If a clever gleaner of the curious and notable things in literature should write on the curiosities of historical speculation, he would be sure to take some account of “A New History of the Conquest of Mexico” published in Philadelphia in 1859. The special aim of this work is to deny utterly the civilization of the Aztecs. The author has ability, earnestness, and knowledge of what has been written on the subject; he writes with vigor, and with a charming extravagance of dogmatic assumption, which must be liked for its heartiness, while it fails to convince those who study it. This writer fully admits the significance of the old ruins, and maintains that a great civilization formerly existed in that part of the continent. This he ascribes to the Phœnicians, while he gives it an extreme antiquity, and thinks the present ruins have existed as ruins “for thousands of years,” explaining these words to mean that their history “is separated by a cycle of thousands of years from the civilization of our day.” In his view, the people who constructed the old cities were subjugated and destroyed, long ages since, “by inroads of northern savages,” who were the only people in the country when the Spaniards arrived. The chief business of this “New History” is to set forth these views. Under the treatment of its author, Montezuma becomes a rude Indian sachem, his kingdom a confederation of barbarous Indian tribes like that of the Iroquois, the city of Mexico a cluster of mud huts or wigwams in an everglade, its causeways rude Indian footpaths, its temples and palaces pure fictions of lying Spanish romance, and all previous histories of the Aztecs and their country extravagant inventions with a “Moorish coloring.” He would have us believe that what he calls “the pretended civilization of Montezuma and his Aztecs” was a monstrous fable of the Spaniards, a “pure fabrication,” encouraged by the civil authority in Spain, and supported by the censorship of the Inquisition. Therefore he undertakes to destroy “the fabric of lies,” unveil those “Mexican savages” the Aztecs, and tell a “new” story of their actual character and condition.