atmosphere of hope and energy,-the times may present a gloomy aspect, owing to the medium through which they are contemplated. But there is no cause for dismay. Ominous and unsettled as may be the political horizon, moral changes are in progress, which will silently effect what the madness of revolutionists vainly aims at, and which tyrants and bigots in vain impede,

But we return to the work before us. The following remarks on the establishment of the Inquisition in the reign of Isabella, are worthy of the enlightened sentiments and piety of the Author: they occur after reviewing the brilliant period of the early years of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

• But such is the imperfection of human nature, even in characters who reflect the greatest honour on it, so limited are the views of the most penetrating, such the aberrations of the best principled and. the noblest minds, that history is compelled to turn aside from a scene so beautiful, so admirable, so rich in all that does credit to power and social order, in order to instruct her readers respecting one unpardonable wrong committed by the illustrious Queen of Castile.

It is about this time (1480) that the dominican Thomas de Torquemada was appointed by the pope, but at the request of Isabella, inquisitor general, and that the Inquisition, that equally anti-social and anti-Christian institution, received a permanent form and a president gifted with considerable learning and of high character. Torquemada, who was, beyond all contradiction, one of the most exemplary and learned members of his illustrious order, had been confessor to Isabella during the reign of Henry IV. He had so.long back as that period, instigated her to make a solemn vow to the Almighty, to visit with punishment offences against what he termed the Catholic faith, in case she should succeed to the throne. Isabella was from infancy completely misled with respect to the nature of true humility, and hardened by prejudices in contrariety to the analysis (l'analyse) of faith and the method pursued by the primitive Christians in the study of religion. She was always led to believe, that priests whose morals were exemplary and whose learning was approved by the prelates and despots of the Church, were so many oracles to whom she was commanded by God to give ear. This princess was well capable of perceiving the great principles which have set us free from this bondage, but she rejected them assuredly as so many infernal temptations; and her directors, all of them men whom justice compels us to revere as endowed with sincere piety, but led astray by the sophisms of fanaticism, could not fail to infatuate the interesting princess with that absurd theology which then enveloped as with a thick cloud the Christian Church. Thus it was, thanks to the triumph of popes and their monkish cohorts, that a queen who was otherwise a model for sovereigns, a woman eminently virtuous, tender, full of the sap of piety, endowed with gentle manners and a generous mind, was capable of instituting a tribunal sanguinary and necessarily unjust. In my opinion, it were the greatest injustice to impute to the intentions of Isabella, of Torquemada, of Cardinal de

:

Mendoza, or even of Ferdinand V., the ambition, the dreadful pharisaism which so many worthless pontiffs have taught us to fear wheresoever priestly and monkish piety can make itself at all heard. So to calumniate the queen of Castile, her husband, and their counsellors, were not only to be guilty of the most revolting injustice, but to weaken the force of the infinitely useful lesson attached to the true and equitable statement of the fact it were to betray ignorance or forgetfulness of the circumstance, that this atrocious institution having for its authors persons so respectable in character, affords a most striking proof of the fatal influence which the papal theology exerts on even the sound portion of the Christian church. Instead of calumniating Isabella and her council, we ought rather to consider in how high a degree must that system be anti-social and anti-evangelical, which rendered them opposed to the genius of the Christian religion, -the oppressors of so many unhappy persons, the destroyers of so many innocent ones, and the authors of a code abhorrent to natural equity and even common sense; a code in which it has been found continually necessary to impose silence on reason, justice, and the most touching part of Christian morality. A horrible fact this, which recals to our recollection so many similar horrors; which reminds us, for instance, of Louis IX. of France, encouraging, commanding the massacre of the infidels as a duty;-of Ferdinand III. of Castile, imagining himself bound to assist with his own hands in burning them. Instead of the calumnies and epigrams of certain French writers, who have given themselves up to pitiable national animosities, we would call up to our readers such recollections as these, in noticing this revolting part of the annals of Isabella. In the history of the tribunal which this princess thought to dedicate to the cause of the Almighty, we have a guide which our predecessors were in want of the respectable canon of Toledo, D. John Llorente, who has laid open to Europe the archives of those sanguinary theologians, those apostles more worthy of the Koran than of the Gospel. This excellent historian is an authority for the facts. He has even gone to the bottom of the mysteries which he has disclosed: he shews himself throughout, correct, informed, impartial, and enlightened. But the opinions to which he professes still to retain an attachment, compel us sometimes to differ from him.'

