combines objects so dissimilar as those embraced by the present history; where the Introduction, occupied with the antiquities and origin of a nation, has somewhat the character of a philosophic theme, while the conclusion is strictly biographical, and the two may be supposed to match indifferently with the main body, or historical por tion of the work. But I may hope that such objections will be found to have less weight in practice than in theory; and, if properly managed, that the general views of the Introduction will prepare the reader for the particulars of the Conquest, and that the great public events narrated in this will, without violence, open the way to the remain ing personal history of the hero who is the soul of it. Whatever in congruity may exist in other respects, I may hope that the unity of interest, the only unity held of much importance by modern critics, will be found still to be preserved. The distance of the present age from the period of the narrative
