Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/362

lice laid hold of me before I took this step, I would have found it difficult to get out of the churches of criminal justice. But the caution with which I tempered the whole proceeding, the confining of all the servants, and the deposition of myself, my valet, and another servant, added to a large fee which I paid the Grand Inquisitor, and the promise of a donation to a convent, soon procured me all possible safety. The cunning priest to cure me of all scruples, even asserted, I had done very right to inter the body in my park, as the offence Bernardos had committed was subject to the cognizance of his spiritual jurisdiction, and as by the canonical laws he was the same as if he had been ipso facto excommunicated, he could by no means be entitled to a christian burial. The reverend judge made no great enquiries into the nature of the case, and seemed to accept my gold as the heaviest proof I could alledge in my behalf. Thus will priestcraft frequently combine with power and wealth, to turn wrong into right, and crime into virtue. I do not mean to say, that I actually became criminal in laying a mon-