time Secretary to the Holy Office at Toledo, and was, moreover, well acquainted with the history of his country, found himself admirably situated for the execution of such a task. His famous work, formed upon these records which he collected, deserves to be considered as an important service rendered to humanity, however destitute it may be of style or philosophical connexion. That hideous monster, the Inquisition, is there displayed in all its naked horror.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the Spanish Inquisition, as described in the writings of M. M— and Llorente, and as constituted from the time of Ferdinand V., to the end of the reign of Charles II., is not exactly the same with that existing in 1808. Its name, indeed, remained to excite feelings of abhorrence; but the venom of its nature was, in effect, nearly exhausted. Feebleness is the necessary result of age; and the Inquisition had grown old by the lapse of three centuries. Charles III., moreover, the most truly religious monarch that Spain has ever known, had given a considerable check to its influence; and, from that period, the council of Castile, by continued opposition, had gradually wrested from it the chief portion of its privileges. As evil frequently operates to produce good, the viziership of the Prince of Peace, established upon the corruption of morals and the contempt of social observances, required an abridgment of the power of all judicial institutions; and the Holy Office, included in the number of these, suffered a further retrenchment of its sway.

In this state of things, while Godoy held unlimited authority, the successors of Saint Dominick might be seen in the courtly antichamber, forming a motley group with the vainest courtezans, and emulously watching for a look from the haughty favourite. Deprived of moral and political consideration, their functions were now confined to the prohibition of certain books, or the punishment, perchance, of some visionary old woman (beata).

Having seen what was the nature of the Inquisition at the period of its fall, we will now view it at that of its late revival. Ferdinand VII., in his re-appearance on the summit of the Pyrenees, after his exile, might well be compared to a disastrous comet, boding every species of plague to the unhappy Spaniards. He destroyed, in his ingratitude, the constitutional system, to which he was indebted for his personal liberty. Ignorance, superstition, and every kind of feudal abuse, were fostered by him into poisonous vigour. He re-established with alacrity the tribunal of the Holy Office, for no purpose of religion (his character is destitute of it), but as an instrument of terror and vengeance as a means of subduing, by the horrors of incarceration, all that was virtuous, liberal, and enlightened. From that fatal moment, not a day passed but some unfortunates were torn from the bosom of their families, to be plunged into the vaults of the Inquisition; and, in some instances, to undergo every refinement in the art of torture. Such was the rage for the finding or making victims, that the dungeons were speedily crowded. A single accusation at Valencia sufficed for the committal to the Inquisition, of twenty-five individuals, together with the accusing party. At Murcia, the arrest of at least two hundred persons was occasioned by a single charge. At Madrid, at Granada, at St. Jacques, every where, in short, were victims seized upon, without regard to age, sex, condition, or services rendered, A Spanish noble

man (the Count de Montigo) who was immured in the cells of the Holy Office, recovered his liberty only through the Revolution of 1820, the interests of which, however, he subsequently betrayed. Two generals, MM. Torrigo and Almedovar, who had received many wounds during the war for independence-various superior officers, persons belonging to the finance department, priests and monks, women and children, all were hurried away into the same dreadful confinement.

Out of a number of facts which we could cite, the following anecdote, to the authenticity of which we pledge ourselves, may suffice for an example :-Mr. E, distinguished as a man of letters, and attached to an important branch of the state administration, was arrested and conducted to the Inquisition at Madrid, for having expressed, as was alleged, irreligious opinions; but, in reality, liberal opinions. Moreover, as it was expected to be shewn that these expressions had been uttered in presence of his wife, who had not denounced him to the Holy Office, she was likewise committed to the same dungeon. This unfortunate couple had a young and only child, whom Madame E- brought with her, and who died in the Inquisition through cold and improper food. The king, who from a dearth of occupation, sometimes took a fancy to prison-sights, chanced to present himself at the door of the cell where the scarce cold corpse of the child was lying. Madame E- threw herself at his feet, and with tears implored release from a place, where every thing would inflict on her memory the last agonies of her child. Her youth, beauty, and virtue, the eloquence of her grief, and the force of her despair, moved to pity all who heard her except Ferdinand, who brutally turned away!

We cannot refrain from noting down here the famous mandate of M. Mier y Campillo, the Inquisitor-general, which was read in every church in Spain on the first Sunday in Lent, 1815:-" His Excellency, the Grand Inquisitor, enjoins all Confessors, under pain of excommunication, to denounce to the Holy Office such persons as may have confessed themselves to belong to the order of Freemasonry!" Is it possible for baseness to proceed farther than this? Yes; several confessors were found to comply with the order of his Excellency!! The King took an undisguised part in all these infamies, and appointed Judges belonging to the criminal tribunals to aid in the inquisitorial examinations.

