the idea, that the poor originals had, for the most part, the good fortune to make their escape from the clutches of the Inquisition. But it held its victims too closely in its infernal grasp. The greater number either destroyed themselves in prison, to avoid a more dreadful end, or were gradually worn out with the repetition of the torture, and died before the day of execution. Then the holy office, having already sufficiently wreaked its vengeance on their living bodies, at last wreaked it upon their bones. The man who had committed no inquisitorial sins in his own person, was still punished for the sins of his ancestors; and if, by the nicest scrutiny, a Jew, or a Turk, or an infidel, or a heretic, were found, or suspected, to have tainted his genealogy, he was branded with a permanent mark of infamy. In this way many respectable families were ruined and extinguished. Such, on this, as well as other accounts, was the dread inspired by the holy office, that many of the Spanish gentry consulted their safety by connecting themselves with it in some shape or other. In 1557, Mary de Bourgogne was put to the torture, at the age of ninety! The inquisitor, Cano, said that the moderate torture was applied; but the effects of this gentle application of course destroyed her. Her bones and effigy were afterwards burnt, her property confiscated, and her memory, her children, and her descendants in the male line, declared infamous. The case of Donna Jane Bohorques, sickening as are its portraits, is too atrocious to be entirely passed over. She was the wife of Don Francis de Vargos. Her sister Donna Maria, who had already perished in an autoda-fé, proved the innocent cause of her unhappy end. This sister had but declared that Jane was acquainted with her opinions, and had not opposed them; but that was sufficient for the inquisitors. Upon CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 303.

this shade of suspicion, Jane Bohorques was hurried to prison, in a condition that demanded the most tender care and sympathy. She gave birth to an infant in the prison; but it was taken from her at the end of eight days; and before she was quite recovered, she was submitted to the torture. The cords with which her still feeble limbs were bound penetrated to the bone, and torrents of blood flowed from her mouth. In a few days she expired. The inquisitors thought that they expiated this cruel murder by declaring Jane de Bohorques innocent, at the ensuing auto-da-fé! We might here enlarge upon a variety of particulars, illustrative of this execrable tribunal; upon the cruel delay of its proceedings; upon the impenetrable darkness of its mysteries, only illuminated, when all hope was over, by the flames of the auto; upon the systematic encouragement which it gave to informers, and the menaces it denounced against concealment ; upon its subterraneous courts and dungeons, with all their horrid apparatus, the very sight of which was calculated to terrify the victim into confession, before he was tortured into it; upon the gross absurdity and iniquity of the torture itself, making a man's guilt or innocence to depend on the texture of his animal fibre, and the state of his spirits, and frequently continued till the toughest fibre, and the strongest spirits were subdued; and upon the closing scene, deemed a fit spectacle for nobles and princes, and a suitable entertainment on the celebration of royal marriages. But all these matters have been long known to the world; and we rather wish to call the attention of our readers to some particulars in the history of this tribunal, which may be somewhat more new to them.

It is not to be supposed that, during its early progress, it was suffered to proceed without resistance Y

:

on the part of the people: for some time after the establishment of the modern, and worst, form of this tribunal, their fury was frequently excited more than one inquisitor was murdered; and the execrated Torquemada was obliged to take every precaution of secret armour, and a strong retinue, in order to save his life. But the popular disturbances which it provoked in Spain, being desultory, ill planned, and ill supported, only issued in its more extended triumph, and increased its severity, by sharpening the spirit of bigotry and persecution, with the additional stimulus of revenge. It is, however, consolatory to meet with a single instance of successful opposition. Such an instance, we know, occurred in the case of France. But it appeared, also, among the Neapolitans, who were subjects of the Spanish crown. They acted, with regard to this particular, in a manner worthy of the best times of the ancient Roman Commonwealth. Successive attempts were made to force the Inquisition upon them, under the reigns of those despotic and powerful princes, Ferdinand, Charles V., and Philip II.; but without effect. They resisted it with such pertinacious hostility, that the kings of Spain found it would be too dangerous to proceed with their experiment. On one occasion the Neapolitans were secretly encouraged in their opposition by the pope himself, naturally jealous of the inquisitors-general of Spain, who had frequently presumed to give his holiness a word of advice. Indeed, with regard to inquisitorial matters, these could boast of priority in point of time. The congregation of the holy office, in its improved form, was not founded at Rome, till the year 1543; sixty years after its establishment in Spain, under the formidable Torquemada. This new creation alarmed the Spanish tribunal, as though it deemed its own privileges

