great number of years from one or two imperfect statistic reports, and making the sum total of different periods still the same, when very different influences were at work to render such identity impossible. There can scarcely be a doubt, that in the reign of Philip III. the victims, if we call them so, were for the most part those who in other countries would have fallen under the sentence of other courts of judicature, rogues and impostors of the class of Le Sage's Don Rafael and Ambrosio de Lamela.* On the other hand Llorente's calculations of the number of sufferers in the latter part of the seventeenth century seem to fall as much below the truth as his earlier estimates exceed it.

Diego de Arce Reynoso, Bishop of Tuy, Avila, and Placencia, was Chief Inquisitor at the close of the reign of Philip IV., from 1643-1665. In his time, says Llorente, the sixteen boards of Inquisitors of the Peninsula and the Isles adjacent, each burnt every year four individuals in person, two in effigy, and condemned twenty to different penances, giving a total of 1472 burnt, 736 done to as Guy Fawkes is annually, and 7360 sentenced to minor penalties. Now, if Llorente had consulted the contemporary life of D'Arce Reynoso, written by one who knew him well, he would have seen the following summary, given no doubt from the then existing records :

General Autos in different cities, in twenty-two

* See Gil Blas, lib. xii. c. 1.

years, sixteen.

Private ones, three hundred. Total number sentenced, more than 13,000. Banished from the kingdom, more than 12,000 Jewish families: who, if we take as an average only three in a family, make up a total of 36,000. Total, 49,000.*

(103.) There is a minute and particular record of a General Auto, celebrated at Madrid in June, 1680, which Llorente evidently had seen. It is one of the most painful and debasing records of unpitying superstition which the world has ever known, and as such is alluded to by Count Toreno, the historian of the Peninsular War, in a speech at the Cortes at Cadiz in 1813. The author was Joseph del Olmo, a familiar of the Holy Office, and a valet de chambre of poor King Charles II., who was present at the whole routine of the sad and miserable ceremony. There were in all 118 culprits, of whom nineteen were burnt in person, and thirty-four in effigy; the rest being visited with imprisonment or other penalties short of death. This record does not confirm Llorente's proportion, between the numbers of those delivered to the secular arm, and those who only died in statue. If during D'Arce Reynoso's Inquisitorship the proportion was the same or nearly so, we must diminish the number of persons burnt at his sixteen General Autos to something near

* Giraldo, Vida de Don D. De Arce Reynoso. Madr. 1695, p. 328. The author was Secretary to the Inquisition at Toledo. + Relacion del Auto General, etc. 4to. 1680. See Discusion sobre la Inquisicion, Cadiz, 1813, p. 230.

200, and make the mock-executions about 400. The rest of the 49,000 must be made up from the expatriated, the imprisoned, the condemned to the galleys, and to other lighter punishments. For it does not appear, that at the private Autos it was usual to proceed to the last severities of the law. Indeed, it may be reasonably doubted whether the number of those who suffered death was so great as according to this last calculation. The wretched exhibition detailed by Olmo appears to have been got up with a desperate zeal to resuscitate the spirit of the days of Torquemada and Philip II.; but it certainly failed of its object, and the sufferers, almost all poor outcasts, gathered out of the lowest ranks, excited pity for the insulted rights of humanity, rather than any veneration for the tribunal that had stooped to so mean a prey. It was noticed as something strange, unusual, and revolting even to the feelings of Catholic Spain.

(104.) Moreover, the nature of the Inquisition was such, that its extreme terrors could not be perpetually sustained. While Torquemada directed it, the principal object was to clear out the Jews and Judaizing Christians out of the country. He and his successors had nearly effected this, when the Reformation provoked a new course of persecution. This enemy also had been nearly exterminated in the earlier years of Philip II. What remained was but the swell of the waves after the wind has gone down. There could not be the same motives for heaping together the fire

and faggot, when the Jews were banished, and the Protestants destroyed. It seems singular that Southey and Prescott should both have accepted Llorente's calculations, as if he had made them out from the ledgers of the Inquisition.* There was no doubt a lull during the reign of Philip III.; and it was not till the disasters of the country were so multiplied towards the latter half of Philip IV.'s reign, and that of his weak sickly successor, that the familiars and directors of the Holy Office thought to remedy the public misery by a blind bigoted imitation of the worst deeds done in more prosperous times.

(105.) Southey says with some truth, that nineteen out of twenty persons, who fell into the hands of the Inquisition, suffered on the charge of Judaism. It was so, if we do not reckon the more ordinary culprits, moral delinquents, sham-priests, roguish friars, and cheats under the garb of sanctity. The Inquisition, under the last monarchs of the House of Austria, seems to have taken it into its consideration, after the revolt of Portugal, to drive out as many clerks or laymen as they could find of Portuguese blood; and to be a Portuguese was with them much the same as to be a Jew. This is one of many proofs of what Wallis has noticed, that the institution was as much political as religious.

(106.) But Giraldo professes himself to stand *Southey's Vindiciæ, p. 419. Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, c. vii.

aghast in wondering admiration of the achievements of D' Arce Reynoso. They were something beyond common precedent, and therefore it is less wonderful if they so far exceed Llorente's estimate. This piece of biography is worth studying by all who wish to understand fully the genius of a model-Inquisitor: the little narrow stubborn pertinacity of purpose, the crooked industry, which thwarted all counsels of more enlightened policy, the sly deceitful secrecy and welldisciplined espionage, which stationed its detective police of informers in port and mart, in taverns and synagogues, by turns call forth the unbounded praises of his biographer. There is one incident of some interest to English history, which has hitherto escaped notice on this side the channel.

It is well known, indeed, that, towards the termination of his exile, our Charles II. was in Spain, and experienced more kindness from Don Lewis de Haro, than he could obtain from Cardinal Mazarine in France. But in those days, when Spain had suffered so severely in her ruinous war, it is not very wonderful, if there was some fear of provoking further hostilities from England, and all outward recognition of the royal rights of the house of Stewart was carefully avoided. It seems, however, that it had been more boldly proposed by some one to give the command of the Spanish fleet to James, Duke of York. Philip IV. had given his consent to it; and it was not altogether an inconsiderate step: for Rupert was ready to join him, and "old