d
back upon itself the tide of oblivion, snatched the scythe from the
hands of Death, and, reversing the duties of the fabled Charon, are now
busily engaged in ferrying back again across the Styx the shades of the
illustrious dead, and landing them securely upon the shores of true
immortality, the ever-living Present! Even the laurels of the poet and
orator, the historian and philosopher, wither, and

"Pale their ineffectual fires"

in the presence of that superiority--truly godlike in its
attributes--which, with one wave of its matchless wand, conjures up
whole realms, reconstructs majestic empires, peoples desolate
wastes--voiceless but yesterday, save with the shrill cry of the
bittern--and, contemplating the midnight darkness shrouding Thebes and
Nineveh, cries aloud, "Let there be light!" and suddenly Thotmes starts
from his tomb, the dumb pyramids become vocal, Nimroud wakes from his
sleep of four thousand years, and, springing upon his battle-horse, once
more leads forth his armies to conquest and glory. The unfamiliar air
learns to repeat accents, forgotten ere the foundations of Troy were
laid, and resounds once more with the echoes of a tongue in which old
Menes wooed his bride, long before Noah was commanded to build the Ark,
or the first rainbow smiled upon the cloud.

All honor, then, to the shades of Young and Champollion, Lepsius and De
Lacy, Figeac and Layard. Alexander and Napoleon conquered kingdoms, but
they were ruled by the living. On the contrary, the heroes I have
mentioned vanquished mighty realms, governed alone by the

"Monarch of the Scythe and Glass,"

that unsubstantial king, who erects his thrones on broken columns and
fallen domes, waves his sceptre over dispeopled wastes, and builds his
capitals amid the rocks of Petraea and the catacombs of Egypt.

# # # # #

Such being the object of my ambition, it will not appear surprising that
I embraced every opportunity to enlarge my knowledge of my favorite
subject--American Antiquities--and eagerly perused every new volume
purporting to throw any light upon it. I was perfectly familiar with the
works of Lord Kingsborough and Dr. Robertson before I was fifteen years
of age, and had studied the explorations of Bernal Diaz, Waldeck, and
Dupaix, before I was twenty. My delight, therefore, was boundless when a
copy of Stephens's travels in Yucatan and Chiapas fell into my hands,
and I devoured his subsequ