The infernal cruelties practised by the Catholic monarchs of Spain and Portugal on the Jews, at the recital of which the mind sickens, afford another damning illustration of the genius of the Papal theology. Emmanuel of Portugal purchased the hand of Isabella of Castile with the blood of his Jewish subjects: her priests had taught her to demand it as part of her dowry. After describing the horrible scenes which ensued upon his treacherous edict, our Author adds:

One cannot read without disgust the absurd remarks of the general run of Portuguese and Spanish writers on these calamities.

* Vide Eclectic Review, N. S. Vol. xiii. p. 462,

According to them, it is always the blood of Jesus Christ which is avenged by the misfortunes of that nation. These pitiable bigots forget the sublime scene of Calvary, and the whole scope of the Apostolic instructions respecting that wonderful people, when they thus travestie, after the monkish fashion, the pagan notions relative to the implacable wrath of the Deity. Osorius does honour to the episcopal character and to Christianity, by warmly blaming the crud tyranny of Emmanuel, and by exclaiming in a style worthy of Tacitus, Fuit quidem hoc, neque ex lege, neque ex religione factum―This was done, neither in the spirit of the laws, nor in the spirit of religion. Faria Sousa, on the contrary, defends it all; for with him all the kings of Portugal are heros and saints: but he lets us know, with exquisite simplicity, that Emmanuel was unwilling to proceed to extremities against the Moors, because they had in the Mahommedan states avengers too powerful, but that he ventured to oppress the Jews, because they were isolated and helpless.'

We have read with peculiar interest the Author's memoirs relative to the Reformation. The portrait which he draws of the Emperor Charles the Fifth (Charles I. of Spain), will be deemed darkly shaded; but he speaks of him chiefly as a king of Spain.

A writer,' he says, of the first order has treated in a superior style this portion of modern history (so far as relates to the affairs of the Continent); we leave it to men either very able or very presumptuous, to perfect, or even to correct Robertson, and shall content ourselves in general with making known Charles as king of Spain. It is in this point of view, that his history falls within our province; and it is chiefly as a Spanish monarch, that Charles deserves the unqualified indignation of the historian."

Llorente has shewn in his History of the Inquisition, that Charles was always a zealous Papist at heart. His mad and restless ambition has been amply exposed by our illustrious countryman.

Europe, in breaking her fetters, in labouring to obtain light, in making long and painful efforts in order to attain a high degree of civilization, was obliged not only to dispense with the counsels and the assistance of Charles, but also to combat and vanquish his scruples, his repugnances, his prejudices; and this often at the expense of a bloody struggle, and after great calamities. To humble Francis I., to maintain every where undisputed sway, to attract the applause of the multitude, to oppose at one time chicanery, at another time force to the progress of the human mind in the constitution of social order; such was the whole system of Charles, of that accomplished despot, the contemporary of Erasmus, and of Luther, and of Frederic the Wise, and of so many other great men. Thus was all thrown away upon him. He spent his life in making war upon and tormenting mankind; he had no plan in his conquests; doubts and scruples seized him after he had sacrificed his subjects; and the Spanish monarchy, the principal instrument of the mad ambition of this prince,

is mainly indebted to him for the long series of evils by which it has been overwhelmed, and which have caused Spain to lose the rank she once maintained as a power of the first order. This sentence, I am aware, will not be to the taste of the present day.'

The Author's plan does not allow him to enter much into detail as to the circumstances immediately connected with the Reformation. That important event necessarily occupies, however, a considerable share of his attention, for its influence extended even to the two nations of the Peninsula, whose annals he is tracing.

Zwingle, Luther, Calvin, and their illustrious fellow labourers, had zealous disciples and courageous martyrs in Spain, in the very court of Charles, and under the sceptre of his hateful son. Nay, what is more; but for the atrocious measures adopted by the latter, under even that despot, the church of Spain would have ceased to be the domain of the bishop-king.'

