From Notes and Queries.

THE INQUISITION.

then leaving the apartment in disgust; and finally, that when the inmates had been removed, Col. De Lisle went to Madrid, obtained gunpowder, placed it in the vaults of the building, and lighting a slow match, made a joyful sight to thousands of spectators. "The walls and massive turrets of that dark edifice were lifted towards the heavens, and the Inquisition of Madrid was no more."

THE Inquisition in all its proceedings, exept those by which it celebrated its triumphs n the public autos, has ever shrouded itself in mysterious secrecy. In the want of correct intelligence relating to it, many groundless and improbable stories have found a ready reception with uninformed persons, if only related with Now this attractive and romantic narrative a show of authority, how unsubstantial soever of vindicated liberty, justice, and charity, the truth of them may prove to be. That must take its place among other unsubstantial some respectable writers have lent their pens and amusing fictions. The story, as far as I to the circulation of such mistakes, and in have been able to trace it, originates in a rela some degree mischievous accounts, shows a tion said to have been made by Col. Lemanwant of care to verify the facts they narrate to ousky whilst in the United States of America, their readers, or reflects more seriously upon to a Mr. Killog of Illinois, who published it in their zeal, too eager in its conflict with error the Western Luminary. A refugee Pole, and to pause a moment to consider, whether their a backstates newspaper!

erroneous statements may not injure the truth It is copied with more or less detail into it is generally intended to support. Not a lit- various publications, which in this manner add tle currency has thus been given to a story a sanction of their own to its pretended auabout the destruction of the palace of the In-thenticity. Not to mention various recent quisition of Madrid, which, as it will appear, periodicals and newspapers, it appears in The must be classed with childish legend or Ger

man romance.

pp. 209--14: after giving the story at length, with some coloring, the writer adds, that "the Holy Catholic Church in this, as in other things, was grossly misrepresented:" a remark perhaps ingeniously introduced to cast a doubt upon all the circumstances in the volume, true as well as untrue; thus to render error and truth undistinguishable :-The Curse of Chris tendom, or the Spirit of Poetry Exhibited and Exposed, by the Rev. J. B. Pike, 1852, 8vo., at pp. 261–264.

Mystery Unveiled, or Popery as its Dogmas and Pretensions appear in the Light of Reason, the It is in substance as follows:-That when Bible, and History, by the Rev. James Bell, Napoleon Bonaparte penetrated into Spain in Edinburgh, 1834, at p. 424., quoting from the 1809, he ordered the buildings of the Inquisi- Christian Treasury, a Scotch periodical:tion to be destroyed; that Col. Lemanousky, Ferreal (M. de V.), Mysteres de l'Inquisition of the Polish lancers, being at Madrid, remind- et autres Sociétés secrétes d'Espange, avec notes ed Marshal Soult of this order, and obtained historiques, et une introduction de M. Manuel from him the 117th regiment, commanded by de Cuendias, Paris 1845, 8vo., at pp. 79 Col. De Lisle, for its execution; that the build- 84:-The Inquisition, etc., Dublin, 1850, at ing, situated a short distance from Madrid, was in point of strength a fortress of itself, garrisoned by soldiers of the Holy Office, who being quickly overpowered, and the place taken, the Inquisitor General, with a number of priests in their official robes, were made prisoners. That they found the apartments splendidly furnished with altars, crucifixes, and candles in abundance; but could find no places of torture, dungeons, or prisoners, until Col. De Lisle thought of testing the floor by floating it with water, when a seam was thus discovered It is strange that such respectable writers through which it escaped below; and the mar- never thought of consulting the current histoble slab being struck by the butt end of a ries of the Peninsular war, or the leading musket, a spring raised it up, and revealed a newspapers of the time- The Courier and staircase leading down to the Hall of Judg- Morning Chronicle-which could scarcely have ment below. That there they found cells for passed so public an event by without recording prisoners, some empty, some tenanted by liv- it; and that they did not mistrust the tale from ing victims, some by corpses in a state of de- the silence of Llorente and Puigblanch, who cay, and some with life but lately departed would certainly have mentioned it; for neither from them; that the living prisoners being the ex-secretary of the tribunal, nor Sn. Puig naked, were partially clothed by the French blanch, who first published his Inquisicion sin soldiers and liberated, amounting to one hun- Mascàra at Cadiz in 1811, and occupied the dred in number. That they found there all Hebrew Professor's chair in the central uni kinds of instruments of torture, which so ex-versity of Madrid in 1820-1, could have reasperated the French, that they could not be mained ignorant of such a consummating ci restrained from exercising them upon the cap- cumstance. Neglecting the pains to verify the tive inquisitors; Col. De Lisle standing by fact, they have left it in their pages; a strikwhilst four different kinds were applied, and ing instance for an intelligent opponent to