flowers--the saints that ornament the _san benito_--and Zurbaran takes his grandest heads from the Dominican fathers of the _santa fide_. Without the guard and protection of the Inquisition, Spain would not have effected the great things in her history. Torn by interior dissensions, she would not have had the Americas; the reign of Charles V. would not have been so glorious, nor would she have gained the battle of Lepanto and saved Christian Europe. * * * * * The French publisher, V. Palmé, announces as in press the celebrated work of Cardinal Jacobatius, _De Concilio_, forming the introduction to the grand collection of councils. * * * * * The 14th, 15th, and 16th volumes of the _Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum Taurinensi editio_ have just been published at Turin. The 14th volume includes the years from the sixth to the sixteenth of the pontificate of Urban VIII. (1628-39;) the 15th terminates that pontificate and contains that of Innocent X. (1639-54;) and the 16th embraces the first seven years of Alexander VII. (1655-62.) The bulls and constitutions are published in chronological order. Some idea of their number may be formed from the fact that of Urban VIII. there are 829, of Innocent X. 199, of Alexander VII. 385. Each volume has _index nominum et rerum præcipuarum, index initialis, index rubricarum_. * * * * * Late French papers announce the death of the Baron de Croze, formerly deputy from the department of Charente Inférieure, father-in-law of Count Anatole Lemercier, and for some years Cameriere of his holiness Pius IX. The holy father was much attached to Baron de Croze, and frequently held with him long and familiar conversations on politics and history. Some ten years ago, the Baron addressed a memorial to Pius IX., strongly urging his holiness to restore the Coliseum and to appeal to the entire world for the immense sums necessary for so great a work as the restoration of the noblest monument of the antique grandeur of the Romans. "My dear son," replied Pius IX., "I have seen your memorial, and thank you for it; but do you not know that there are two kinds of vandalism, the one of destruction, the other of restoration? Never has the Coliseum been more beautiful than in the moving contrast of the splendor of its past and the magnificence of its ruins. To restore them would, it seems to me, be an artistic sacrilege, and would annihilate the work of ages only to produce a poor and colorless counterfeit. Think no more of it, _caro mio_." And the baron thought no more of it. * * * * * The Parisian publishing circulars announce in press and soon to appear the celebrated Theology of Salamanca, _Collegii Salamanticensis Cursus Theologicus_. * * * * *