the bishops and the cathedral authorities consulted the court of Rome as to whether they ought to obey or disregard the authority of the monarch; at other times they disobeyed it openly; and, in spite of the efforts made by the Chamber of Castille to maintain the cause of the throne and of the law, the fear of provoking a revolution on the part of the lower classes, entirely the creatures of the clergy, paralysed, on more than one occasion, the zeal of the magistrates and the action of the military chiefs.

The Spanish laws required that, in order to give validity to a pontifical bull, it should have the approbation, or, as it was called, the pass of the crown.  Sometimes, and by virtue of the representation of the Chamber of Castille, the government refused that pass, and on such occasions the clergy became greatly irritated, the bishops energetically insisting upon its being given, but urging their demands with such vehemence, as even to threaten the monarch himself with the terrible penalty of excommunication.

The clergy sustained the excesses of the pontifical authority, and acknowledged the principle of the universal sovereignty of the Pope.  All notions or opinions that proposed to re-establish the discipline of the first ages of the church and to defend the rights of the bishops, considering their authority as equal to that of the Pope in jurisdiction, and inferior only in dignity in the hierarchy, were considered as dangerous and as heretical as that heresy most opposed to the articles of the faith.  Yet, at the beginning of the reign of Charles III., the progress of Jansenism in France had a considerable influence on the opinions of the Spanish clergy.  The ministers, Campomanes, Aranda, and Floridablanca, embraced with ardour the doctrines of Port-Royal; the canonries of the collegiate church of San Isidro, in Madrid, which had belonged to the Jesuits, were all conferred on wise and virtuous clergymen who were generally known as confirmed Jansenists.  Indeed there were very few of the Spanish clergy who assisted in that establishment that were not addicted to the same doctrines.

Hitherto no mention has been made of the parish priests.  In the ancient organization of the clergy these ecclesiastics participated, in some dioceses, in the tithes; but the principal part of their incomes arose from the surplice-fees, called in Spanish, de pie de altar, which were those payable on baptism, interment, and marriage.  The quota from these sources varied according to the pomp and luxury of the ceremonies performed.  In baptisms, this augmentation of splendour consisted chiefly in music, flowers, and lighted candles, in the chapel where the rite was performed.  But the extravagance of the rites of interment extended itself to a wider range; for the idea was deeply rooted in the public mind, that the greater the expense incurred in a funeral, the greater would be the efficacy of the service in favour of the soul of the departed.  The sums which were wont to be spent in this ceremony are incredible; and from their results many families have been entirely ruined.  This subject will, however, be more particularly considered in a subsequent part of this work.

In the yearly receipts of those parish priests there is an enormous difference, which depends on the number, the class, and the wealth, of the parishioners living within the parish.  There are some cases in which those receipts amount to nearly £2000 per annum; whilst in some others the sum total is hardly sufficient to sustain an existence of misery and penury.  Notwithstanding this deplorable condition, there have been, it must in candour be said, notable examples of charity, zeal, and self-denial, among the inferior classes of the

parochial clergy.  The poor have frequently found in their priests consolation in their afflictions and succour in their miseries.  In small towns the priest is the first personage of the place.  But still it cannot be concealed that there is a sad deficiency in the inculcation of the fundamental principles of scriptural truth in the exercise of his ministry; this same deficiency is equally observable in other Catholic countries.  As a general rule, the only instruction which children receive from the priest is the learning to repeat from memory a very incomplete and superficial catechism.  Preaching has rarely any other object than the explanation of some article of the faith, or a panegyric on the life of some saint.  There are no interpreters of the gospel to be heard from the Spanish pulpit, except during the period of Lent.  The preachers like rather to refer to and expatiate largely on miracles, than to unfold the morals of the New Testament; and, in general, it may be taken as a fact that the immense majority of the Spanish population, and especially those of the poorer class, have the most incomplete and erroneous ideas of the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ.

The greatest part of what has been advanced hitherto touching the Spanish clergy applies to that epoch which preceded the preponderance of liberal ideas.  Since the abolition of tithes, under the minister, Mendizabal, who replaced them by moderate fixed salaries to the priests, now paid by the state, like other public functionaries, the situation of the Spanish clergy has entirely changed its aspect.  No man of any respectable family now enlists himself under the banners of the

clergy, whose influence is only kept up in some of the smallest and obscure towns;—in the cities it has entirely disappeared: nor does there remain in that body sufficient energy to make the least attempt to recover it.  There have always been in Spain, in former epochs, some ecclesiastics, eminent for their virtues and their learning, who have commanded the respect of all classes of society, and whose word was so powerful that criminals of the most hardened description have fallen down at their feet; and even their appearance, in a town of some importance, has been followed by numerous conversions, and a great amendment of the public manners.  Since the abolition of tithes, however, there is not a name in all the ecclesiastical state which has the least celebrity.  There is now no such thing ever heard of as an eloquent speaker, a writer notable for his theological learning, or for works of piety and devotion.  The bishops, whose titles, generally, are owing to their political sympathies, now live like courtiers and take part in the dissensions of parties; and the people regard them with an indifference corresponding to the few benefits received at their hands.  There are various honourable exceptions to this rule, but these exceptions are scarce; and if there has been of late years a bishop of Cadiz, an admirable model of all Christian virtues, there are many others, such as that of Barcelona, impregnated with the maxims of the most absurd ultramontanism, and who are the declared enemies of all that contributes to make human society moral and enlightened.

It is very common to see priests begging in the

streets.  Few of them are now permitted to visit in respectable families, or even to mix in general society; and the strangest of all things connected with such a change is, that the clergy themselves know the state of degradation into which they have fallen—the total loss of their influence and of their importance—without making the least effort to raise themselves from that state of humiliation and abasement.

On two recent occasions have been seen evident proofs of the utter prostration of that class which once domineered over the entire nation.  When