in
existence is that preserved in the Bibliotheca Laurentio-Mediceana in
Florence, where I examined it in April, 1889. It is a most elaborate and
beautiful MS., in three large volumes, containing thirteen hundred and
seventy-eight illustrations, carefully drawn by hand, mostly colored,
illustrative of the native mythology, history, arts and usages, besides
many elaborate head and tail pieces to the chapters.

There is another Nahuatl MS. of Sahagun's history in the private
library of the King of Spain at Madrid, which I examined in May, 1888,
and of which I published a collation in the _Memoires de la Societe
Internationale des Americanistes_, for that year. It is incomplete,
embracing only the first six books of the _Historia_, and should be
considered merely as a _borrador_ or preliminary sketch for the
Florentine copy. It contains, however, a certain amount of material not
included in the latter, and has been peculiarly useful to me in the
preparation of the present volume, as not only affording another reading
of the text, valuable for comparison, but as furnishing a gloss or
Nahuatl paraphrase of most of the hymns, which does not appear in the
Florentine MS. As evidently the older of the two, I have adopted the
readings of the Madrid MS. as my text, and given the variants of the
Florentine MS. at the end of each hymn.

Neither MS. attempts any translation of the hymns. That at Madrid has no
Spanish comment whatever, while that at Florence places opposite the
hymns the following remarks, which are also found in the printed copies,
near the close of the Appendix of the Second Book of the _Historia_:--

"It is an old trick of our enemy the Devil to try to conceal himself in
order the better to compass his ends, in accordance with the words of
the Gospel, 'He whose deeds are evil, shuns the light.' Also on earth
this enemy of ours has provided himself with a dense wood and a ground,
rough and filled with abysses, there to prepare his wiles and to escape
pursuit, as do wild beasts and venomous serpents. This wood and these
abysses are the songs which he has inspired for his service to be sung
in his honor within the temples and outside of them; for they are so
artfully composed that they say what they will, but disclose only what
the Devil commands, not being rightly understood except by those to whom
they are addressed. It is, in fact, well recognized that the cave, wood
or abysses in which this cursed enemy hides hi