Ferdinand VI. succeeded his father in 1746, and reigned till 1759. He bears the character of a good and wise prince, and no public _Auto da Fé_ took place in his time, though there appear to have been a considerable number of petty local executions. Probably these took place without his sanction, or even knowledge. He died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Charles III. He again was an able and vigorous sovereign, and the power of the Inquisition still further diminished during his reign. Three years after his accession he took the decided step of banishing the Grand Inquisitor for encroaching on the privileges of the Crown. In 1770, and again in 1784, he ordered that any procedure against offenders must be approved by the king, and sufficient evidence adduced to justify imprisonment. He was succeeded by his son, Charles IV., the weak and miserable victim of Napoleon’s ambition. The Inquisition was upheld during his reign, though it does not appear that any _Auto da Fé_ took place. Very much the same is the history of the Jewish persecution in Portugal, the power of the Inquisition, though greatly limited, still subsisting to the very end of the century. In Italy very nearly the same state of things continued as has been described under the history of the previous century. On the separation of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies from that of Spain, Charles, who succeeded to the sovereignty, reversed the policy which had been pursued by his predecessors, and invited the Jews to settle for sixty years in his kingdom. He offered to confer upon them rights and privileges which would have left them little ground of complaint. They were to be allowed to hold lands, except such as conferred feudal rights on their possessors. They were to be permitted to trade with all parts of the world, exempt from any special impost—on the same terms, in fact, as his Christian subjects. They might practise all professions, that of the physician included, and have Christian patients, if the latter desired it. They might also follow any handicraft; they might serve in the army; they might freely print and circulate their literature; they might have Christians in their service. They were to be free also to build synagogues and celebrate their religious rites; and the authority of their clergy was to be upheld by the State. All men, in fine, were forbidden, under severe penalties, to insult or wrong them; and all attempts to proselytize their children were to be discouraged. We do not wonder at hearing that Jews in great numbers, from all parts of Europe, accepted King Charles’s invitation; neither can it move our surprise to hear that his subjects were not inclined to acquiesce in their sovereign’s enlightened views. The Pope of the day, Clement XII., and his confessor, a man of great influence in the Church, denounced the concessions made to the Jews; the clergy preached inflammatory sermons from their pulpits, a Capuchin friar publicly