The Court of Rome is ever fertile in expedients, especially when the object is to start difficulties and suggest obstacles to any design. The investigation of Palafox’s pretensions was studiously protracted; and it was easy to perceive that the influence of the Jesuits in the Sacred College was exerted to throw new impediments in the way of their adversary’s canonization. Though the Court of Rome could never seriously have thought of giving Brother Sebastian a place in the Rubric, they amused Charles III. by very long discussions on his merits, and went through, with scrupulous minuteness, all the previous ceremonies for ascertaining the conduct of a saint. It is a maxim, that the original of every writing of a person claiming to be made a saint, must be examined at Rome by the Sacred College, and that no copy, however attested, can be admitted as sufficient testimony, if the original document is in existence. The book, therefore, to which the Spanish Monarch was so attached, was required at Rome. Here was an abundant source of negotiation and delay. Charles could not bring himself to part with his treasure, and the forms of canonization precluded the College from proceeding without it. At length, the King, from his honest and disinterested zeal for the friar, was prevailed upon. But Azara was instructed to have the College summoned, and the Cardinals ready, on the day and even the hour at which it was calculated that the most expeditious courier could convey the precious book from Madrid to Rome. Relays were provided on the road, and Charles III. himself deposited the precious manuscript in the hands of his most trusty messenger, with long and anxious injunctions to preserve it most religiously, and not to lose a moment in sallying forth from Rome on his return, when the interesting contents of the volume should have been perused. The interim was to Charles III. a “phantasma, or a hideous dream.” He never slept, and scarcely took any nourishment during the few days he was separated from the beloved paper. His domestic economy, and the regulation of his hours, which neither public business nor private affliction in any other instance disturbed, was altered; and the chase, which was not interrupted even by the illness and death of his children, was suspended till Brother Sebastian’s original MS. could again accompany him to the field. He stood at the window of his palace counting the drops of rain on the glasses, and sighing deeply. Business, pleasure, conversation, and meals, were suspended, till the long-expected treasure returned, and restored the monarch to his usual avocations.