The thirteenth chapter speaks of the antient commerce of India, but flies back frequently to the topic of the preceding section. The observation occurs that the silk-worms of India feed on other plants besides the mulberry.

Chapter XIV. gives a general summary of the preceding matter, and forms a short but elegant peroration to the work. An appendix of quotations too long for insertion in the text, or in the notes, terminates the volume: one of the most curious is a letter from M. Delambre on the Hindu astronomy, which is given in the original French.

ART. VII. The Inquisition Unmasked: being an Historical and Philosophical Account of that tremendous Tribunal, founded on authentic Documents; and exhibiting the Necessity of its Suppression, as a Means of Reform and Regeneration. Written and published at a Time when the National Congress of Spain was about to deliberate on this important Measure, by D. Antonio Puigblanch. Translated from the Author's enlarged Copy, by William Walton, Esq. 2 Vols. 8vo. Il. 10s. Boards. Baldwin and Co.

A

FEW years ago, we hoped to have congratulated ourselves and our contemporaries that we had lived to behold the death and sepulture of that diabolic ordeal, which, under the gentler title of "The Inquisition," has uniformly tampered with the lives and liberties of millions of the human race. The march of Jesuitism, that fruitful parent of all evil, seemed at last to have had its day: the authority of papal Rome was becoming every hour more feeble and indistinct; and the whole offspring of her prolific womb seemed destined to fall by the same sword which consigned the mother to her grave. In short, we were looking, with pleasing expectation, for the full accomplishment of the mystic vision of the Apocalypse, which represents "the great city of Babylon cast as a millstone into the sea, and the voice of harpers and musicians heard no more in her; for that by her sorceries were all nations deceived, and in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." The dream, however, was as short-lived as it was pleasing, and the restoration of the "legitimate" monarch to the throne of Spain seemed to tell us that to other and mightier hands, if not to a distant age, was reserved the happiness of witnessing the overthrow of that odious system which seeks to uphold religion by intolerance and tyranny, and bathes her altars in the blood of innocence. Once more, however, the

conduct

conduct of Spain bids us renew the sigh for what is past, and the hope for what is to come.

It was at that critical moment, when the newly assembled Cortes were about to deliberate respecting the future suppression or the continuance of this tribunal, that Don Antonio Of the author Puigblanch issued the publication before us. we are told but little either by himself or his translator: but, considering his present endeavours to expose the horrors of gross oppression as the well timed exertions of a zealous friend of humanity, we receive them with sentiments correspondent to our sympathy in the cause which they defend; and, led by the now passing events to turn our attention to his volumes, perhaps we may trust that his arguments, and his the efforts, may still have had some of that success among higher powers of his country, to which the truth of the one and the strenuousness of the other justly intitle them. The work is appropriately introduced by a set of Preliminary Remarks' from the pen of the translator; in which, with much discernment and felicity of expression, he sets forth the causes that contributed to sink the Spanish monarchy to her humble level in the scale of nations, and silently engendered that habitual inactivity and general depression, which, paralyzing every generous feeling of the people, threatened at one moment to give them up a prey to the invasion of foreign arms, and then again laid them prostrate beneath the iron rod of a domestic oppressor. Speaking of the general state of national feeling at the commencement of the French invasion, Mr. Walton observes:

Charles IV., a weak and inactive prince, had then governed about eighteen years; but, subservient to an intriguing and dissipated wife, and guided only by a corrupt and ambitious minister, his reign had been distinguished by no act that could endear his name to posterity, or tend to solace the reverses of fortune which awaited him. On ascending the throne, he found that despotic and illiberal system in force which had gradually extinguished the martial spirit of the nation, overturned the free principles and constitutional charters possessed by most of the provinces prior to the reign of Philip II., and broken down the bulwarks of civil freedom, so long the peculiar boast of Aragon and Navarre. Unaware of that evident truth, that the safeguard of a monarch's throne is founded on the love he inspires and the good he has power on the done, the preceding rulers of Spain had erected their ignorance of their subjects and the degradation of the human mind; and Charles, devoid of sufficient energy or discernment to deviate from the footsteps of his ancestors, was seemingly fearful of placing his kingdom on a level with those which had profited by the improvements of the age. Acting in the fullest sense on

the

the principle that sovereignty is of divine institution, and that the people possess no rights, the cultivation of those arts which embellish, ennoble, and preserve human life had been prevented; the enjoyment of those studies which enlarge the faculties, assuage the fiercer passions, and soften the manners of a nation, had been proscribed; till, at last, absurd prejudices, taught in the schools, and preached from the pulpit, had led the mass of the people to be lieve that civil liberty, instead of a blessing, was a curse; and that to pronounce its name was a crime punishable with the severest anger of Heaven.

The remembrance of the proud days of Spain seemed obliterated, enterprize and martial glory had lost their attractions, -the possession of the new world had introduced effeminacy; riches, acquired without toil and divided only among a few persons, had engendered habits of luxury and corruption, whilst it appeared to be the chief aim of the court and nobility to forget the exalted and dignified character formerly attached to the Spanish name, and to cause the nation to assume no other than the supple and frivolous refinements of Italian manners introduced by the queen. Hence the arts and sciences, which had made so rapid a progress in other parts of Europe, were stationary in Spain, or only pursued in the greatest seclusion; nor were any other improvements attempted than those which the caprice or passions of a profligate minister thought proper to dictate. Thus, whilst the retainers of the crown wallowed in riches, their tenants and all the lower orders were depressed by indigence, and debased by a total want of instruction; nor did the scanty produce of their labours seem their own, it served rather to feed the pampered appetites of their lords, or to be absorbed in the monastic burdens of the state. The public revenues, destined for the defence or melioration of the country, were spent in ostentatious magnificence; often wrested from a wretched peasantry or the shackled and unprotected merchant, they were lavished by the hand of fanatical zeal, or appropriated to support the luxury of men in power. A handful of privileged nobles and favourites were every thing, and the people nothing. Consideration, power, with enjoyments of every kind, fell to the lot of the former, whilst the latter had to endure hardships, contumely, and servile obedience, without being allowed to remonstrate. Neither talents, courage, nor virtue, could fill up the immense distance placed between the only two existing classes of the community.

