In American history, this work of investigation till recently had not been thoroughly entered upon. Within the last quarter of a century, Kingsborough and Gallatin and Prescott and Davis and Squier and Schoolcraft and Müller have each thrown some light over the mysterious antiquity of our own continent. But of all, a French Abbé, an ethnologist and a careful investigator,--M. BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG,--has, in a history recently published, done the best service to this cause. It is entitled "Histoire des Nations Civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale." (Paris, 1857.) M. de Bourbourg spent many years in Central America, studying the face of the country and the languages of the Indian tribes, and investigating the ancient picture-writing and the remains of the wonderful ruins of that region. Probably no stranger has ever enjoyed better opportunities of reading the ancient manuscripts and studying the dialects of the Central American races. With these helps he has prepared a groundwork for the history of the early civilized peoples of our American continent,--a history, it should be remembered, ending where Prescott's begins,--reaching back, possibly, as far as the earliest invasions of the Huns, and one of whose fixed dates is at the time of the Antonines. He has ventured to lift, at length, the veil from our mysterious and confused American antiquity. It is an especial merit of M. de Bourbourg, in this stage of the investigation, that he has attempted to do no more. He has collected and collated facts, but has sought to give us very few theories. The stable philosophical conclusions he leaves for later research, when time shall have been afforded for fuller comparison. There is an incredible fascination to many minds in these investigations into the traditions and beliefs of antiquity. We feel in their presence that they are the oldest things; the most ancient books, or buildings, or sculptures are modern by their side. They represent the childish instincts of the human mind,--its _gropings_ after Truth,--its dim ideals and shadowings forth of what it hopes will be. They are the earliest answers of man to the great questions, WHENCE and WHITHER? * * * * *