developed to contribute to the sensuous cravings for pomp and magnificence, but are as yet of little avail for the mental and moral progress of the people at large. Such architectural display is the work of despotic power, controlled by the predominating influences of a priesthood, under whom pomp and oppressive magnificence take the place of the real power of the throne; and the people are subjected to a despotism the more dread, because of its subtle direction of national festivities, no less than of fasts and sacrifices. But while we witness everywhere, among the ruins of Central America, the same evidences which are seen in the architecture of Egypt, Hindustan, Assyria, and Babylon, of a people's strength and ingenuity expended at the will of some supreme despotic authority, and working out results in which they could have no real interest or pleasure it is vain to attempt to trace, to any such foreign sources, the models of those creations of native power and skill. They are in all respects essentially original and unique ; the pyramidal mound-structures are no more Egyptian than the earthworks of the Scioto Valley; the hieroglyphics bear little more resemblance to those of the Nile than the rude carvings of the Indian on Dighton rock; and the cornices, bas-reliefs, and architectural details of every kind, supply at most only some stray resemblances to ancient forms: cheating the eye like the chance notes of a strange opera, in which the ear seems to catch from time to time the illusive promise of some familiar strain. While, moreover, the architecture and sculpture are essentially native and original, they betray, amid their barbaric waste of magnificence, a wondrous power of invention, and frequent indications of a refined taste capable of far higher development. The elaborate ornaments of the Casa del Enano, at Uxmal, are described by Stephens as strange and in

comprehensible in design, very elaborate, sometimes grotesque, but often simple, tasteful, and beautiful. "But," he adds, "the style and character of these ornaments were entirely different from those of any we had ever seen before, either in that country, or any other; they bore no resemblance whatever to those of Copan or Palenque, and were quite as unique and peculiar." Again, the Casa del Gobernador supplies a wonderful evidence of ancient power, taste, and skill. It is the principal building of the ruined city of Uxmal. A terrace of cut stone, six hundred feet in length, forms the platform on which a second and third terrace of narrower bases are raised, to a height of thirty-five feet from the ground, and on this is reared the noble structure of the Casa del Gobernador, decorated, throughout its whole façade of three hundred and twenty feet, with rich, strange, and elaborate sculpture. Of this magnificent ruin Mr. Stephens remarks: "There is no rudeness or barbarity in the design or proportions; on the contrary, the whole wears an air of architectural symmetry and grandeur; and as the stranger ascends the steps and casts a bewildered eye along its open and desolate doors, it is hard to believe that he sees before him the work of a race in whose epitaph, as written by historians, they are called ignorant of art, and said to have perished in the rudeness of savage life. If it stood in Hyde Park or the Garden of the Tuileries, it would form a new order, I do not say equalling, but not unworthy to stand side by side with the remains of Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman art." It is untrue to say of such a people, though they have passed away leaving no name behind them, "They died, and made no sign!" May we not rather exclaim, with Ruskin, "How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that

VOL. II.

1 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, B. V. ch. iv.

E

1

developed to contribute to the sensuous cravings for pomp and magnificence, but are as yet of little avail for the mental and moral progress of the people at large. Such architectural display is the work of despotic power, controlled by the predominating influences of a priesthood, under whom pomp and oppressive magnificence take the place of the real power of the throne; and the people are subjected to a despotism the more dread, because of its subtle direction of national festivities, no less than of fasts and sacrifices. But while we witness everywhere, among the ruins of Central America, the same evidences which are seen in the architecture of Egypt, Hindustan, Assyria, and Babylon, of a people's strength and ingenuity expended at the will of some supreme despotic authority, and working out results in which they could have no real interest or pleasure it is vain to attempt to trace, to any such foreign sources, the models of those creations of native power and skill. They are in all respects essentially original and unique ; the pyramidal mound-structures are no more Egyptian than the earthworks of the Scioto Valley; the hieroglyphics bear little more resemblance to those of the Nile than the rude carvings of the Indian on Dighton rock; and the cornices, bas-reliefs, and architectural details of every kind, supply at most only some stray resemblances to ancient forms: cheating the eye like the chance notes of a strange opera, in which the ear seems to catch from time to time the illusive promise of some familiar strain. While, moreover, the architecture and sculpture are essentially native and original, they betray, amid their barbaric waste of magnificence, a wondrous power of invention, and frequent indications of a refined taste capable of far higher development. The elaborate ornaments of the Casa del Enano, at Uxmal, are described by Stephens as strange and in

comprehensible in design, very elaborate, sometimes grotesque, but often simple, tasteful, and beautiful. "But," he adds, "the style and character of these ornaments were entirely different from those of any we had ever seen before, either in that country, or any other; they bore no resemblance whatever to those of Copan or Palenque, and were quite as unique and peculiar." Again, the Casa del Gobernador supplies a wonderful evidence of ancient power, taste, and skill. It is the principal building of the ruined city of Uxmal. A terrace of cut stone, six hundred feet in length, forms the platform on which a second and third terrace of narrower bases are raised, to a height of thirty-five feet from the ground, and on this is reared the noble structure of the Casa del Gobernador, decorated, throughout its whole façade of three hundred and twenty feet, with rich, strange, and elaborate sculpture. Of this magnificent ruin Mr. Stephens remarks: "There is no rudeness or barbarity in the design or proportions; on the contrary, the whole wears an air of architectural symmetry and grandeur; and as the stranger ascends the steps and casts a bewildered eye along its open and desolate doors, it is hard to believe that he sees before him the work of a race in whose epitaph, as written by historians, they are called ignorant of art, and said to have perished in the rudeness of savage life. If it stood in Hyde Park or the Garden of the Tuileries, it would form a new order, I do not say equalling, but not unworthy to stand side by side with the remains of Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman art." It is untrue to say of such a people, though they have passed away leaving no name behind them, "They died, and made no sign!"1 May we not rather exclaim, with Ruskin, "How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that 1 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, B. V. ch. iv.

VOL. II.

E

which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears! How many pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few stones left one upon another !"1

There is historical evidence that some of the ruined cities were in occupation by the native population at the era of the Conquest, but the proof is no less conclusive that others were already ancient abandoned ruins; and any inference therefore as to the modern date of the architecture already described is as fallacious as that which would assign the Colosseum to the builders of St. Peter's, because the modern Roman still vegetates under the shadow of both. The civilisation of Central America grew up on the soil where its memorials are still found, with as few traces of Asiatic as of European or African influences affecting it at any stage in its progress. It was, moreover, the growth of many generations, and is seen by us at a stage far removed from that in which it had its beginning. A national taste and style had been matured, so that we find a certain uniformity pervading the widely-scattered monuments of its intellectual development. But it had prevailed until the cultured artist had learned to work with freedom amid its prescriptive forms; and it exhibits a rich exuberance of inventive fancy, akin to that of Europe's thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, rather than any archaic stiffness like that which marks the earliest Romanesque as it emerges from the slavish control of debased classic forms.

It is not therefore amid the expansive and long maturing civilisation of Central America and Yucatan that we can hope to recover the germs from whence it sprung; nor, though we find the Aztec architecture of the country bounding them on the north of an inferior

1 Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 164.