“Of these three libraries one was private property, the other two belonged to the Inquisition. It must not be omitted to notice that the Holy Office had its independent revenue, arising from gifts of state property, chiefly bestowed by Sixtus V. and Pius IV., amounting clear to about 8,000 scudi. This sum was chiefly spent in paying the monks attached to the Inquisition, some of whom received considerable salaries. In the above income is not included the money exacted from prisoners as board; the account of what was paid, for example, by the famous Abbess of Monte Castrelli, was found to be 3,000 scudi. The authorised paid agents of the Holy Office, called ‘Patentali,’ were well remunerated; indeed, this was a system by which many persons were demoralised and corrupted, whose birth and education should have removed them far from such a base and guilty traffic, but who were tempted, perhaps, by necessity. “To conclude, in a few brief categories we may sum up the results of this inquiry:-- “1. That the court of Rome availed itself of the tribunal of the Holy Office for temporal and political ends. “2. That to succeed in its purposes, the Holy Office had especially recourse to confession, of which it made the most enormous and abominable abuse, not only violating secresy, but tampering with its integrity. “3. By means of confession, the most odious licentiousness was insinuated in the confessionals. With this branch, the Holy Office occupied itself with extraordinary diligence, but without finding a remedy for the causes of such scandal. “4. That the Holy Office corrupted all classes, buying information and secrets. “5. That the ecclesiastical nuncios at foreign courts are in constant correspondence with the Holy Office, and from possessing means of procuring intelligence quite peculiar to themselves, keep the court of Rome informed of the most hidden political secrets.” Enormous as the abominations are which are thus testified concerning the Inquisition, they are only identical with what are recorded in the former part of this work; and this testimony is confirmed by the following paragraph in a letter from a friend at Rome, April 3, 1849, addressed to the Rev. E. Bickersteth:-- “The day before yesterday, the palace of the Inquisition was opened to the public. People crowded to see that horrible place, where so many good Christians have been tormented, under the pretext of being heretics. There were then seen the horrid dungeons where the victims of the papacy have been incarcerated.