actually relieve him from many of the details and not a few of the
direct responsibilities of sovereignty.

The first of these Congregations bears a name which sounds harshly in
Protestant ears, although but a shadow of that fearful power which once
carried terror to every fireside, and made even princes tremble and turn
pale on their thrones. The Holy Office still retains the form and
authority conferred upon it by Paul III., if not the spirit breathed
into it by the grasping Innocent and fiery Dominic. Its dark walls,
which so long shrouded darkest deeds, stand close to St. Peter's, under
the very eye of the Pope, as he looks from his bedroom-window,--within
ear-shot of the thousands whom curiosity or devotion brings yearly to
the church or to the palace, little heeding, as they gaze on the dome of
Michel Angelo or climb the stairway of Bernini, that almost beneath the
pavement they tread on are dungeons and chains and victims.

But the Inquisition, you say, is no longer the Inquisition of three
hundred years ago. Bunyan tells us that Christian, on his pilgrimage to
the Celestial City, saw, among other memorable sights, a cave hard by
the way-side, wherein sat an old man, grinning at pilgrims as they
passed by, and biting his nails because he could not get at them. And
now let me tell you a story of the Inquisition which I know to be true.

Some twenty-five years ago there lived in Rome a physician well known
for his professional skill, and still better for his good companionship
and ready wit. He was, in fact, a pleasant companion, fond of a good
story, fonder still of his dog and gun, fondest of all of talking about
poetry and reciting verses, which he could do by the hour,--sometimes
repeating whole pages from Dante or Petrarch or Tasso or his favorite of
all, Alfieri,--and sometimes extemporizing sonnets, or _terzine_, or