And thus the old man whom Bunyan's English Pilgrim saw in the cave by
the way-side two hundred years ago still sits there, biting his nails
and grinning, not altogether impotently, at Roman Pilgrims, to this very
day.

The Congregation of the Holy Office is composed of thirteen cardinals,
one of whom is secretary, and an assessor, a commissary, counsellors,
and several officers taken from the prelates and regular orders. The
Pope himself is Prefect. The counsellors meet on Mondays in the Palace
of the Inquisition; the whole body on Wednesdays in the Convent of the
Minerva,--where St. Dominic still smiles upon his faithful
followers,--and Thursdays before the Pope. The examination of their
records and the opening of their prisons, during the brief existence of
the "Roman Republic" of 1849, showed that these meetings were not always
mere matters of form.

The Congregation of the Index was founded by Pius V., in order to
relieve the Holy Office of that part of its duties which relates to
written and printed thought: censorship of the press would be the proper
term, if censorship, even in its most rigid form, did not fall short of
the attributes and functions of this odious tribunal. It is composed of
cardinals and ecclesiastics, many of them distinguished by their
learning, some, doubtless, by their piety,--but all leagued together,
and solemnly pledged to sleepless warfare against every form of
intellectual freedom. Without their approbation no manuscript can be
seat to the press, no new editions issued, no thought promulgated. Even
the stone-carver is not permitted to use his chisel until they have
decided how far love or pride may go in commemoration of the dead. They
mutilate, with equal sovereignty of will, the printed pages of a classic
and the manuscript of an unknown scribbler,--sit in judgment upon Botta