that the unfortunate Indian was stimulated to his ruin by his curiosity: that he put himself in hazard to see a race of men who appeared to the Indian eye the most powerful, strange, splendid, and exalted of mankind; a race who, coming from the rising sun, were the direct inheritors of his fire, his lustre, and his supremacy.

On the Inca's entering within the fatal gates from which he was never to return, this curiosity was his chief emotion. Forgetting the habitual Oriental gravity of the throne, he started up and continued standing as he passed along, gazing with marked eagerness at every surrounding object. Valverde, the Dominican friar, now approached, bearing a cross and a bible. The friar commenced a harangue which must have been singularly repulsive to the native ear. He declared that the Pope had given the Indies to Spain; that the Inca was bound to obey; that the book which he carried, contained the only true mode of worshipping Heaven; and that the new Governor of Peru offered its Inca peace, unless he would see his country the victim of war.

'Where am I to find your religion?' said the Inca.

'In this book,' said the priest.

The Inca declared that whatever might be the peaceful intentions of the Spaniards, 'he well knew how they had acted on the road, how they had treated his Caciques, and burned his cottages.' He then took the bible, and turning over some of the leaves, put it eagerly to his ear.

This,' said he, has no tongue; it tells me nothing.'

With these words, he flung it contemptuously on the ground. The friar exclaimed at the impiety, and called on his countrymen for revenge. The Inca soon felt the danger of his situation; and turning, spoke some words to his people, which were answered by murmurs of indignation and vengeance. At this moment Pizarro gave the signal to the troops; a general discharge of cannon, musketry, and crossbows, followed, and smote down the unfortunate Peruvians. The cavalry were next let loose, and they broke through the King's guard at the first shock. The time was now come to consummate this bloody treachery. While the Inca was in the first terror and astonishment, Pizarro rushed forward at the head of his shield-bearers to seize him. He found the unfortunate sovereign surrounded by a circle, singularly displaying the passive fortitude and devoted loyalty that characterize the Indian of the East to this hour. They never moved, except to throw themselves upon the Spanish swords. They saw that their prince was doomed; and they unresistingly gave themselves up to his fate. The circle rapidly thinned, and the Inca must have perished by the happier death of combat. But Pizarro felt the importance of such a prize in his hands, and determined to seize him alive. Calling aloud to his soldiers to lift no hand against the Inca, he forced his way to the litter, and grasping Atahualpa's mantle, suddenly dragged him to the ground. The Peruvians, seeing his fall in the midst of a crowd of Spanish lances, conceived that he was slain; and, by another similarity to Oriental customs, instantly gave up the battle. With the supposed death of the sovereign, all struggle was at an end. The only effort now was for flight. The multitude, in the force of despair, burst through one of the walls, and fled over the open country. Two thousand lay dead within the gates. The surprise had been so complete, that not a single Spaniard had fallen; and but one was wounded, Pizarro himself, whose hand had been struck by the lance of one of his own soldiers, in the general rush to seize the person of the Inca.

The scene of triumph, plunder, and glittering anticipation that fol

lowed, is unrivalled. The dreams of Spanish avarice were now to be dreams no more. They had played a sanguinary and most guilty game; but they were now to enjoy its gains, to a degree never enjoyed by man before. The captive prince, at length learning the true purpose for which the invaders came, began to treat for his ransom. He offered to cover the floor of the chamber, in which the Spaniards had assigned his quarters, with wedges of gold and silver; but on seeing that his jailors received the offer with the laughter of incredulity, which he construed into the laughter of contempt, he started haughtily on his feet, and stretching his arm as high as it could reach, told them that he could give them that chamber full, to the mark which he then touched with his hand. It is still remembered that this chamber was twenty-two feet long, and sixteen wide, and that the point which he touched on the wall was nine feet high. The offer implied a quantity of wealth almost incalculable. Pizarro hesitated no longer, but instantly despatched three of his soldiers with the Inca's messengers to hasten the arrival of this unparalleled ransom.

The chief treasure of the land had been stored in the temples, and the prince's order had been directed to the priests, to send it without delay to Caxamalca. The Spanish collectors were received, through the long route of six hundred miles to Cuzco, with all but divine honors. And their own astonishment was not less excited by the contrast of the noble and lovely country through which they now travelled, with the rude deserts and inhospitable tribes on the borders of the empire. They were compelled perpetually to admire the breadth and excellence of the roads, the neatness of the cottages, the richness of the cultivation, and the magnitude, regularity, and wealth of the cities. All these impressions must have derived a part of their force from the memory of the rude parts of Spain, and of the desolate and death-dealing regions through which the early adventurers had toiled their way to the barriers of Mexico and Peru. But nothing can account for the recorded sustenance of the multitudes of Peru, their wealth, their laws, their fabrics of cotton, and even their attempts in science and literature, but the existence of a wise and ancient frame of government the recollections of a civilized origin, and the intelligence of a sagacious, peaceful, and active public mind.

