hands is curious*. It is in three parts; the first is a history of the Mexican empire; the second, a tribute-roll of the several tributes which each conquered town or province paid into the royal treasury; and the third, a digest of their civil law, the largest branch of which was, de jure patrio. This was the first, and most simple way of recording their conceptions; obvious to every one, and common not only to the North as well as South Americans, but to all mankind. 46 46 * "Reader, I here present thee with the choicest of my jewels, "&c. a politic, ethic, ecclesiastic, economic history, with just "distinction of time.-The Spanish governor having, with some difculty, obtained the book of the Indians, with Mexican interpretations of the pictures (but ten days before the departure of the ships) committed the same to one skilful in the Mexican language, "to be interpreted; who in a very plain style, and verbatim, per"formed the same. This history thus written, sent to Charles V. emperor, was, together with the ship that carried it, taken by “French men of war; from whom Andrew Thevet, the French king's geographer, obtained the same. After whose death master " Hakluyt (then chaplaine to the English embassadour in France) "bought the same for twenty French crowns; and procured master "Michael Locke, in Sir Walter Raleigh's name, to translate it. "It seems that none were willing to be at the cost of cutting the "6 pictures, and so it remained amongst his papers till his death: whereby (according to his last will in that kind) I became possessour thereof, and have obtained, with much earnestness, the "cutting thereof for the press." Purchas's Pilgr. 3d part, p. 1065, 1066. [See Plate I.] " + Quant aux caracteres, ils n'en avoient point: et ils y suppleoient par des especes d'hieroglyphes. Charlevoix of the Northern Americans, vol. v. p. 292. Lafitau gives us a specimen of these hie roglyphics. [See Plate II.] 66 The same kind of characters Stahlenberg found upon rocks in Siberia in the province of Permia, and near the river Jenesei. Of which he has given a drawing. [See Plate III.] The author De vet. lit. Hunn. Scyth. p. 15. seems to admire this natural expression of things, as some uncommon stretch of invention. "Miratus ego sæpe fui caupones idiotas (nempe in Hungaria) istis, quibus aliquid credere hujusmodi ficto charactere inter debitores non "adscribere tantum, sed longioris etiam temporis intervallo post, non secus, quam si alphabethario scribendi genere adnotati fuissent, promere, debitamque summam & rationes indicare potuisse ; "ita si debitor miles est, rudi quadam linea frameam aut pugionem pingebant; si faber, malleum aut securim: si auriga, flagrum, atque sic porro." 66 II. But the inconveniencies attending the too great bulk of the volume in writings of this kind, would soon set the more ingenious and better civilized people upon contriving methods to abridge their characters: and of all the improvements of this kind, that which was invented. by the EGYPTIANS, and called HIEROGLYPHICS, was by far the most celebrated. By this contrivance, that writing, which amongst the Mexicans was only a simple painting, became in Egypt a pictured character*. This abridgment was of three kinds; and, as appears from the more or less art employed in the contrivance of each, made by due degrees; and at three different periods. 1. The first way was, To make the principal circumstance in the subject stand for the whole. Thus when they would describe a battle, or two armies in array, they painted (as we learn from that admirable fragment of antiquity, the hieroglyphics of Horapollo) two hands, one holding a shield, and the other a bow†; when a tumult, or popular insurrection,—an armed man casting arrows; when a siege,-a scaling ladder ||. This was of the utmost simplicity; and, consequently, we must suppose it the earliest way of turning painting into an hieroglyphic; that is, making it a picture-character. And this is what we shall hereafter distinguish by the name of the CURIOLOGIC HIEROGLYPHIC. 2. The second, and more artful method of contraction, was by putting the instrument of the thing, whether real or metaphorical, for the thing itself. Thus an eye, eminently placed, was designed to represent God's omniscience; an eye and sceptre, to represent a monarch ** ; a sword, their cruel tyrant Ochus ††: and a ship and pilot, the governor of the universet. And this is what we shall call the TROPICAL HIEROGLY PHIC, * See Plate IV. + Horapoll. Hierogl. lib. ii. cap. 5. Ed. Corn. De Pauw, Traj. ad Rhen. 1727. 4to. Id. l. ii, c. 12. ¶ Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. v. #Jamblichus. See note [P] |