heir
interest to keep brutalized; and the religious sentiment of the nation,
so far as there was any. But this last was a very uncertain reliance,
for the same law which makes heresy a crime, legalizes hypocrisy, and
the inquisitor cared very little for the thoughts of men so long as
they remain unuttered; and as no two men think alike, the crime of
heresy appears to consist in expressing too frankly the logical
deductions of the understanding upon the all-important subject of
religion. To speak disrespectfully of the holy office, the Inquisition,
was the worst of heresy.

THE HALLS OF THE INQUISITION.

The north front of the Plazuelo of the Inquisition, now generally
called the Plaza of the Dominicans, is occupied by the great yard of
the Dominican convent, which is separated by a high wall from the
Plaza, and by a street from the buildings of the Inquisition. Within
this yard there is a large flagstone, with a hole in its centre, which
stone, on days of the _auto da fe_, used to be brought out into the
Plaza, and, with iron post, neck-ring, and chain attached, constituted
the simple apparatus for the human sacrifice. The Dominican fathers
have carefully laid aside the iron post, with its ring and chain, and
perhaps, with them, the most valuable of the instruments of torture,
which were removed from the Inquisition building. As there are two
classes of bull-fights, the ordinary and the grand bull-fight, so there
was the ordinary _auto da fe_, performed in this Little Plaza, and the
grand act of faith, _auto da fe general_, which ordinarily ought to
come off in the Grand Plaza of the city, in front of the vice-regal
palace.

Seeing the great door open as I was passing, I ventured to enter the
central court of the Inquisition, from which the halls of the different
tribunals and the chambers of the inquisitors and officials were
entered and lighted. All had now been thoroughly whitewashed and
renovated, and bore no marks of the fearful scenes that had been here
enacted. When I stood in the hall where its judgments used to be
delivered, I had to tax my memory of books to draw a picture of events
that here daily transpired in times past. I saw no Bridge of Sighs, yet
the whole institution was founded upon the sighs, and groans, and riven
hearts of its victims, of many of whom the world was not worthy. The
rich were the most profitable game, but a beautiful woman was the most
acceptable spectacle to a populace debased