Religion itself had been made subservient to political purposes and base and selfish interests, or was only known by the increasing profligacy of its ministers. The legislative, executive, and judiciary powers were held by the same hand, the administration of justice confided to venal minions, the judges, under regal or ministerial influence and open to corruption, were no longer the protectors of right and innocence against unfeeling and unprincipled power; whilst a systematic plan of superstition and pious fraud had poisoned all the sources of religious truth and morality, and tainted the general mass of society with licentiousness and vice. The preposterous union of civil with ecclesiastical

authority

authority had armed the ministers of the altar with weapons of vengeance, and empowered them to enforce their precepts by appealing to a penal code the most monstrous and cruel that was ever invented. In brief, bent down by a long series of tyrannic acts, even at the beginning of the present century, Spaniards ap peared as a herd of cattle, formed only to comply with the caprices of their masters, and to supply their wants.'

From this melancholy picture of the abject degradation of the country, is inferred the necessity which existed at that critical juncture for re-assembling the Cortes as the only legal form of government adequate to the existing emergency, and capable of giving that union and energy necessary to the health of the body politic, and of introducing a reform such as the country required.' To the propriety of re-assembling the antient representative body of the nation, as one introductory step to an effectual reformation of the country, we entirely assent: but with regard to its adequacy to heal the existing diseases of the body politic without the united aid of various other co-operative instruments, we confess that our doubts prevail over our belief. Such a measure might certainly have in time introduced a more liberal spirit of inquiry, have engendered a more general appreciation of popular rights, and have gradually opened the eyes of the nation to at least a partial view of the horrors which they had so long and so contentedly endured: but the root of the disease, we imagine, was too deeply fixed to be accessible by this instrument alone. Unless the seeds of the antient superstition, which had spread its venom so widely through the vitals of the nation, could be exterminated, every remedy, we apprehend, must prove languid in its operation and partial in its effects: the old connection with the great parent of religious intolerance and arbitrary power must continue unbroken; and thus, while a few more enlightened individuals might adequately sympathize in their country's wrongs, and be ready to take arms in her defence, the great body of the people would remain victims to the inveteracy of their own prejudices on the one hand, and to the delusions of a bigoted priesthood on the other. Anxiously we now again turn our! eyes to the renewed efforts of ill-fated Iberia.

Having dismissed this part of his subject, the translator proceeds to anticipate the quantum of sympathetic interest with which the British public will receive the record of a nation's sufferings, for whom we once felt so ardent and enthusiastic an attachment, and in whose cause some of our noblest blood was spilt and our brightest laurels gathered.

If such, then, is the situation of Spain, and if the chief coadjutor of this fresh degradation has been the restored Inquisition, the British public must not only feel sympathy for its victims, but an anxious wish must also prevail to know the nature and tendency of that tribunal from an authentic source. England, only a few years ago, glowed with enthusiastic ardour at the sight of a whole people rising in arms to repel an invader, and intent on improving the favourable circumstances in which they were placed, by securing to themselves internal reform. In joining the struggle, Britons also hoped that the intercourse and friendship which followed would hereafter be favourable to liberality and freedom, and that, at least, cordial gratitude would be the result of the many sacrifices they had hastened to make. If, however, the antecedent documents are attentively noticed, they will be found levelled with a view to efface every moral vestige of Britons from the soil of Iberia, and to excite virulent animosity against her liberators, by rousing and sanctioning popular prejudices of the most baneful and inhospitable kind. The main object of a glorious and necessary revolution is thence completely defeated, and regardless of those offices of national confidence which otherwise would have resulted, that country is now rendered impervious to the access of Britons which lately constituted the theatre of their martial glories; for what man could repose in quiet upon his pillow who has heard the inquisitorial edicts of 1815, and others which we have no room to insert, read from the pulpit, and knows their execution is confided to the numerous and mercenary spies with which every town and village is crowded ?'

In this estimation of British sympathy, perhaps Mr. W. reckons too warmly. Whatever indignation was at first excited by the frustration of our efforts for the emancipation of the Spanish people, we fear that those efforts were not so pure and disinterested as to render us still unwearied by the dangers of asserting the rights, and the fatigue of listening to the grievances, of others. Mr. W. seems to forget that exertions for the benefit of a neighbour, whether employed by nations or individuals, if received with coldness and repaid with ingratitude, are apt to generate a degree of listless despondency, in an inverse ratio to that enthusiastic ardour' in which they at first originated. The Inquisition, also, is an old and odious story. The time has elapsed in which the attraction of novelty would have lent its embellishment to the notes of woe; and, though the philanthropists of the age may be ready to catch at all that aims at the downfall of persecution, or holds out the most ideal prospect of the extinction of despotic sway, yet to many readers, we fear, the pages before us will betray the tedium of a twice-told tale. These, we readily admit, are disadvantages arising out of the nature of the subject, not deficiencies for which the author