The profligacy of the Spanish messengers defeated their mission. The Indians had no sooner discovered that their new gods were less than man, than they buried their treasures. The ornaments of the temples were concealed by the priests, and the messengers were eluded, until Pizarro was compelled to send his brother Hernando with twenty horse to secure the performance of the treaty. Even this resolute and keen plunderer was comparatively baffled. But he brought back with him twenty-six horse loads of gold, and a thousand pounds weight of silver. Additional treasure was brought by some of the captive caciques and generals of the Inca, and Pizarro at length proceeded to make the first division of this magnificent spoil.

After deducting the fifth for the king, the portion to each horse-soldier was 9000 pesos (ounces) of gold, and 300 marcas (eight ounces each) of silver. The share allotted to the commander-in-chief amounted to 57,220 pesos of gold, and 2350 marcas of silver, besides the gold tablet from the litter of the Inca, valued at 25,000 pesos. This was the full triumph of avarice; the next crisis was to be the struggle of ambition ; a fierce, fruitless, and gloomy struggle, which, after cheating these dar

ing men with gleams of success, and compelling them to feel the whole misery of precarious power, laid them all in succession in a bloody grave. The government of the empire was next to be seized. Pizarro had hitherto practised the dexterous policy of governing by a fallen king; but ambition blinded him, and he resolved to seize the empire in his own name. The Inca was charged with fomenting insurrection, and by a foul blot upon even the blotted name of Spanish honor, he was put to death. His Caciques and nobles shared his fate, or were scattered through the continent. A boy, the son of the Inca, was substituted a pupet on the throne; and Pizarro, after a series of battles, in which the Peruvians proved at once their despair, their devotedness, and their inferiority to the Spanish discipline and arms, in the November of 1533, took possession of the royal city of Cuzco.

A new scene of riot and plunder ensued on this new triumph. But the spoil of Cuzco was to be divided among 480 claimants. Still, each individual received 4000 pesos; enormous opulence! but the curse of guilty gain was upon it. The value of the treasure, of course, rapidly diminished, with its accumulation. It was soon given into the hands of the multitude who follow in the skirts of an army to plunder the plunderers. The common necessaries of life became beyond the power of purchase; and the Spaniard was seen at once tottering under loads of gold, and perishing for want of bread.

Avarice, had now been banqueted on the most lavish feasts ever offered to the love of gold. Ambition, too, had been banqueted on a mighty empire. Personal honor, the third great stimulant of minds capable of being influenced by the feelings of the world, were now to be lavished on Pizarro and his associates. Never were obscure men so long and magnificently indulged by fortune. Hernando brought back for himself the order of St. Jago, the title of Admiral, and a patent for raising a new army; for the Marshal Almagro, the government of a territory of six hundred miles along the coast; and for his brother the title of Marquis, and an extension of sixty leagues to his government, including the city of Cusco. The friar, Valverde, was appointed Bishop of Cuzco by the Pope.

Pizarro had now ascended the height from which all change must be descent. He quickly felt the calamity of having nothing more to hope, and having every thing to fear. Sudden and desperate dissensions broke out in the empire, which continued to put him in peril, and hazard the extinction of his entire authority, at a period when he longed only for rest. A still more formidable peril arose from the indignation of his associate, Almagro, a man of great sagacity and bravery, but an unequal match for Pizarro in craft and self-command. Civil war commenced, and the Indians saw with delight the rival lances couched, which were to avenge them on their tyrants. In the decisive battle, in which Almagro, incapacitated by illness, gave the command to Orgonez, the troops of Pizarro, commanded by his brother Hernando, totally defeated those of the Marshal. Almagro, unable to sit upon his horse, was the unhappy spectator of the defeat from the side of the mountain, and flying to Cuzco, was taken prisoner, tried for treason, and strangled in prison at the age of sixty-three. But there were other spectators of this memorable engagement-the Indians, who crowded the hills, and as the two armies advanced against each other, expressed their joy by wild gestures and shouts which rent the air. And at the close of the battle, when the field was left silent, and covered with the fallen Spaniards, they poured down, like troops of wild beasts, to make

havoc of the corpses, and insult and mutilate the remnants of those whom they knew only as murderers and oppressors. A still deeper vengeance was at hand. Hernando Pizarro had been sent to Europe with a new instalment of treasure for the King. But the reports of the civil war had already reached the royal ear-the ambition of his family probably sharpened the sense of royal justice-and it became politic to coerce the most powerful and daring brother of a man, who might take the first advantage of his situation to place himself on the throne of Peru. Hernando was ordered to stand his trial at the demand of Diego de Alvarado, the friend of the dead Almagro. His sentence was that of imprisonment. He was removed from prison to prison, until at length he was placed in the castle of La Mota de Medina, where he languished forgotten till the year 1560. Pizarro, now Marquis de las Chazcas, unmoved by the fate of his brother, proceeded in a course of violence and haughtiness, which hourly increased the hostility of his enemies and the disgust of his friends. Diego, the son of Almagro, was growing into reputation, and his sword already longed to avenge the blood of his father. A conspiracy was formed in Lima among the partisans of Almagro, and the discontented soldiers of the governor. Pizarro was in vain warned of designs, which soon became obvious to every eye but his own. The conspirators, at noonday, rushed into his house, found him with but two of his friends and two pages, and killed all who were in the room; after a long struggle, Pizarro, who had been brought to the ground by a thrust in the throat, and found himself dying, asked only for a confessor. His only answer was a pitcher of water violently flung in his face. He fell back and died, closing his famous career at the age of sixty-five-a course of the most memorable fortune, sustained by the most heroic daring, the most dexterous sagacity, and the most persevering determination; but degraded by the most unhesitating fraud, and stained by the most remorseless cruelty. In the age of paganism, Pizarro would have been ranked among the immortals as a hero. In the middle ages, he might have been characterised as possessed by a fiend. In our more sober time, we can only lament the perversion of noble powers, and still nobler opportunities, the waste of genius and valor in the service of rapacity and crime.

