ed instrument of human freedom into
one which might serve to perpetuate that system of passive obedience
which had so long enabled modern Rome to dictate her laws to the
universe. It was thought possible in the subtlety of Italian _astuzia_
and Spanish monachism, to place a sentinel on the very thoughts as well
as on the persons of authors; and in extreme cases, that books might be
condemned to the flames as well as heretics.

Of this institution, the beginnings are obscure, for it originated in
caution and fear; but as the work betrays the workman, and the national
physiognomy the native, it is evident that so inquisitorial an act could
only have originated in the Inquisition itself. Feeble or partial
attempts might previously have existed, for we learn that the monks had
a part of their libraries called the _inferno_, which was not the part
which they least visited, for it contained, or hid, all the prohibited
books which they could smuggle into it. But this inquisitorial power
assumed its most formidable shape in the council of Trent, when some
gloomy spirits from Rome and Madrid foresaw the revolution of this new
age of books. The triple-crowned pontiff had in vain rolled the thunders
of the Vatican, to strike out of the hands of all men the volumes of
Wickliffe, of Huss, and of Luther, and even menaced their eager readers
with death. At this council Pius IV. was presented with a catalogue of
books of which they denounced that the perusal ought to be forbidden;
his bull not only confirmed this list of the condemned, but added rules
how books should be judged. Subsequent popes enlarged these catalogues,
and added to the rules, as the monstrous novelties started up.
Inquisitors of books were appointed; at Rome they consisted of certain
cardinals and "the master of the holy palace;" and literary inquisitors
were elected at Madrid, at Lisbon, at Naples, and for the Low Countries;
they were watching the ubiquity of the human mind. These catalogues of
prohibited books were called _Indexes_; and at Rome a body of these
literary despots are still called "the Congregation of the Index." The
simple _Index_ is a list of condemned books which are never to be
opened; but the _Expurgatory Index_ indicates those only prohibited till
they have undergone a purification. No book was allowed to be on any
subject, or in any language, which contained a single position, an
ambiguous sentence, even a word, which, in the most distant sense,