EVORA. 09 



pass on to what really was of very great interest, and 

 which is seldom shown to strangers, the large ' Flag of the 

 Holy Inquisition,' which was uncovered with peculiar care, 

 and unfolded and spread on the table for my inspection : 

 it is about twelve feet in length and eight in breadth, and 

 is composed of crimson silk of great richness and thick- 

 ness, and in the centre the arms of the Inquisition are 

 worked in gold, surrounded with the very expressive motto 

 ' Exsurge, Domine, causam Tuam judica.' This was evi- 

 dently regarded with great reverence as a memento of 

 days when the Church was all-powerful, and the sub- 

 librarian openly lamented that those days were gone by. 

 Doubtless that banner had witnessed many a cruel death, 

 and had floated over the procession at many an auto cle fe 

 but amidst the enormities of which the Holy Inquisition 

 was undoubtedly guilty, it was the cause of one glorious 

 effect, which remains to this day, that dissenters from the 

 Church have never gained a footing in either Spain or 

 Portugal ; so that, while I could scarcely repress a shudder 

 as I thouo'ht of the fearful tortures and the wretched vie- 

 tims of which it reminded me, and felt thankful that such 

 a tyrannical court of enquiry had never penetrated our 

 more favoured country, I could not but admire the una- 

 nimity in the faith to which in the Peninsula it has given 

 rise, an unanimity from which we at home are apparently 

 so distant ; but which, if only it could be attained, would 

 be the greatest blessing religion in England could know. 

 There is, moreover, this to be said with regard to the 

 Inquisition in the Peninsula, that though nothing can 

 excuse or palliate the injustice, the guilt, the cruelties, and 

 the judicial murders it caused, and the monstrous abuses 

 to which it gave rise, its original intention, however ill- 

 founded and unlikely to succeed, was merciful, as con- 

 ducive to the salvation of souls ; and as such, in an age of 

 bigotry was accepted and fostered by some of the most 