in danger. The inquisitors of Spain, while they pretended that their authority was canonical, as having been delegated to them by the sovereign pontiff, yet, at the same time, always virtually opposed the doctrine of his infallibility, and refused to submit to his decrees, when contrary to their particular system. As to the system of Rome, that might be called mild and moderate, compared with that of Spain. In reply to the entreaties and

remonstrances of the Milanese, Pius IV. told the deputies that he would never allow the Spanish Inquisition to be established in their city, as he knew its extreme severity. With regard to Sicily, it may be just observed, that she was at length, after considerable resistance, compelled to yield. The Inquisition of that island was abolished in 1782, after an existence of 279 years.

The

The Jews and the Moors had been, at first, the chief objects and victims of the modern Inquisition, during the course of 139 years, ending with the year 1609, when the Moors were finally expelled. Inquisition had been the means of depriving Spain of three millions of inhabitants, Jews, Morescoes, and Moors. The privations and sufferings of these people were such, that our only wonder is, how they could so long linger on these accursed shores. Whatever were their errors, no people ever manifested greater endurance of suffering, or stronger attachment to their native soil. But an æra had now arrived which afforded the Inquisition fresh and unexpected fuel for its fires. Torquemada, who died in 1498, could hardly, with all his bitterness against heretics, have reckoned upon such an event as the Reformation of 1517. This event proved indeed a trial of the strength of the Inquisition; and lamentable is the reflection, that such were its power, its efforts, and its success, that the seeds of Protestantism were crushed

by it in the infancy of their growth. Those seeds promised an abundant harvest in Spain, had it not been for this desolating blast. During the trials which followed the arrest, in 1557 and 1558, of a considerable number of persons, distinguished by their birth, their offices, or their learning, indications were found of a vast scheme being on foot for the propagation of the opinions of Luther, throughout the peninsula. This discovery induced Philip II. and Valdes, the formidable inquisitor-general of that period, to treat the convicted persons with the utmost severity. Philip wrote to Rome on the subject; in consequence of which a brief was dispatched to Valdes, authorising him to hand over to the secular arm all dogmatising Lutherans, even those who had returned into the bosom of the Romish Church, and had been found guilty of no relapse. Suspicion was held equivalent to proof; and as the sincerity of their professions of repentance seemed doubtful, their punishment, by the decrees of this equitable tribunal, was made certain. We shall give one other notice of the progress which the Reformation had made in Spain: it belongs to the year 1568. In that year, the Spanish ambassador at Vienna, Don Louis de Benegos, informed the inquisitor-general that he had heard of the Calvinists congratulating each other on the peace signed between France and Spain, in the hope that their religion would make as much progress in the latter country as in England and Flanders; because the great number of Spaniards, who had secretly adopted it, might easily hold communication with the Protestants of Bearn, through Arragon. This was alarming intelligence for the holy office; and the autos now began to be lighted apace for those who had taught, or were suspected of being favourable to, the doctrines of the Reformation. The number of sufferers for its tenets in Spain, though small

compared with the vast multitude of Jews and Mohammedans who had been previously sacrificed, was nevertheless very considerable. The victims, especially at Seville and Valladolid, are said to have been persons distinguished, some for their nobility, others for their learning, and all for the purity of their lives. Let our readers here recollect that it is a professed Romanist who speaks thus of the early, and (alas! that we should have to say so) the latest fruits of the Reformation in Spain. Here was a rich harvest rooted up in the commencement of its growth, by the sharp and desolating ploughshare of the unrelenting Inquisition. For the accomplishment of its deadly purposes, on this occasion, additional means were employed, answerable to the exigency of the

case.

