Kingsborough’s great work, the most sumptuous yet bestowed upon Mexican archæology, was published between 1830 and 1848, there being an interval of seventeen years between the seventh and eighth volumes. The original intention seems to have embraced ten volumes, for the final section of the ninth volume is signatured as for a tenth.[1114] The work is called: _Antiquities of Mexico; comprising facsimiles of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, preserved in the Royal Libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial Library of Vienna; in the Vatican Library; in the Borgian Museum at Rome; in the Library of the Institute of Bologna; and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; together with the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix; illustrated by many valuable inedited MSS_. With the theory maintained by Kingsborough throughout the work, that the Jews were the first colonizers of the country, we have nothing to do here; but as the earliest and as yet the largest repository of hieroglyphic material, the book needs to be examined. The compiler states where he found his MSS., but he gives nothing of their history, though something more is now known of their descent. Peter Martyr speaks of the number of Mexican MSS. which had in his day been taken to Spain, and Prescott remarks it as strange that not a single one given by Kingsborough was found in that country. There are, however, some to be seen there now.[1115] Comparisons which have been made of Kingsborough’s plates show that they are not inexact; but they almost necessarily lack the validity that the modern photographic processes give to facsimiles. [Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF PLATE XXV OF THE DRESDEN CODEX. From Cyrus Thomas’s _Manuscript Troano_.] Kingsborough’s first volume opens with a fac-simile of what is usually called the _Codex Mendoza_, preserved in the Bodleian. It is, however, a contemporary copy on European paper of an original now lost, which was sent by the Viceroy Mendoza to Charles V. Another copy made part of the Boturini collection, and from this Lorenzana[1116] engraved that portion of it which consists of tribute-rolls. The story told of the fate of the original is, that on its passage to Europe it was captured by a French cruiser and taken to Paris, where it was bought by the chaplain of the English embassy, the antiquary Purchas, who has engraved it.[1117] It was then lost sight of, and if Prescott’s inference is correct it was not the original, but the Bodleian copy, which came into Purchas’ hands.[1118]