see the regular visits made by friars to several houses within the range of my window; and little children may at all times be seen in the street, running after the monk of any order, to kiss his hand and beg his blessing. There are many reasons why the influence of the friars should decline more slowly than that of the priesthood: as the first of these may be mentioned, the greater immorality of the lives of the latter. This immorality is notorious throughout Spain; and, indeed, they take little pains to conceal,--I will not say their pecadillos,--but the opportunities and temptations to commit them, which they create for themselves; and they obtain full credit for yielding to these temptations. Perhaps it is doing wrong to the clergy to assign to the friars greater purity of life than to them; but whatever may be the immoralities of the monks, they have more the art, and they possess better opportunities too of concealing them. Priests live in the world, and have worse opportunities of concealment than other men, because their profession lays them open to scrutiny; but friars live in a world of their own, fenced round, not only by walls of stone, but by a more impenetrable wall of prescriptive veneration,--and they are very daring eyes that pry into the secrets of the cloister. But strange, and even dreadful events, occasionally occur, to lay open the hidden scenes that are transacted within a convent’s walls. One such occurred last September, while I was in Madrid. One morning, the Superior of the monastery of San Basilio was found in bed murdered,--his throat cut, his hands tied, and several stabs in his body. There could be no doubt that the murder had been committed by the friars; and as no pretence could be found against instituting an inquiry, a commission was accordingly appointed to investigate, and sat during several days. Strange disclosures were made: it appeared that the superior had been a good man, and remarkably strict in the observances enjoined upon the order,--too much so for the inclination of the friars, who had been accustomed to commit every kind of excess, and to transgress in the most essential points, the rules of the convent; particularly in being absent during the night. The superior used to reprove this laxity, and exerted his authority to restrain it; and dislike towards him was naturally produced. In these circumstances, no doubt, rested in the mind of any one, that the murder was committed by the monks; but it had been resolved, that in some way or other the affair should be got rid of. The porter of the convent, who, previous to the appointment of the commission, had declared that no one had entered, so qualified his words before the commissioners, that through his evidence, they found a loop-hole by which justice might ooze out:--he said, that he had some recollection, when half asleep, of having seen a person enter; but besides the impossibility of any one entering, unless the porter had