With regard to trials like these, it may easily be imagined that contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods, were their customary foundation. Whether a prisoner denied the pretended crime, or in despair suffered himself to avow it, he was sure to be sent back to his confinement. The only indulgence shewn was to those who were base enough to denounce fresh victims.

Some account remains to be given of the inhuman conduct of the jailors towards the incarcerated on Ferdinand's revival of the Inquisition. What shall we say when we hear the case of an unhappy Chaplain, in the regiment of Lorena, whilst in Murcia, who, after a popular commotion had restored him to liberty, took the violent alternative of drowning himself in a well, rather than return to the Inquisition? What shall we say when informed, that a young officer of the same regiment was driven to madness and suicide at Valencia? The most complete information, however, with which we can supply our readers on this head, will be a condensed account of what has been communi

cated to us by a patriotic magistrate, who was shut up during fifteen months in the Inquisition at Valencia, and is at this moment in London. M. G was arrested the 27th January, 1819, whilst in bed, at two o'clock in the morning. His papers were sealed up, and all explanation was withheld. He was conducted to the Inquisition, distant only fifty paces from his house, by endless turnings and windings. When there, he was made to halt suddenly before a little private door. The chief of the escort, a judge of the criminal court, gave a mysterious and preconcerted kind of knock. A jailor presented himself, and demanded, with solemnity of utterance, which was the judge and which the accused. This point ascertained, he took the two in with him, leaving the others outside. The door closed on them, and all was involved in darkness and silence. The jailor, groping along, and without a syllable of speech, conducted his two companions through the intricate labyrinth of corridors, now ascending staircases, and now descending. This course of involutions occupied about twenty minutes. Their conductor suddenly stopped, and clapping thrice with his hands, was answered in like manner from above. Two folding-doors opened with a startling sound, and a wide well-lighted staircase was displayed to view. This brought them to a hall hung with black velvet, having a table in its centre covered with the like sable colour, a silver crucifix and two candles of green wax. At this table stood two inquisitors, habited in full ceremony-the square cap, the cross of honour, green neck-kerchiefs, and green sleeves. One of these personages was recognised by M. Gas one of the friends of his boyhood, a fellow-collegian; the other was a man whom he was in the daily habit of seeing, and who had, indeed, discoursed with him but a few hours before in the most amicable way. Neither of them, however, gave him the least sign of recognition, or shewed, either then or in the sequel, the least disposition to soften his state of suffering. They began by gravely chanting forth some verses of the Psalm Exsurge Dei, &c. and then demanded of the criminal his name and profession. The jailor was thereupon told to do his duty. This consisted in conducting M. G to a dungeon, eight feet square, (having a grated skylight without glass), and in leaving him there without a candle, or even a pitcher of water. After remaining thus for three days, he was supplied with a wretched mattress and a chair. These formed, during fifteen months, the whole of his furniture. His sustenance was a dish of rice every twenty-four hours, with half-apound of brown bread, and, in the mornings, a cup of diluted stuff miscalled chocolate. His jailors, seen only at these periods, always maintained the silence of statues. The light of the day in this living tomb was but of five hours' duration.

On one occasion, the barber who was sent to shave the unfortunate prisoner, contrived to slip into his hands a letter from his wife, together with a pencil and a bit of paper to facilitate a reply. Delighted at this unexpected consolation M. G— perused and kissed a thousand times the cherished lines. His reply was soon prepared-but alas! the Argus-eyed turnkeys had conceived suspicions, the result of which was a discovery, and the consignment of the poor barber to one of the prisonrooms, where he was kept until 1820. His successor in office shewed none of the zeal of pity. After three months' incarceration M. G— underwent his first regular examination in the same hall, and with the

