It will not be foreign to our purpose to sketch, briefly, the previous life of a man who subsequently became so eminent in the history of both worlds. Seven years before Columbus planted the standard of Castile and Arragon in the West Indies, HERNANDO CORTÉZ, was born, of a noble lineage, in the town of Medellin, in the Province of Estremadura, in Spain. His infancy was frail and delicate, but his constitution strengthened as he grew, until, at the age of fourteen, he was placed in the venerable university of Salamanca, where his parents, who rejoiced in the extreme vivacity of his talents, designed to prepare him for the profession of law, the emoluments of which were, at that period, most tempting in Spain. But the restless spirit of the future conqueror was not to be manacled by the musty ritual of a tedious science whose pursuit would confine him to a quiet life. He wasted two years at the college, and, like many men who subsequently became renowned either for thought or action, was finally sent home in disgrace. Nevertheless, in the midst of his recklessness, and by the quickness of his genius, he had learned "a little store of Latin," and acquired the habit of writing good prose, or of versifying agreeably. His father,--Don Martin Cortéz de Monroy, and his mother, Doña Catalina Pizarro Altamirano,--seem to have been accomplished people, nor is it improbable, that the greater part of their son's information was obtained under the influence of the domestic circle. At college he was free from all restraint,--giving himself up to the spirit of adventure, the pursuit of pleasure, and convivial intercourse,--so that no hope was entertained of his further improvement from scholastic studies. His worthy parents were, moreover, people of limited fortune, and unable to prolong these agreeable but profitless pursuits. Accordingly, when Cortéz attained the age of seventeen, they yielded to his proposal to enlist under the banner of GONSALVO OF CORDOVA, and to devote himself, heart and soul, to the military life which seemed most suitable for one of his wild, adventurous and resolute disposition. It was well for Spain and for himself, that the chivalric wish of Cortéz was not thwarted,--and that one of the ablest soldiers produced by Castile at that period, was not dwarfed by parental control into a bad lawyer or pestilent pettifogger. The attention of our hero was soon directed towards the New World,--the stories of whose wealth had now for upwards of twenty years been pouring into the greedy ear of Spain,--and he speedily determined to embark in the armament which NICOLAS DE OVANDO, the successor of Columbus, was fitting out for the West Indies. This design was frustrated, however, for two years longer, by an accident which occurred in one of his amours; nor did another opportunity present itself, until, at the age of nineteen, in 1504, he bade adieu to Spain in a small squadron bound to the Islands.