[54] The beautiful lines of Virgil, so often misapplied,
"Jam redit et Virgo; redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies," etc.
seem to admit here of a pertinent application.
[55] Carro de las Doñas, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 21.—As one example of the moral discipline introduced by Isabella in her court, we may cite the enactments against gaming, which had been carried to great excess under the preceding reigns. (See Ordenanças Reales, lib. 2, tit. 14, ley 31; lib. 8, tit. 10, ley 7.) L. Marineo, according to whom "hell is full of gamblers," highly commends the sovereigns for their efforts to discountenance this vice. Cosas Memorables, fol. 165.
[56] See, for example, the splendid ceremony of Prince John's baptism, to which the gossipping Curate of Los Palacios devotes the 32d and 33d chapters of his History.
CHAPTER VII.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MODERN INQUISITION.
Origin of the Ancient Inquisition.—Retrospective View of the Jews in
Spain.—Their Wealth and Civilization.—Bigotry of the Age.—Its Influence
on Isabella.—Her Confessor, Torquemada.—Bull authorizing the
Inquisition.—Tribunal at Seville.—Forms of Trial.—Torture.—Autos da
Fe.—Number of Convictions.—Perfidious Policy of Rome.
It is painful, after having dwelt so long on the important benefits resulting to Castile from the comprehensive policy of Isabella, to be compelled to turn to the darker side of the picture, and to exhibit her as accommodating herself to the illiberal spirit of the age in which she lived so far as to sanction one of the grossest abuses that ever disgraced humanity. The present chapter will be devoted to the establishment and early progress of the modern Inquisition; an institution, which has probably contributed more than any other cause to depress the lofty character of the ancient Spaniard, and which has thrown the gloom of fanaticism over those lovely regions which seem to be the natural abode of festivity and pleasure.
In the present liberal state of knowledge, we look with disgust at the pretensions of any human being, however exalted, to invade the sacred rights of conscience, inalienably possessed by every man. We feel that the spiritual concerns of an individual may be safely left to himself as most interested in them, except so far as they can be affected by argument or friendly monition; that the idea of compelling belief in particular doctrines is a solecism, as absurd as wicked; and, so far from condemning to the stake, or the gibbet, men who pertinaciously adhere to their conscientious opinions in contempt of personal interests and in the face of danger, we should rather feel disposed to imitate the spirit of antiquity in raising altars and statues to their memory, as having displayed the highest efforts of human virtue. But, although these truths are now so obvious as rather to deserve the name of truisms, the world has been slow, very slow, in arriving at them, after many centuries of unspeakable oppression and misery.