y a very large portion of his
Netherland Subjects. From afar there rose upon the provinces the
prophetic vision of a coming evil still more terrible than any which had
yet oppressed them. As across the bright plains of Sicily, when the sun
is rising, the vast pyramidal shadow of Mount Etna is definitely and
visibly projected--the phantom of that ever-present enemy, which holds
fire and devastation in its bosom--so, in the morning hour of Philip's
reign, the shadow of the inquisition was cast from afar across those warm
and smiling provinces--a spectre menacing fiercer flames and wider
desolation than those which mere physical agencies could ever compass.

There has been a good deal of somewhat superfluous discussion concerning
the different kinds of inquisition. The distinction drawn between the
papal, the episcopal, and the Spanish inquisitions, did not, in the
sixteenth century, convince many unsophisticated minds of the merits of
the establishment in any of its shapes. However classified or entitled,
it was a machine for inquiring into a man's thoughts, and for burning him
if the result was not satisfactory.

The Spanish inquisition, strictly so called, that is to say, the modern
or later institution established by Pope Alexander the Sixth and
Ferdinand the Catholic, was doubtless invested with a more complete
apparatus for inflicting human misery, and for appalling human
imagination, than any of the other less artfully arranged inquisitions,
whether papal or episcopal. It had been originally devised for Jews or
Moors, whom the Christianity of the age did not regard as human beings,
but who could not be banished without depopulating certain districts. It
was soon, however, extended from pagans to heretics. The Dominican
Torquemada was the first Moloch to be placed upon this pedestal of blood
and fire, and from that day forward the "holy office" was almost
exclusively in the hands of that band of brothers. In the eighteen years
of Torquemada's administration; ten thousand two hundred and twenty
individuals were burned alive, and ninety-seven thousand three hundred
and twenty-one punished with infamy, confiscation of property, or
perpetual imprisonment, so that the total number of families destroyed by
this one friar alone amounted to one hundred and fourteen thousand four
hundred and one. In course of time the jurisdiction of the office was
extended. It taught the savages of India and America to shudder at the
name o