SOURCE: A review of The Memoirs of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, in The Living Age, Vol. II, No. 13, August 10, 1844, pp. 232-41.

In the following excerpt from a review of John Lockhart's translation of Díaz's Memoirs, the critic condemns Cortés 's cruelty, but finds honesty and eloquence in Díaz's account of the conquest.

Mr. Lockhart's translation [of Díaz's history] is one of those works for which we are indebted to that new and spreading interest awakened by the labors of Humboldt and his successors, in the field of Mexican antiquity. The magnificent remains of an extinct civilization brought to light, in various parts of the great American continent, have conferred an additional value on such descriptions of the ancient Aztec splendor as record the impressions of credible witnesses, when first it rose upon their astonished senses, like a bewildering dream. From the more polished...