246 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 256. 



corrections, which seem to have been intended as 

 the basis of a new edition ? T. W. 



Halifax. 



[There was an 8vo. edition published by Cadell in 

 1812.] 



THE INQUISITION. 

 (Vol. X., pp. 122. 137.) 



Having been at Madrid in the October of 1820, 

 and visited the building of the Inquisition, I was 

 desirous to see if my own impressions agreed with 

 those in Mr. Wiffen's interesting communication ; 

 but as I had left my journal in Lincolnshire, it 

 was only a few days ago that I was able to refer 

 to it. The following is a short abstract of my 

 notes. 



On the right hand in the Calle de I'lnquisition 

 was a ruinous brick building, certainly not the 

 vast-looking, massive, or imposing structure that 

 romance readers would have pictured to them- 

 selves as the seat of the Inquisition. We were 

 told that the populace in the first fury of the late 

 revolution had gutted the interior, but our cu- 

 riosity would not be satisfied without a personal 

 inspection. We then found that the contracted 

 frontage gave an erroneous impression of the 

 size, for the building extended backwards to a 

 great length, and the passages and^vaults under- 

 ground also occupied considerable space. 



The subterraneous prisons were the first we 

 entered, small cells (on each side of a long pas- 

 sage) about six feet long, and barely high enough 

 to admit standing upright. The damp was hor- 

 rible. The people had turned up the floor in 

 every dungeon for the purpose, as alleged, of 

 seeing if any prisoners had been buried beneath. 

 There were other prisons less revolting, not being 

 so contracted, and receiving light through a 

 grating. The chamber of suspicion, i. e. for 

 persons only suspected, was on one side of an 

 interior court, and had a grated window high in 

 the wall. 



We were shown several chambers of torture, 

 each being adapted to some different device. They 

 were all underground, without light, and removed 

 as much as possible from human hearing. All the 

 instruments of torture were now, our guides said, 

 locked up in the upper rooms of the building. 

 They volunteered information of what had been, 

 which must be taken for what it may be worth. 

 In one chamber they pointed out the place where 

 an instrument had been fixed by which the 

 sufferer, being pinioned to the wall, underwent 

 the torture of water dropping slowly and regularly 

 on the head till he expired. Close by this had 

 been a machine worked by mechanism, where a 

 hammer repeated gentle blows on the temples till 



the same effect was produced. In another vault 

 a seat was placed between four stoves, to which, 

 the accused being fixed, underwent the punish- 

 ment of slow roasting. A niche in a third room 

 was asserted to be for the purpose of walling up 

 alive. In several chambers there were beams still 

 existing which the guides declared were used for 

 suspending the unfortunates by the arms or legs. 

 Lastly, we entered what was called the Campo 

 Santo, which was a vaulted room larger than the 

 rest, and used for the burial of the victims. We 

 were forced to creep into this place by a hole ia 

 the wall, for the narrow staircase which led dowa 

 into it had been closed by the order of govern- 

 ment. The ground here was turned up in every 

 direction in the search for bodies after the revo- 

 lution. In one of the most interior courts, about 

 ten feet square, into which no window opened, and 

 which at the depth of this lofty building looked 

 more like the bottom of a well, the prisoner 

 allowed to take the air was turned out to pace 

 round and round. We suspected great exag- 

 geration in what our guides said about the number 

 of inmates that had been released, and never ob- 

 tained any authentic information on this point. 



So far my notes assist me, and at this distance 

 of time I do not choose to add anything from 

 memory. The apartment named to us as the 

 Campo Santo, is corroborated as to its purpose by 

 the description of Mr. Wiffen's informant, who 

 visited it six months previous to us ; but the altar 

 in that time seems to have been removed. The 

 moist chalk he speaks of was probably the quick- 

 lime used at burials. The trap-door we were not 

 shown. MoNSow. 



Burton HaU, 



FRENCH LITERATURE. 



(Vol. ix., p. 320.) 



It has sometimes occasioned surprise that Cou- 

 sin should seem of late to have abandoned philo- 

 sophy, and to be devoting all his attention to the 

 literary history and religious biography of France 

 during the latter part of the seventeenth century. 

 The following extract from his new volume. La 

 Marquise de Sable, contains his reply to the public 

 expression of curiosity respecting the cause of this 

 new phase in his literary life, and will be read 

 with the highest interest : 



" D'austferes censeurs nous demanderont pent- Stre ponr- 

 quoi h notre age nous derobons h la philosophie le pen 

 d'heures qui nous restent et les perdons sur de pareils 

 travaux. Notre reponse sera bien simple : nous ne con- 

 siderons pas la litterature comme une chose frivole ; loin 

 de \h„ nous la croyons tout aussi serieuse que la philo- 

 sophie et presque aussi puissante sur le cceur et I'imagi- 

 nation que la religion elle-mcme. Helas! de nos jours, 

 quelle n'a pas ete I'influence d'une litterature depravee, 

 complaisante a la faiblesse et au vice ! N'avons nous pas 

 vu nagu^re, eu quelque sorte h, I'ordre du jour, dans lea 



