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20 AZTEC CIVILISATION',, ~We have not space for further details respecting the Mexican divinities, the attributes of many of whom were carefully defined, as they descended in regular gradation, to the penates, or household gods, whose little images were to he found in the humblest dwelling. The Aztecs felt the curiosity, common to man in almost every stage of civilisation, to lift the veil which covers the mysterious past, and the more awful future. They sought relief, like the nations of the Old Continent, from the oppressive idea of eternity, by breaking it up into J distinct cycles, or periods of time, each of several thousand years’ ; duration. There were four of these cycles, and at the end of each, by the agency of one of the elements, the human family was swept from the earth, and the sun blotted out from the heavens, to ho again rekindled.* They imagined three separate states of existence in the future life. The wicked, comprehending the greater part of mankind, were to expiate their sins in a place of everlasting darkness. Another class, with no other merit than that of having died of certain diseases, capriciously selected, were to enjoy a negative existence of indolent contentment. The highest place was reserved, as in most warlike nations, for the heroes who fell in battle, or in sacrifice. They passed at once, into the S resence of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs and choral ances, in his bright progress through the heavens; and, after some years, their spirits went to animate the clouds and singing birds of beautiful plumage, and to revel amidst the rich blossoms ana odours of the gardens of paradise. Such was the heaven of the Aztecs ; more refined in its character than that of the more polished pagan, whose elysiuru reflected, only the martial sports or sensual gratifications of this life. In the destiny they assigned to the wicked, we discern similar traces of refine ment; since the absence of all physical torture forms a strildng contrast to the schemes of suffering so ingeniously devised by the fancies of the most enlightened nations. In all this, so contrary to the natural sug gestions of the ferocious Aztec, we see the evidences of a higher civilisa tion, inherited from their predecessors in the land. Our limits will allow only a brief allusion to one or two of their most interesting ceremonies. On the death of a person, his corpse was dressed in the peculiar habiliments of his tutelar deity. It was strewed with pieces of paper, which operated as charms against the dangers of the dark road he was to travel. A throng of slaves, if he were rich, was sacrificed at his obsequies. His body was burned, and the ashes, collected in a vase, were preserved in one of the apartments of his house.f Here w# have successively the usages of the Roman Catholic, the Mussulman, the Tartar, and the ancient Greek and Roman, curious coincidences, which may show how cautious we should be in adopting conclusions founded on analogy. A more extraordinary coincidence may he traced with Christian rites, in the ceremony of naming their children. The lips and bosom of the * It is interesting to observe how the wild conjectures of an ignorant age have been con firmed by the more recent discoveries in geology, making it probablo that tho earth has experienced a number of convulsions, possibly thousands of years distant from each other, which have swept away the races then existing, and given a new aspect to the globe. f Sometimes the body was buried entire, with valuable treasures, if the dccoasod woo rich. The “ Anonymous Conqueror,” as he is called, saw gold to the value of 3000 Gas tel* lanos drawn from one of these tombs.
