Few men are better known throughout Mexico today than Alfredo Chavero. As a lawyer, a politician, a man of affairs and a writer, he has been eminently successful. He was born in the City of Mexico, February 1, 1841. He studied law, and began the practice of the profession at the age of twenty years. In 1862 he was elected Deputy to Congress. A Liberal in politics, he was associated with Juarez throughout the period of the French intervention. After the downfall of the Empire in 1867, he entered journalism and began his career in letters. During the administration of Lerdo de Tejada he was in Europe, but when that government fell, he returned to Mexico and was appointed to the second position in the department of foreign affairs. He has occupied other important government positions, among them that of City Treasurer and Governor of the Federal District and has for many years been a member of the House of Deputies, of which he has at times been the presiding officer. Señor Chavero is, probably, the foremost living Mexican authority upon the antiquities of that country. He is also an eminent historian. In both archæology and history he has written important works. At the quadricentennial celebration of the discovery of America, he was the chief member of a commission, which among other things published a great work--_Antigüedades Mexicanas_--which was largely devoted to facsimile reproduction of ancient Mexican picture manuscripts, before unpublished; the accompanying explanatory text was written by Chavero himself. Among other archæological works he has written _Los dioses astronomicos de los antiguos Mexicanos_ (the Astronomical Gods of the Ancient Mexicans)--and studies upon the _stone of the sun_, and the _stone of hunger_. He has lately published the _Wheel of Years_, and _Hieroglyphic Paintings_. He was the author of the first volume of the great work _México á traves de los Siglos_, (Mexico, Through the Centuries), a history of Mexico in five large quarto volumes. Each of these volumes dealt with a distinct epoch of Mexican history and was written by a specialist. Chavero’s volume treated Prehistoric Mexico in a masterly fashion. In biography Chavero’s lives of _Sahagun_, _Siguenza_, and _Boturini_ deal with Spanish-Mexicans, his _Itzcoatl_ and _Montezuma_ with natives. He has edited, with scholarly annotation, the works of _Ixtlilxochitl_ and Muñoz Camargo’s _Historia de Tlaxcala_. But Alfredo Chavero has also written in the field of dramatic literature, some of his plays having been well received. _Xochitl_, _Quetzalcoatl_ and _Los Amores de Alarcon_ (The Loves of Alarcon) are among the best known. In _Xochitl_ and _Quetzalcoatl_, the romantic events of the days of the Conquest and the life of the Indians, furnish his material. In all his writing, Chavero is simple, direct, and strong; his style is graceful and his treatment interesting. Our quotations are drawn from _México á traves de los Siglos_ and _Xochitl_. THE CHRONICLERS.