The volume which has led us to these notices of the early exploits of discovery, is the Spanish history of Quintana; for the translation of which, the public are indebted to Mrs. Hodson, a lady well known to literature as Miss Holford, author of 'Wallace,' and other very spirited and graceful performances. It must be almost superfluous to speak of the translation by such a pen, as being intelligent, animated, and accurate; the Spanish idiom is purified, without being altogether extinguished; the narrative is conducted with the ease of an accomplished English writer; and the translator is entitled to all the gratification of knowing that she has added to our literary treasures a volume which singularly combines the genius of romance with fact; and, while it supplies us with curious details of countries already rising to the rank of European civilization, and bearing a sudden and important influence in European affairs, gives us examples of energy and intrepidity, vigor of enterprise, and force of character, that elevate the standard of the human mind.

MEMOIR OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

6

BIOGRAPHY,' says Fuseli, however useful to man, or dear to art, is the une quivocal homage of inferiority offered to the majesty of genius.' This I feel to be true, as regards Sir Walter Scott: I write of him, however, less from a sense of this inferiority, than from an earnest love and an enthusiastic admiration of the subject-or rather from a desire to afford some relief to my own feelings. The task of truly delineating his life and genius requires an abler pen than mine, and the world need not be told, that such is to be found in the great poet's own household. I shall content myself, therefore, with throwing hastily together such notices of his life and writings, as I think will be acceptable, till something worthier can be done. I must trust, sometimes, to printed statements which have remained uncontradicted; sometimes, to written memoranda, by the poet's own hand, or the hands of friends; and often to my own memory, which is far from treacherous in aught connected with men of genius.

Sir Walter Scott could claim descent from a long line of martial ancestors. Through his father, whose name he bore, he reckoned kin with those great families who scarcely count the Duke of Buccleuch their head: and through his mother, Elizabeth Rutherford, he was connected with the warlike family of Swinton of Swinton, long known in the Scottish wars. His father was a writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, and much esteemed in his profession, but not otherwise temarkable: his mother had great natural talents, and was not only related to that lady who sung so sweetly of the Flowers of the Forest,' but was herself a poetess of taste and genius, and a lover of what her son calls the art unteachable, untaught.' She was acquainted with Allan Ramsay, and intimate with Blacklock, Beattie, and Burns. Sir Walter, the eldest of fourteen children, all of whom he survived, was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. Before he was two years old, he received a fall out of the arms of a careless nurse, which injured his right foot, and rendered him lame for life: this accident did not otherwise affect his health; he was, as I have been informed by a lady who chanced to live near him, a remarkably active and dauntless boy, full of all manner of fun, and ready for all manner of mischief. He calls himself, in one of his introductions to Marmion

A self-willed imp; a grandame's child.

And I have heard it averred, that the circumstance of his lame foot prompted him to take the lead among all the stirring boys in the street where he lived, or the school which he attended-he desired, perhaps, to show them, that there was a spirit which could triumph over all impediments. He was taught the rudiments of knowledge by his mother, and was afterwards placed under Dr. Adam, of the High-School: no one, however, has recorded any anecdotes of his early talents. Adam considered him rather dull than otherwise; but Hugh Blair, it is said, at one of the examinations, foretold his future eminence. I have not heard this confirmed by any thing like good authority; the author of the Belles Lettres' was not reckoned so very discerning. The remark of Burns is better authenticated; the poet, while at Professor Ferguson's one day, was struck by some lines attached to a print of a soldier dying in the snow, and inquired who was the author: none of the old or the learned spoke, when the future author of Marmion answered, 'They are by Langhorne.' Burns fixed his large bright eyes on the boy, and striding up to him, said, 'It is no common course of reading which has taught you this-this lad, said he, to the company, will be heard of yet. Of his acquirements at school, I can say little: I never heard scholars praise his learning; and his Latin has been called in question where he had only some four lines to write; if he did not know that well, he seems to have known everything else.

That a love of poetry and romance should have come upon him early, will not be wondered at by those who know anything of the lowlands of Scotland-more particularly the district where his paternal home lay, and where he often lived