" A remarkable example of this method of narration shall close
our citations from his work.
The reader is, doubtless, acquainted with the tradition, said to have
been preserved among the Mexicans, of a fair-complexioned deity, with
flowing beard, who had once ruled over them and taught them the arts
of peace, and, being subsequently driven from the country, promised to
return at some future time. Predictions of his reappearance lingered
amongst them, and were supposed to be accomplished in the arrival of the
Spaniards. Mr. Wilson tells us that "too much stress" has been laid on
this tradition; but we know of no modern writer who has laid any stress
on it except himself. It has been usually supposed to be one of those
myths in which nations partially civilized embalm the memory of their
heroes. Mr. Wilson does not believe the Mexicans to have been partially
civilized. He regards them merely as a horde of savages. Nevertheless,
he believes that among these savages "tradition [in the form here
noticed] had handed down, through untold generations, from a remote
antiquity," the establishment in America of Phoenician colonies, their
history, and their subsequent extinction.
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