The art of printing had now existed for more than a century. Books were multiplied, and knowledge was rapidly on the increase. This was a new evil to be put down. As early as the year 1490, several Hebrew Bibles, and books written by Jews, had been burnt at Seville in 1530: not only Lutheran books were denounced and prohibited, but an edict was passed obliging all Catholics to denounce any person who might read cr keep them in their houses. The reading of the Colloquies of Erasmus in the universities was also prohibited. The first appearance of an index expurgatorius was in 1546, in consequence of a commission from Charles V. to the university of Louvain; a commission confirmed by

bull of appro

bation from the pope. A short time before this, a decree had been issued to prohibit reading or buying the writings of Luther, upon pain of death. The German princes complained loudly; but Charles paid no attention to their remonstrances. This bad policy, observes our author, accelerated the progess of Lutheranism. It promoted its progress in other quarters undoubt

edly; but not in unhappy Spain. She was still doomed to groan, for ages to come, under the strong hand of the Inquisition. In the year 1558 came out the terrible law of Philip II. denouncing the penalties of confiscation and death on all who should sell, buy, keep, or read any books prohibited by the holy office; and, to ensure the execution of this sanguinary law, an index was published, that the people might not have the excuse of ignorance to plead. So persevering and severe was the chase after anti-Catholic books, that a bull of 1559 enjoined confessors to interrogate their penitents on this subject, and to remind them of their obligation to denounce the guilty, on pain of excommunication. The same bull also subjected the confessors themselves to a like punishment for neglect of this duty; even though these penitents should be of the highest rank*.

When books, tending to promote useful knowledge, were thus persecuted, we cannot be surprised to find men of learning and genius sharing a similar fate. Accordingly a regular crusade seems to have been set on foot against them, by the Spanish Inquisition. The twenty-fifth chapter of the abridgment contains a long catalogue of learned and distinguished individuals who were doomed to

suffer, more or less, through its severity. The following passage shews what were the published and undisguised opinions of the In

* A very full and explicit account of the Indexes, both prohibitory and expurgatory, has just been published by the Rev. J. Mendham. It is appropriately dedicated to Sir R. H. Inglis, whose speech on this subject in the House of Commons last year, in the debate on Catholic emancipation, produced a powerful impression. The subject is however of great interest, apart from questions of ecclesiastical or political expediency; and we recommend those of our readers who wish to obtain information on it to avail themselves of Mr. Mendham's elaborate researches.

quisition, so late as the close of the seventeenth century, relative to two disputed questions of considerable importance.

"I have seen, in the library of the Vatican, a printed proclamation of the Inquisition of Spain in 1693: this tribunal condemns two authors, called the Barclayos, because their books contained two propositions which the Romans consider heretical: one was, that the pope has no and can neither depose them, nor release authority over the temporalities of kings, their subjects from their oath of fidelity; the other, that the authority of the general council is greater than that of the pope." p. 322.

Though the Inquisition would not denominated its natural enemies, spare the learned, who might be it was likely to shew more respect it may be supposed, perhaps, that and reverence for the great. But it happened, in this instance as in originally the power of controlling many others, that those who had its operations, did not perceive their mistake till they had nursed a monster too vigorous and refractory to be governed, and were deservedly punished by their ultimate subjection to the work of their own

hands. "Ferdinand and his successors," we are informed, "had granted privileges to this tribunal which the encroachments of the inquisitors soon rendered insupportable." A supreme council had indeed been erected by the government, as some check upon its proceedings; but this check proved, for the most part, merely nominal; and any inquisitor-general, who, like Torquemada or Valdes, happened to be a bold and able bigot, readily found means to assert his supremacy, not only over the supi eme council, but over the decrees of Rome herself. The following is our author's statement with respect to this particular.

"The Inquisition presents to our view a tribunal, whose judges have neither obeyed the laws of the kingdom in which it was established, the bulls of the popes, the first constitutions of the tribunal, nor the particular orders of its chiefs; which has even dared to resist the power of the pope, in whose name it acts, and has