his battle. Then Edgar paused no longer. Forward!' he shouted, in a voice of thunder-forward! — charge home!' and dashing down the grassy slope, before a minute passed, burst like a thunderbolt upon the unengaged division of the enemy, and, killing two men with his own hand, drave them in terrible confusion, by the fury of his onset, back on their own reserve. Turning his eye, now he had gained a moment's leisure, toward the spot where he had seen his colonel fall, he caught a glimpse of him on foot, fighting with desperate courage against some six or seven horsemen, who were hewing at him all together with their long broadswords, and hindering each other by their own impetuosity. Three strokes of his good sword, and the superb exertions of his charger, placed him at Cromwell's side, just as he fell to the earth, stunned but unwounded by a heavy blow. One of the cavaliers received the point of Edgar's rapier in his throat, before he checked his horse; the others were engaged and beaten backward by the foremost of his troopers. Hastily springing to the ground, as Õliver regained his feet, Mount!' he exclaimed, mount, Colonel Cromwell, on my horse, and finish what so well you have begun!'

Without a word, the zealot leaped to the saddle, cast his eyes with a quick comprehensive glance around him, and read the fortunes of the day upon the instant.

They are half beaten now!' he shouted, in exulting tones; one charge more, and we sweep them like dust before the winds of heaven! Away! Sir-down with the reserve, and fall upon their left flank. I will draw off my men, and, ere you be in action, will be prepared to give it them again in front. Ho! bugler,' he continued, as Ardenne, mounting his brown mare, which his equerry had led up, galloped off swiftly to the rear-ho! bugler, sound me a recal and rally!' The shrill notes of the instrument rang aloud above the din of battle; and with that strict obedience for which they had already gained repute, the ironsides drew off from the encounter orderly, and beautifully formed again, before the shattered and disordered masses of the cavaliers had fallen into any semblance of array. In the mean time, Ardenne had reached his regiment, the men burning to emulate the glory half achieved by their companions, the horses pawing the turf, and snorting with impatience. A loud shout greeted him as he addressed them, in a few words terse and full of fire, formed them by troops in open column, and advanced between the coppice on his right and the extreme left of the enemy, now near a quarter of a mile pushed forward beyond their right and centre, which had been most disordered by the fire of the skirmishers, and Cromwell's furious charge. So great, indeed, was the confusion of the royalists, their officers toiling along the ranks, laboring with oaths, and menaces, and exhortations, to rally and reform the men, that they perceived not Ardenne's movement till he was wheeling into line to the left, previous to charging them. Then, when it was too late, they struggled to redeem their error, nobly but fruitlessly; for, ere they could show front against him, the trumpets sounded - Oliver's in front, and Edgar's on the flank and simultaneously they were charged, broken, and dispersed. The action was

already over- but the rout, the flight, the havoc, the despair, the hideous, indiscriminating massacre, urged to the utmost by religious fury and political rancour, ceased not till noon; when Cromwell's bugles, slowly and most reluctantly obeyed, called back the men, their weapons blunted and their arms aweary, but their hearts insatiate of carnage, from the hard-pressed pursuit.

'ARTS, thrones, and empires gone, that mock'd all change,
So beauteous once, and fresh with life, with time:
A desert now! thy fragments strewed in strange
Disorder, o'er a wild, forgotten clime!'

PRECEDING numbers of our articles upon this subject, led us into the inquiry, Who were the people that first inhabited the Valley of Mexico, and from whence did they come? Our conclusions, in answer to this query, were in favor of the opinion, that they were Tultecans; that they came from the province of Chiapa, or Guatemala, and that they formed the nucleus around which northern tribes successively gathered and made up, in process of time, the numerous nations composing the Mexican people. The great Tultecan empire, comprising the original people of this continent, and for time unknown, inhabiting, as a great and prosperous nation, the provinces of Yucatan, Chiapa, and Guatemala, having been compelled to desert their extensive and populous cities, from natural causes, not satisfactorily defined, it is but reasonable to suppose, aside from the evidence afforded by the subsequent analogy in the arts and sciences, that they migrated to the great Mexican Valley, where, having settled themselves, they communicated to succeeding people much of that knowledge by which they had been distinguished, and for which, it is

well known, the Mexican nations ever acknowledged their obligations. In order to render this more clear, it will be necessary to revert to some farther particulars respecting the primitive Tultecans, and their astonishing arts, for the purpose of showing the connection between the last of the one, and the beginning of those of the other. We left the reader prepared to unite with us in supposing the northern tribes which collected in Mexico, were derived from the present territory of the United States, and from the shores and Islands of the Pacific; and hence the proposed transition will be both easy and natural. Many of the extraordinary conflicts which grew out of this union of various warlike tribes in Mexico, of which we are in the possession of many stirring particulars, hitherto little if at all known, will follow in order of time and place.

