must injure them. But few of these paintings are masterpieces, and they possess but little merit. These of San Pedro, of brighter colors, and preserved by their shaded position, are yet only tolerable, the best of them. But the astonishment one feels when contemplating them, arises from their number and size. The labor spent upon them must have been immense, and, doubtless, by the best artists the church could obtain.

From this inner chapel, a small red door communicated with the cloister. A grating, of a foot square, serves as a speaking communication. I advanced towards this door, and soon, the thumbing of a key within assured me that I had gained the object of my wish, and another moment, I entered the inner apartments of the cloister. The first court contains a small area of shrubbery; and a double corridor, with pillars and arches, surrounds each side of the spacious court. From the galleries are the entrances to the apartments of the friars. The first court communicates with a second; the second, with a third; a third, with a fourth, and the corridors above lead into these, by one continuous range of galleries, along the inner courts of the buildings. I roamed through this massive pile-thought of the days that were, when life, and stir, and numbers, filled and traversed these passages, galleries, and dormitories, and lounged about the founts and gardens, and when the flowers bloomed fresher, and the shrubs looked greener, but where solitude, and decay, and dust, and silence now seemed to reign, save, every now and then, I heard the tones of the organ still come, as if the sound lived and yet lived not, from the distant church of the cloister, telling me that I was wandering within the enclosures of a holy order. And his imagination, who has indulged his young days in the perusal of romance of the olden times and countries, needs not the assistance of creative powers, to call up visions from the

shades of the past; they come unbidden; they entrance, as the mind muses almost to the losing the recollection of its own identity, until the echo of his own step recalls him to a renewed consciousness of the locality where he is moving, and that he is not of the place, or of the number of the premises, along whose secluded enclosures he is ranging.

THE INQUISITION.

There was another pile of building which I visited, at a later hour of the day. Once, its name carried terror and submission, in its enunciation. "LA INQUISICIO !" what emotions-what fears-what suppressed agitations and sorrows, has that sound awakened. The remains of the Inquisition occupy the third square, in the rear of the cathedral. It is now devoted to various purposes. Its cells hold the culprits of the state, and its judgment hall, or reception chamber, having the appearance of a small chapel, is converted into a house of trade. We were politely conducted through the building. The grated door being opened, we entered the apartment of the cells, which are so constructed, that no two doors open into the same passage. They are dark, ten or twelve feet square, and so arranged as to fill up a quadrangle; the different passages among the cells, intersecting each other at right angles, and corresponding in their distances to the width of the cells. As the grated door closed upon us, after we had been admitted into the rectangle of the cells, the cominon felons, frightful enough in their appearance, while we were unarmed, crowded toward us, but soon opened a way, in the narrow passage. In a moment, several voices were heard crying out, "Samuel !" "Samuel!” and soon a tall and good looking mulatto man came up to me, and said, in a respectful tone and with an American accent, "They are confining me here, sir, for no crime, and to

morrow, they are going to send me away, somewhere, with many others."

"Indeed," I replied, "and where are you from-your name-and why here?"

"The Consul will take care of all that," said my companion, before the answer came, who seemed to be catching the apprehensions which the olden associations of the place might justly awaken, in connection with the scene before us almost in keeping with those olden associations.

"The Consul will know nothing about it," continued the man in a submissive accent, "for they take us to-morrow, early."

I felt at the moment that there might be some delicacy in holding the parley with the prisoner, as his associates in confinement were gathered around us; and my attention being called to some other object, I passed on, excusing myself with the purpose of mentioning the man's case to the Consul, whom I expected to see during the day.

Several niches in one of the principal rooms, discolored with smoke, were pointed out to us as the spots of former fixtures, where the victims of the institution suffered their tortures. I did not entertain the idea. I entered one dungeon, however, beneath the elevated platform in the judgment hall, which was dark, the floor flagged, and no light penetrated the solitary and silent apartment. It was entered by a descent of several stone steps deep, and by something of a trap-door, and presented a fit place of solitary confinement, for inspiring alarm and terror. Was it the first quarters awarded to the unfortunate, on whom suspicion had fallen or on whom extortion was to be practiced?

I would not wish to awaken unnecessary suspicion in the minds of my countrymen, in connection with the Roman Catholic system of religion; nor would I willingly hurt the feelings of any one connected with that persuasion, or shock

the taste of any reader by the introduction of extravagant narratives, that lie in the scenes of the past. But I have seen enough in foreign countries to assure me that the Romish system there, is different from the practices of the Roman Catholic church in the United States. And yet I have seen enough of this system in the United States to assure me that the tendencies of the system of that church, everywhere, is to illiberality-exclusiveness-superstition-ignorancefolly. It is Protestantism that makes the Catholic church of the United States, which yet adheres to the Hierarchy of Rome, different from the Romish church itself. If the Roman Catholic church had the majority in this country, and its religion prevailed as universally among the people of the United States as it does in some other countries, most assuredly do I believe that the same illiberality, exclusiveness, superstition, ceremony, and corruption, would also co-exist with that institution; and the consequents upon their existence be prevalent to the experience, and as observable to the eye of the Protestant traveller from other lands to the United States, as now greet the eye of the American in Spain and the governments founded by her people. But these can never all exist in our country while the Constitution of the United States remains unaltered. The rights of conscience, religious worship, speech, and action, are secured to all who dwell beneath its protection and awards of equal rights. The Inquisition can never be established in this country. Nor ever, again, can it be established in our world. And there is too much of the habit of common sense thinking—thinking for one's self-to allow of many of the ridiculous customs connected with the Romish system ever being permanently established among us, however popular the leaning towards some of them may be, in some departments of the church. The Catholic priest would be laughed at as puerile-pitied as ignorant-frowned on as presumptuous-who should attempt

to establish many of the customs peculiar to the Romish church as seen, and which are common, abroad. There is too much that is directly in the face of common sense and true philosophy-which is but the application of common sense views to things, matter, and mind—to allow of the consummation of that combination of circumstances which shall perpetuate the Roman Catholic system as it has existed, and as it still exists, to such an extent in foreign countries as to form a matter of boast; and with their polemics, to be used as an argument for its divine authority and truthfulness, because, forsooth, it is so prevalent. And so is monarchy alike prevalent. Is therefore republicanism but a lie-a schism-and a heresy against the only legitimate and divinely constituted government, because monarchy is antique and prevalent? The world is on its advance. The sciences, natural and mental, are making developments, in matter and mind, which must dissipate, in the long course but ever onward improvement before the race, the shades of error in all departments -systems of thought, action, government, and religion—or if not ultimately dissipate all, will continue to dissipate the fallacies of the past, and forbid their re-enactment and continuance.

But I shall, perhaps, not be deemed to be very appropriate in these reflections, when I state that they have been originated by the purpose I have, of introducing, in connection with the description I have given of the buildings of the Inquisition formerly existing at Lima, an account of the destruction of the same institution at Madrid.

The sketch which I introduce here is given by Col. Lemanowski, an eye-witness and actor in the scene which he describes, and who was then an officer under Napoleon.

"In the year 1809, being at Madrid, my attention was directed to the Roman Catholic Inquisition in the neighborhood of that city. Napoleon had previously issued a decree