This important fact will probably be new to many of our readers. It will receive some illustration from the following highly interesting statements, for which we are indebted to the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith's excellent Sermon before the London Missionary Society.*

In the earlier years of the Reformation, events occurred in Spain of a nature the most interesting and surprising, and which nothing but the prodigious power of the Inquisition has prevented from becoming the admiration and astonishment of posterity. The little knowledge which I have been able to obtain concerning these facts, is derived from a very brief Martyrology, which was collected from sources almost inaccessible, by our learned and excellent countryman, Dr. Michael Geddes, during ten years (A. D. 1678 to 1688,) that he was Chaplain to the English Factory at Lisbon; and which he afterwards published in the first volume of his Miscellaneous Tracts, 3 volumes, 8vo. London, 3d edition, 1730. This Treatise was translated into Latin by the celebrated ecclesiastical historian, Dr. Mo. sheim, and inserted in the first volume of his Dissertations relating to Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols. 8vo. Altona, 1767.

It appears that the Emperor Charles V. and his son Philip II. who succeeded him on the throne of Spain in 1555, conceived measures for the defence of the Church of Rome, which, had they been ho nestly pursued, would have ensured to those monarchs the applause and gratitude of all posterity. They selected a number of ecclesiastics, the most distinguished in the Spanish seats of learning for erudition, talents, and piety. These they sent into the Netherlands and Germany, expressly that they might become fully acquainted with the doctrines of the Reformers, and thus might be qualified effectually

"The Connexion of the Redeemer's Heavenly State with the Advancement of his Kingdom on Earth." A Sermon, preached at Surrey Chapel, at the Twenty Sixth General Meeting of the Missionary Society. By John Pye Smith, D. D. 8vo. Price ls. 1820. VOL. XVII. Ñ. S.

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and unanswerably to refute them. The event was, that all, or nearly all, of these eminent scholars and divines became convinced of the truth of the Protestant doctrines, and returned to Spain glowing with holy zeal to communicate the truth to their countrymen. Their first attempts were very successful. The gospel light which they communicated, was received by many with full conviction, and was rapidly diffusing itself in all directions. Their success, Dr. Geddes observes, was owing, under the Divine blessing, to the clearness and fervour with which they asserted and established three points : (1.) That the Pope is Antichrist: (2.) That the worship of saints and angels is idolatrous: (3.) That the ustification of a sinner in he sight of God can be obtained by no works or merits of his own, but only by faith in the righteousness and atonement of Jesus Christ.

But, by the unquestionably wise and good, though awfully mysterious, permission of Providence, the powers of darkness obtained a complete triumph over these auspicious beginnings. The illustrious confessors, with all who had received their doctrines, or manifested a favourable disposition towards them, were thrown into the prisons of the Inquisition; and, partly by torture and other modes of secret murder, and partly by being burned alive at the autos da fe, they were ALL EXTERMINATED! This noble army of martyrs included many persons of rank and eminence; but, by the influence of that most diabolical tribunal, whose laws render it penal on the nearest relation to inquire after the fate or recite the history of its victims, their very names have been suppressed, and will probably never be completely divulged on earth, unless the archives of the Inquisition, brought to light as they may some time be, shall disclose the dreadful secrets of the prison-house. It was also the custom to put a gag upon the mouths of those who were publicly executed, in order that no testimony might be borne to truth, or complaint uttered of the infernal wickedness that was practised on the blessed sufferers.

The following are extracts from the writings of bigoted papists; the first a Spanish contemporary writer, and the other an Inquisitor of Sicily.

"Heretofore the prisoners who were brought out of the dungeons of the Inquisition to the punishment of the flames, or to be exhibited in the san benito" [a yellow dress with a red St. Andrew's cross before and behind, worn by those who were shewn to the people as converted from heresy; but they were always taken back to their prisons ;] "were common people and of low birth: but within these few years, we have seen the prisons, places of execution, and fires of our tribunal, filled with persons of high rank and the most noble birth, and men who (unless outward evidences are wholly deceptive) were far above others both in piety and in learning. The cause of this and many other evils which afflict us, is to be sought only in our Catholic Kings: for they, from their generous tenderness and kindness towards Germany, England, and other countries which had withdrawn from the authority of the Roman Church, sent men of learning and distinguished eloquence into these regions, in the hope that, by their discourses, those who had fallen into errors might be brought back to submit to the truth. But this excellent design, by some sad fatality,