'The statement wh. I transmitted to you about Cortes was the vaguest but I will see if I can find out anything from my friend, whom I expect to see again. The general effect was that some recent sceptic had argued that the city of Mexico was not so gorgacious (a Yankee phrase) as the Spanish represented; but rather a big specimen of a kind of architecture still to be found amongst semi savage tribes in that region. I had seem some references to this in (I think) one of the notices of American literature in the Saturday Review, within the last few months ? I can?t remember when; and I have a further impression ? that the authority there given was one of the volumes ? the last if there are only two ? of Bancroft?s large book on the native races of the Pacific.'