ainst religious
error, and were not formally committed to death by burning. Gregory
himself, excelling all the priesthood in vigour and experience, had for
four years laboured, vaguely and in vain, with the transmitted
implements. Of a sudden, in three successive measures, he finds his way,
and builds up the institution which is to last for centuries. That this
mighty change in the conditions of religious thought and life and in the
functions of the order was suggested by Dominicans is probable. And it
is reasonable to suppose that it was the work of the foremost Dominican
then living, who at that very moment had risen to power and predominance
at Rome.

No sane observer will allow himself to overdraw the influence of
national character on events. Yet there was that in the energetic race
that dwell with the Pyrenees above them and the Ebro below that suited a
leading part in the business of organised persecution. They are among
the nations that have been inventors in politics, and both the
constitution of Arragon and that of the society of Jesus prove their
constructive science. While people in other lands were feeling their
way, doubtful and debonair, Arragon went straight to the end. Before the
first persecuting pope was elected, before the Child of Apulia, who was
to be the first persecuting emperor, was born, Alfonso proscribed the
heretics. King and clergy were in such accord that three years later the
council of Girona decreed that they might be beaten while they remained,
and should be burnt if they came back. It was under this government,
amid these surroundings, that Saint Dominic grew up, whom Sixtus V.,
speaking on authority which we do not possess, entitled the First
Inquisitor. Saint Raymond, who had more to do with it than Saint
Dominic, was his countryman. Eymerici, whose _Directorium_ was the best
authority until the _Practica_ of Guidonis appeared, presided during
forty years over the Arragonese tribunal; and his commentator Pegna, the
Coke upon Littleton of inquisitorial jurisprudence, came from the same
stern region.

The _Histoire Generale de Languedoc_ in its new shape has supplied Mr.
Lea with so good a basis that his obligations to the present editors
bring him into something like dependence on French scholarship. He
designates monarchs by the names they bear in France--Louis le
Germanique, Charles le Sage, Philippe le Bon, and even Philippe; and
this habit, with Foulques and Berenger of Tours,