The history of the transactions relative to the disputes on the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, even when confined to those which took place at Seville, could not be compressed within the limits of one of the preceding letters. Such readers, besides, as take little interest in subjects of this nature, would probably have objected to a detailed account of absurdities, which seem at first sight scarcely to deserve any notice. Yet there are others to whom nothing is without interest which depicts any peculiar state of the human mind, and exhibits some of the innumerable modifications of society. Out of deference, therefore, to the first, we have detached the following narrative from the text of Doblado’s Letters, casting the information we have collected from the Spanish writers into a note, the length of which will, we hope, be excused by those of the latter description. The dispute on the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin began between the Dominicans and Franciscans as early as the thirteenth century. The contending parties stood at first upon equal ground; but “the merits of faith and devotion” were so decidedly on the side of the Franciscans, that they soon had the Christian mob to support them, and it became dangerous for any Divine to assert that the _Mother of God_ (such is the established language of the Church of Rome) had been, like the rest of mankind, involved in original sin. The oracle of the Capitol allowed, however, the disputants to fight out their battles, without shewing the least partiality, till public opinion had taken a decided turn. In 1613, a Dominican, in a sermon preached at the cathedral of Seville, threw out some doubts on the Immaculate Conception. This was conceived to be an insult not only to the Virgin Mary, but to the community at large; and the populace was kept with difficulty from taking summary vengeance on the offender and his convent. Zuñiga, the annalist of Seville, who published his work in 1677, deems it a matter of Christian forbearance not to consign the names of the preacher and his convent to the execration of posterity. But if the civil and ecclesiastical authorities exerted themselves for the protection of the offenders, they were also the first to promote a series of expiatory rites, which might avert the anger of their Patroness, and make ample reparation to her insulted honour. Processions innumerable paraded the streets, proclaiming the original purity of the Virgin Mother; and _Miguél del Cid_, a _Sevillian_ poet of that day, was urged by the Archbishop to compose the Spanish hymn, “Todo el Mundo en general,” which, though far below mediocrity, is still nightly sung at Seville by the associations called Rosarios, which have been described in Doblado’s Letters.[59] [59] Letter I. p. 20.