glance; and, after some conversation, I could not feel the slightest apprehension that there might lurk in his heart either the villainy or the folly which can betray a man, in this world, under a pretext of ensuring his happiness in the next. He too, either from the circumstance of my long residence in England, or, as I hope, from something more properly belonging to myself, soon opened his whole mind; and we both uttered downright heresy. After this mutual, this awful pledge, the Scythian ceremony of tasting each other’s blood could not have more closely bound us in interest and danger.
The coolness of an orange-grove is not more refreshing to him who has panted across one of our burning plains, under the meridian sun in August, than the company of a few trusty friends to some unbending minds, after a long day of restraint and dissimulation. When after our evening walk we are at last comfortably seated round my friend’s reading-table, where an amiable young officer, another clergyman, and one of the most worthy and highly-gifted men that tyranny and superstition have condemned to pine in obscurity, are always welcomed with a cordiality approaching to rapture—I cannot help comparing our feelings to those which we might suppose in Christian slaves at Algiers, who, having secretly unlocked the rivets of their fetters, could shake them off to feast and riot in the dead of night, cheering their hearts with wild visions of liberty, and salving their wounds with vague hopes of revenge. Revenge, did I say! what a false notion would that word give you of the characters that compose our little club! I doubt if Nature herself could so undo the work of her hands as to transform any one of my kind, my benevolent friends, into a man of blood. As to myself, mere protestations were useless. You know me; and I shall leave you to judge. But there is a revenge of the fancy, perfectly consistent with true mildness and generosity, though certainly more allied to quick sensibility than to sound and sober judgment. The last, however, should be seldom, if at all, looked for among persons in our circumstances. Our childhood is artificially protracted till we wonder how we have grown old: and, being kept at an immeasurable distance from the affairs and interest of public life, our passions, our virtues, and our vices, like those of early youth, have deeper roots in the imagination than the heart. I will not say that this is a prevalent feature in the character of my countrymen; but I have generally observed it among the best and the worthiest. As to my confidential friends, especially the one I mentioned at the beginning of this letter, in strict conformity with the temper which, I fear, I have but imperfectly described, they spend their lives in giving vent, among themselves, to the suppressed feelings of ridicule or indignation, of which the religious institutions of this country are a perennial source to those who are compelled to receive them as of Divine authority. England has so far improved me, that I can perceive the folly of this conduct. I am aware that, instead of indulging this childish gratification of our anger, we should be preparing ourselves, by a profound study of our ancient laws and customs, and a perfect acquaintance with the pure and original doctrines of the Gospel, for any future opening to reformation in our church and state. But under this intolerable system of intellectual oppression, we have associated the idea of Spanish law with despotism, and that of Christianity with absurdity and persecution. After my return from England I feel almost involuntarily relapsing into the old habits of my mind. With my friends, who have never left this country, any endeavour to break and counteract such habits would be perfectly hopeless. Despondency drives them into a course of reading and thinking, which leads only to suppressed contempt and whispered sarcasm. The violence which they must constantly do to their best feelings, might breed some of the fiercer passions in breasts less softened with “the milk of human kindness.” But their hatred of the prevailing practices and opinions does not extend to persons. Yet I for one must confess, that were I to act from a first and habitual impulse, without listening to my better judgment, there is not a saint or a relic in the country I would not trample under foot, and treat with the utmost indignity. As things are, however, I content myself with scoffing and railing the whole day. But I trust that, on a change of circumstances, I should act more soberly than I feel.
I should have found it very difficult, without this fortunate intimacy with a man who, though still in the prime of youth, has lately obtained, by literary competition, a place among what we call the higher clergy—that is, such as are above the cure of souls—to give you an insight into the internal constitution of the Spanish church, the vices of the system which prepares our young men for the altar, and the ruinous foundations on which the ecclesiastical law, aided by civil power, hazards the morals of our religious teachers and their flocks. When I had expressed to my friend my desire of having his assistance in carrying on this correspondence, as well as satisfied his mind on the improbability of any thing entrusted to you, recoiling upon himself in Spain; he shewed me a manuscript he had drawn up some time before, under the title: “A few facts connected with the formation of the intellectual and moral character of a Spanish Clergyman.” “Who knows,” he said, “but that this sketch may answer your purpose? No traveller’s-guide account of our universities and clerical establishments, can convey such a living picture of our state, as the history of a young mind trained up under their influence. You might easily find a list of the professors, endowments, and class-books of which the framework of Spanish education consists. But who would have the patience to read it, or what could he learn from it? I had intended that this little effusion of an oppressed and struggling mind should lie concealed till some future period, probably after my death, when my country might be prepared to learn and lament the wrongs she has, for ages, heaped on her children. But, since you have provided against discovery, and are willing to translate into English any thing I may give you, it will be some satisfaction to know that the results of my sad experience are laid before the most enlightened and benevolent people of Europe. Perhaps, if they know the true source of our evils, the day will come when they may be able and willing to help us.”
The question with me now was, not whether I should accept the manuscript, but whether I could do it justice in the translation. Trusting, however, that the novelty of the matter would atone for the faults of my style; labour and perseverance have, at length, enabled me to enclose it in this letter. As I have thus introduced a stranger to you. I am bound in common civility to fall into the background, and let him speak for himself.
A few Facts connected with the formation of the Intellectual and Moral Character of a Spanish Clergyman.
“I do not possess the cynical habits of mind which would enable me, like Rousseau, to expose my heart naked to the gaze of the world. I have neither his unfortunate and odious propensities to gloss by an affected candour, nor his bewitching eloquence to display, whatever good qualities I may possess: and as I must overcome no small reluctance and fear of impropriety, to enter upon the task of writing an account of the workings of my mind and heart, I have some reason to believe that I am led to do so by a sincere desire of being useful to others. Millions of human creatures are made to venture their happiness on a form of Christianity which possesses the strongest claims to our attention, both from its great antiquity, and the extent of its sway over the most civilized part of the earth. The various effects of that religious system, unmixed with any thing unauthorized or spurious, upon my country, my friends, and myself, have been the object of my most serious attention, from the very dawn of reason till the moment when I am writing these lines. If the result of my experience should be, that religion, as it is taught and enforced in Spain, is productive of exquisite misery in the amiable and good, and of gross depravity in the unfeeling and the thoughtless—that it is an insuperable obstacle to the improvement of the mind, and gives a decided ascendancy to lettered absurdity, and to dull-headed bigotry—that it necessarily breeds such reserve and dissimulation in the most promising and valuable part of the people as must check and stunt the noblest of public virtues, candour and political courage—if all this, and much more that I am not able to express in the abstract form of simple positions, should start into view from the plain narrative of an obscure individual; I hope I shall not be charged with the silly vanity of attributing any intrinsic importance to the domestic events and private feelings which are to fill up the following pages.
“I was born of parents who, though possessed of little property, held a decent rank among the gentry of my native town. Their characters, however, are so intimately connected with the formation of my own, that I shall indulge