From what has been said respecting the remarkable ruins in Central America, no one previously unacquainted with their existence, their magnitude and extent, will have reflected upon them, without emotions of surprise and astonishment. That our continent, yes, and our own country, should have been the theatre of extraordinary and continous events, at the earliest periods of mankind, and that the remains of those periods, the familiar arts of our species, perhaps in the first stages of existence, and the incipient steps of intellectual development, are presented for our wonder and admiration, all around us, while not a fragment of recorded truth has come down through the long and dark interval, is indeed a fact calculated to awaken our curiosity, and enlist our inquiries. And, while this is all true, and while the very relics which so justly astonish us, and which, if rightly investigated, might roll back the darkness of ages, and let in from the remote past a flood of light, is it a matter of less astonishment to every enlightened American, that but few efforts have yet been made to investigate a subject so important to the civilized world? Why, we would ask and we believe the question is on the lips of every patriotic citizen-why does not our general government take this matter into consideration? Why, when the subject has so long and so imperiously demanded the attention of legislative authority, when our treasury is overflowing, and when the most valuable of these antiquities are rapidly disappearing, in this ' age of improvement,' and before the march of cultivation, does not our state and national councils awaken to its importance, and at once make an ample appropriation for its accomplishment? Paltry indeed would be the requisite cost, compared with that incurred for infinitely less valuable purposes; and yet not a solitary effort has been made to call it forth. A few thousand dollars would be allsufficient for an investigation, which would result both to the honor of our government, and the advancement of a knowledge of our country, and of mankind. Can it be supposed that our government would pass over this subject with indifference, if applied to, and that if the attention of Congress be called to it, by a petition, that petition would be disregarded? We believe not. For one, we would trust the result of an application for this object to the intellect and liberality of that body; nor can we believe that there would be found one among that enlightened assemblage, who would so far compromise his claims to love of country, and his regard for knowledge, as

VOL. XI.

17

to oppose it. We need not here point out the advantages which must follow a thorough investigation of the existing, and a faithful inquiry into the past, relics of the ancient inhabitants of our country. Every one, we believe, will at the first glance perceive those advantages, and unite with us in awakening public attention to the importance of a critical examination and description, under the authority of our government, of all the relics of this country, if not those of Central America. It is due to ourselves to observe, in closing this slight digression from our subject, that we were induced, at the commencement of these articles, in a great measure, by a desire to elicit general attention, the more effectually to secure that of Congress, to the all-important objects of a national exploration, illustration, and record, of American Antiquities.

The name of the great and ancient city which has been denominated Palenqua, from the Spanish village some fifteen miles distant, may, from the opinion adopted respecting the earliest Mexicans, the paintings and traditions which they preserved, be called Huchuetapallan, Atzallan, or Tulla. The city of Copan, Ytzalan, or perhaps some other one of the many cities that were inhabited by the first people of the American continent, may also be that referred to by the Mexicans, as the point from whence they wandered. Copan, the first of these, was, beyond doubt, the last city deserted by those primitive inhabitants, and, consequently, is best entitled, we think, to the distinction of being considered the source of the Toultecs; from whence, after wandering about for one hundred and twenty-six years, they arrived at a spot in the Mexican Valley, where they settled, and which they called Tula. Waldrick thinks that the Tultiques (by which he means, no doubt, the Toultecs of Humboldt,) knew nothing, except from tradition, of the extinct nation of Palencians, or Huchuetapallans. This may be true, and yet that nation have been derived from the latter people, inasmuch as they were more than a century on their way, or more than that period of time had elapsed since they left their original city. He thinks, likewise, that the religious worship, the hieroglyphics, nor the architecture, had any connection with the Toultecs or Aztecs. From this we are disposed to dissent, so far as some portions of of their religious worship and architecture are concerned; and more particularly, in consequence of the remarkable coincidence in their respective knowledge of the science of astronomy. There were nevertheless, in the two first particulars, some striking discrepancies; yet even these might be attributable to the union of the Chichemecas, the Aztiques, and other northern nations, with the remnant of the Tultecans, after their arrival in the Valley of Mexico. Notwithstanding it has been thought that the Tultecans possessed a more perfect knowledge of astronomy than any other people of their own or of any subsequent time, except the present, yet we are induced to believe that many, if not all, the primitive inhabitants of the United States, and especially those of the Ohiöan valley, were as well versed in that science, as the ancient Mexicans. Hence it is not impossible that the country to which the early Mexican traditions and paintings allude, may have been some city or populous place within that valley, as, for instance, at Circleville, Newark, Chillicothe, or Portsmouth;