their own destruction and the scandal of the faithful. To guard therefore against the recurrence of such disasters, in spite of the manifest variation in the apostolic councils, which is awkwardly palliated, by this constitution he solemnly revokes all his former licences, forbidding the perusal of heresy under penalties, both spiritual and temporal *. The date is, Romæ, Dec. 21, 1558. The reader will recollect, and compare with it, the Index of this same pope, of which an account has just been given, and will compare dates. But the meridians of Spain and Italy might each require its own peculiar treatment.

Llorente has given a long account of this Index; and instances several unjust proscriptions of orthodox books, concluding with a more edifying legend than usual of Saint Theresa, that when she complained of such prohibitions, the Lord said to her, Disturb not thyself, I will give thee the book of life †.'

Of these licences the reader will find a specimen under the account of the Spanish Index of 1612, when they were again withdrawn.

† Pp. 472-5. A work of authority was printed in 1554 with this title -Censura Generalis contra errores quibus recentes hæretici sacram scripturam asperserunt, edita a supremo Senatu Inquisitionis adversus hæreticam pravitatem et apostasiam in Hispania, et aliis regnis, et. dominiis Cæsareæ Majestati constituto. Pinciæ. Ex officina Francis. Ferdinan. Corduben. cum privilegio Imperiali. 4to. The date in the introductory pieces is 1554. It is preceded by a decree of Ferdinand de VALDES, Inquisitor-General,

alleging the corruptions of Scripture by notes and indexes of heretics; directing the obliteration of objected portions by public authorities specified; and denouncing excommunication against the disobedient. Dated Valladolid, Aug. 20, 1554. A Preface follows, of the common plausible arguments, easily manufactured'; then a list of condemned editions of scripture; and then a collection of presumed heretical doctrines in the indexes, notes, contents, &c. with an intended confutation of each. Biblia is, in this work, used as a singular of the first declension. A second edition was published with the title altered thus after Inquisitionis,—constituto adversus hæreticam pravitatem, et apostasiam in Hispania, et aliis regnis, et dominiis Cæsareæ Majestati subjectis. Venetiis, Ex officina Jordani Zileti. M.D.LXII., 4to. It is mortifying, and yet not unmixed with gratification, to observe, what difficulty and contrivances the literary purifiers of papal corruption about this time were reduced to, in order to apply the requisite remedy to the prevailing malady. He who was afterwards Pius V., when he held the office of Inquisitor of Como, (and a most diligent one he was,) ferreted out a cargo of twelve bales of heretical books sent from the Valteline to his station, for the purpose of distributing in the larger towns of Lombardy, Romana, and Calabria. He detained them at the holy office: but the vicar and chapter of the place espoused the cause of the merchant to whom they were consigned; and the poor Inquisitor was obliged to give them up, and escaped the resentment of the injured party with some difficulty, but, his biographer states, with honour. Ant. FUENMAYOR, Vida de Pro V., foll. 8, 9. Another anecdote of a similar character is given by another biographer of the same Inquisitor, before he was Pope. When stationed at Bergamo, the priest there, depraved by the reading of heretical books, had filled two chests with this forbidden ware, and concealed them to obtain an opportunity for distribution; upon which an inquisitorial reflexion is duly made. GABUTII de Reb. et Gest. Pi. V. p. 12. Rom. 1605. The date of this affair, and therefore of the preceding, is given as about 1551. There is another curious anecdote to the same effect in Aymon's Synodes Nationaux, &c., in the Collection of Letters from the Nuncio of Pius IV. at Paris, tom. i. pp. 111, 2. 'Monsieur de Bourbon, Lieutenant of his most Christian Majesty, told me,' says the writer,' yesterday, that two days ago he had taken a vessel, where he found, in wine casks, a great quantity of books, sent from Geneva, of the most distressing character that can be conceived, and had destined them to the flames.'-Dove in Botte di Vino, era un gran numero di Libri, man

dati da quelli di Geneva, li piu tristi del mondo, gli quali ha fatto pigliar, per farli brussare, se cossi sara il buon piacere della Regina. This letter, which has no date, is placed between two, the dates of which require that this should be dated in the latter part of March, 1562. Chronology has induced me to place these anecdotes here. Geneva has the same credit from another writer, the historian of the society of Jesus, Sacchino, who, under the year 1562, lib. vi., sect. 44, &c. relates, that that heretical city introduced into Lyons vim infinitam librorum pestiferorum, which was intended, not only for France, but for Constantinople and the East; but that the zealous and active Possevinus procured, ut pestilentium illa farrago voluminum flammis aboliretur.

CHAPTER III.

Council of Trent-ROMAN Index of Pius IV., 1564-Rules of the IndexBELGIC Indexes from 1568 to 1570-Expurgatory Index of 1571, with Reprints, by Junius 1586, by Pappus 1599, 1609, 1611-PORTUGUEZE Indexes, Latin and Portugueze, 1581-SPANISH Index 1583, Expurgatory 1584, the latter reprinted thrice, wholly or in part, 1601, 1609, 1611 -NEAPOLITAN Index, Greg. Capuccini, 1588-ROMAN Index of Sixtus V., 1590-Of Clemens VIII., 1596-EXPURGATORY Index of Brasichellen, 1607, &c.-Zobelius on that Index-Counterfeit edition of it.

THE æra, perhaps, of greatest importance in this inquiry is now arrived, when a Council, assuming to be general, and certainly very extended, considered it as an object of main importance to determine upon a list of prohibited books more correct than any which had preceded; and which being accomplished, although not until after the termination of the Council, went forth into the world with the express sanction of the Roman Pontiff. But some of the circumstances preparatory to this achievement, particularly the discussions by which it was preceded, are so illustrative of the Roman policy, and introduce the spectator so familiarly behind the scene of the exhibition to the motives and management which eminently characterize the proceedings of all papal assem

blies, that some detail on the subject, as given by the most enlightened historian of the last General Council, will, it is presumed, rather gratify than fatigue the reader. It was in the seventeenth session of the Council, and the first under Pius IV., in the year 1562, that the prohibition of books came under its deliberate review. Two archbishops, Beccatelli and Selvaggio, deprecated the discussion of the subject, as calculated to impede the principal object of the council: since, Paul IV. having, with the counsel and assistance of all the inquisitors and many eminent men, formed a most complete catalogue, nothing could be added but books edited within the two years which had elapsed since its publication *—an act, undeserving of the labour of the synod. To reverse any condemnation in that Index would be to reflect imprudence on Rome; and while the decree detracted from the reputation of that work it would injure its own-new laws always degrading themselves more than the old ones. In the redundance of books since the invention of printing, it were better that a thousand innocent ones

* It may be desirable to adduce the original, as the estimation in which the Roman Index of 1559 was held by the best judges at the time, is ascertained by the passage. Poiche, havendo Paolo quarto, con conseglio di tutti gl' Inquisitori, e di molti principali, da' quali hebbe avisi da tutte le parti, fatto un catalogo compitissimo, non vi puo esser' altro d' aggiongervi, &c. Lib. vi.