The royal city of Tezcuco is now, though the capital of a republican state, a mean and insignificant village. It was originally the metropolis of a kingdom once more ancient and powerful than that of Mexico; and which, when it had shared the fate of all others within the bounds of Anahuac, and acknowledged the sway of the Island Kings, still preserved the reputed, and perhaps the real possession of superior civilization. Its princes, in becoming the feudatories, became also the electors, of Mexico; and thus added dignity to an independence which was only nominal. The polished character of these barbarous chieftains, as the world has been taught to esteem them, may be better understood, when we know, that they sowed the roadside with corn for the sustenance of travellers, and the protection of husbandmen, built hospitals and observatories, endowed colleges and formed associations of literature and science, in which, to compare small things with great, as in the learned societies of modern Europe and America, encouragement was given to the study of history, poetry, music, painting, astronomy, and natural magic. The various mechanical trades were divided into corporate bodies, and assigned, each, to some particular quarter of the city; courts and councils were regularly established, and the laws which they dispensed, digested into uniform and written codes, some of which are still preserved. The kings of Tezcuco themselves mingled in the generous rivalries which they fomented: there are still in existence,--at least, in the form of translation,--several of the odes of Nezahualcojotl, a royal Tezcucan poet; and his hymns to the Creator, composed half a century before the advent of the Spaniards, were admired and chanted by the Conquerors, until devoted by misjudging and fanatical missionaries to the flames which consumed the written histories and laws of the kingdom, as well as the idolatrous rituals of the priests, with which last the others were unfortunately confounded.[1] [Footnote 1: These poems, we presume, were handed down _orally_. We know not how far the picture-writing of the Mexicans (the art of interpreting which appears to be now lost,) was capable of conveying any such thoughts as could not be represented by an absolute _portrait_. No system of writing that is not essentially _phonetic_ or _dialectical_, (i. e. representative of sounds, or of language,) can be made to express abstract ideas, which may be defined to be such as admit of no ideographic or metaphoric representation. If they could, mankind might, at once, enjoy the benefits of the _universal language_, (or, to speak strictly, a substitute for it; for it would convey ideas not words,) which Leibnitz dreamed of, and Bishop Wilkins, and many others after him, so vainly attempted to construct.