six cardinals commissioners of the Holy See and general inquisitors, with power to delegate their authority to any person they pleased. All ranks of citizens, without exception, were subjected to these inquisitors. Suspected persons were immediately imprisoned, the guilty punished with death, and their property confiscated. No book could be printed or sold (and such is still the case through nearly the whole of Italy) without the authority of the inquisitor. Hence a catalogue of prohibited books, the first issue of which, containing seventy works, appeared at Venice. In order that the tribunal might be made more efficient, Caraffa drew up, himself, the following stringent rules:— _First_, When faith is in question, there must be no delay; but, on the _slightest suspicion_, rigorous measures must be resorted to with all speed. “_Secondly_, No consideration is to be shewn to either prince or prelate, however high his station. “_Thirdly_, Extreme severity is to be exercised against all those who attempt to shield themselves under the protection of any potentate; and those only are to be treated with gentleness and fatherly compassion, who make a full and frank confession of the charges laid against them. “_Fourthly_, No man must _debase himself by shewing toleration_ towards heretics of any kind, and above all to Calvinists.”[55] This terrible tribunal, in the hands of the relentless and unforgiving Caraffa, spread desolation and dismay throughout Italy, from its very commencement. Thousands were arraigned before it, whose only crime consisted in becoming the unhappy victims of such as were actuated by the fell rage of revenge, or the thirst for power or wealth—in a word, by any or all of those foul passions which degrade and brutalise humanity. As sacerdotal ferocity then called to its aid the might of the secular arm, and thus became all-powerful, death assumed a new and more terrible aspect. And he who should invent new instruments of torture to dislocate the limbs of the victims with the most exquisite and excruciating pains possible would be rewarded!!! Throughout Italy, and in various parts of Europe, you might have seen, whilst the infernal flames of the pile were ascending, the sinister and diabolical smile of the Jesuits, who were aiming at the increase of their order, under the shade of this all-mastering power! But we must resume our history. The first college of the order was founded in Coimbra, in 1542, by John III. of Portugal. The same year twenty-five of his subjects were admitted into it under the superintendence of Rodriguez.