Of him we have already spoken as a lyrical poet and a dramatist, who in 1667 had retired from the world, and dedicated himself to the separate service of religion. He was, however, the official historiographer of the Indies, and thought himself bound to do something in fulfilment of the duties of an office to which, perhaps, a nominal income was attached. He chose for his subject “The Conquest of Mexico,” and, beginning with the condition of Spain when it was undertaken, and the appointment of Cortés to command the invading force, he brings his history down to the fall of the city and the capture of Guatimozin. The period it embraces is, indeed, short,--less than three years; but they are years so crowded with brilliant adventures and atrocious crimes, that hardly any portion of the history of the world is of equal interest. The subject, too, from this circumstance, is more easily managed; and Solís, who looked upon it with the eye of an artist, as well as of an historian, has succeeded in giving his work, to an extraordinary degree, the air of an historical epic;--so exactly are all its parts and episodes modelled into an harmonious whole, whose catastrophe is the fall of the great Mexican empire. The style of Solís is somewhat peculiar. That he had the Roman historians, and especially Livy, before him, as he wrote, is apparent both in the general air of his work and in the structure of its individual sentences. Yet there are few writers of Spanish prose who are more absolutely Castilian in their idiom than he is. His language, if not simple, is rich and beautiful; suited to the romantic subject he had chosen for his history, and deeply imbued with its poetical spirit. In boldness of manner he falls below Mendoza, and in dignity is not equal to Mariana; but for copious and sustained eloquence, he may be placed by the side of either of them. That his work is as interesting as either of theirs is proved by the unimpaired popularity it has enjoyed from its first appearance down to our own times.