concerned, felt a less interest in the matter than they did. She told them, that she came to prison fully satisfied of the orthodoxy of the creed which she held, and that she had been confirmed in her belief by the evident futility of the arguments brought against it. “At the stake, Don Juan Ponce de Leon, who had abjured the Lutheran doctrines, exhorted Donna Maria to follow his example. The weakness of this apostate for a moment overcame her, and she silenced him by language rather of contempt than of pity. Recollecting herself, however, she told him that the time for controversy was past, and that their wisest plan would be, to occupy the few minutes which remained to them, in meditating on the death of their Redeemer, in order to confirm that faith by which alone they could be justified. All that poor Juan Ponce de Leon gained by his apostacy was, that he was not burnt alive, but first strangled, and then burnt. On this occasion, the attendant priest, moved by the youth and talents of Donna Maria, offered her this milder death, if she would merely repeat the Creed. With this offer she readily complied; but having finished it, she began immediately to explain its articles, according to the sense of the reformers. This confession of faith was immediately interrupted. Donna Maria was strangled by the executioner, and her body was afterwards reduced to ashes!” 4. MELCHIOR HERNANDEZ.--This victim was a merchant of Toledo, whence he removed to settle, A.D. 1564, in Murcia, where he was arrested by the officers of the Inquisition, charged with Judaism. Witnesses, known to be his enemies, appeared against him, but their evidence was contradictory; yet he was detained in prison. Being dangerously ill, he demanded an audience of the inquisitors, to whom he said that he had been present at a meeting, a year before, where the subject of conversation was the law of Moses. Some days after, at his re-examination, he declared that what was said at the meeting was in jest, and he did not recollect the particulars of the conversation. Having said to the visitor of the tribunal that the things which he had declared, he had been induced to utter before his judges by the fear of death, he was put to the torture, to compel him to confess what he knew respecting certain persons; but he bore the cruel infliction without uttering a word. On the 18th of October, 1565, he was declared, as a Jewish heretic, to be guilty of concealment in his confession, and condemned to be burnt. His execution was fixed for the 9th of December; and on the 7th he was exhorted to a full confession. He replied, that he had confessed all he knew; and the next day, being desired to prepare for death, he declared that he had seen the persons whom he had mentioned, and some others at the meeting; that they conversed respecting the law of Moses, but that he regarded their communications as mere pastime. Between this and the commencement of the _auto da fé_,