Note 1 — Chapter I

These poems, we presume, were handed down orally. We know not how far the picture-writing of the Mexicans (the art of interpreting which appears to be now lost,) was capable of conveying any such thoughts as could not be represented by an absolute portrait. No system of writing that is not essentially phonetic or dialectical, (i. e. representative of sounds, or of language,) can be made to express abstract ideas, which may be defined to be such as admit of no ideographic or metaphoric representation. If they could, mankind might, at once, enjoy the benefits of the universal language, (or, to speak strictly, a substitute for it; for it would convey ideas not words,) which Leibnitz dreamed of, and Bishop Wilkins, and many others after him, so vainly attempted to construct.

When, therefore, we relate any very curious and marvellous matters, appertaining to Mexican literature, though we speak upon the authority of historians, we invite the reader to receive our accounts with some grains of allowance. With the exception of a few arbitrary symbols, expressive of numerals, and a few other objects of constant recurrence, the picture-writing of Mexico spoke in ideas, not words; and it may therefore be assumed, that it could express nothing that did not, or by a stretch of ingenuity, could not be made to, address and explain itself to the eye.