same ceremony. One of the inquisitors made a sort of opening oration on the justice and benignity of the Holy Office (these were wonderfully borne witness to by the livid and haggard countenance of their victim), and proceeded to tell him that the tribunal knew already the whole, even to the precise day, place, and hour, when M. G had been present, with other accomplices, at a masonic meeting; that it was, consequently, useless to deny it; and that the tribunal, in calling on him now for his confession, desired merely to find a pretext for extending towards him the indulgence allowed to penitents, &c. &c. M. G- not to be duped by this mode of address, protested openly against it. The addition of menaces and insults could not shake his firmness; and he was taken back to his confinement. Some months afterwards he was again summoned into the same presence, but with the like result; and from that period he was no longer interrogated. Being seized with illness, through the various miseries and horrors of his situation, he several times implored the aid of a physician; but was answered that when his life should be in danger, that would be granted him! When reduced to the extreme of weakness, and no longer able to rise from his mattress, he requested the presence of the inquisitors, and besought them most touchingly for some nourishment of a more wholesome kind, adding that his family would remunerate such attention. "Your family has abandoned you, Sir," replied these impostors; "they will listen to no application on the part of a reprobate; and, as for the tribunal, it has no funds for the amelioration of your treatment ! !"

Such a series of infamous usage must inevitably have proved fatal to M. G- had not these dens of horror been thrown open by the effect of the King's oath to the Constitution on the 9th March, 1820. The following day brought the decree to Valencia, and the people went en masse to burst open the gates of the Inquisition. Half an hour previously, and when the news was already known every where, one of the jailors had the inhuman assurance to tell M. G—— that he, at least, should never escape from his place of lodging!

FROM THE GERMAN.

For a Catch.

PHILEMON to Miranda came

With tongue in wrath, and eyes of flame,

And loudly cried, "Restore

My lamb, my lute, my kerchief rare;
This hour we part-by Heaven I swear
I'll never see thee more!"

""Tis well," she said-" but you forget
Some little gifts of yours, my pet:

To leave them out were sin;

I will restore you, one by one,
Ten thousand kisses-and that done,
You may walk off.-Begin."

澤

EVERY-DAY PEOPLE.

My Aunt Edwards is continually railing at Every-day People. She

became acquainted with the Cooksons, last Autumn, at Ramsgate: the

young folks used to walk together upon the Pier, from morning to night, and, when they arrived at the extremity of that noble buttress, old Cookson used to lodge his telescope upon the dwarf granite wall, and let all the young Edwardses, one after another, peep through it at the French coast. My Aunt Edwards and Mrs. Cookson rode over to Broadstairs three mornings in the same carriage: so that it seemed in a fair way of being a thick and thin business. But when the two families returned to London, affairs assumed a colder complexion. My Aunt Edwards lives in Fitzroy-square, and the Cooksons only in Gowerstreet. This is very much against them: indeed, it has induced my Aunt to denominate them "every-day people." They did well enough at Ramsgate one must not be too particular, especially since the invention of steam-boats: but my Aunt Edwards must say, that, without meaning to detract from the merits of the man-what's his name (Watt is his name) who invented steam, he has much tag rag and bobtail to answer for at Ramsgate. The fare to Margate is such a trifle: the breakfasts on board are really so very respectable: and the eighteenpenny carriage overland to Ramsgate is so very moderate, that it is no wonder so many every-day people come smoking and dabbling down every Saturday. Knowing the Cooksons to be good sort of people, as well as every-day ones, I begged my Aunt Edwards to grant them a new trial in London: but no, she was inexorable: the residence in Gower-street operated as a bar: Bedford-square she would not have minded; even Russell-place might have been passed over with a suitable apology; but Gower-street could only be tenanted by every-day people. I took nothing by my motion.

Whilst on a visit to my Aunt in Albion-place, I became acquainted with Charles Cookson, the eldest son of the subsequently proscribed family. We rode together on horseback to Kingsgate, upon which occasion I obtained much information from him. I bear it, I hope, in grateful memory. He pointed out to me certain hills across the ocean, and told me that was the French coast. Horseback, he added, was a healthful exercise, much more so, indeed, than riding in a close carriage. When we arrived at Broadstairs, he said that Broadstairs was not nearly so large as Ramsgate, adding that the two Piers would not bear a moment's comparison. He, moreover, considered it as curious, that there should be an Albion Hotel at the one place, and an Albion Place at the other. The colour of the sea, too, according to him, was some. times green and sometimes blue. It seemed to him, the fishing-boats ran some risk in a storm: he considered the company at Margate as too mixed: he only bathed every other day; and he thought that Bonaparte must have felt dull at Saint Helena. Upon our arrival at Kingsgate, he pointed up to the inscription over the archway, "Nunc regis jussu Regia Porta vocor," and said, "That's Latin." When I said that Lord Holland must have found it a salubrious spot, he answered with great quickness, "Yes, but not so convenient as Kensington for attending the House of Lords." When Mr. Charles Cookson complained of the dearness of every thing at Ramsgate, I answered "True, but their season is