Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/79

 saw with regret, the barbarity of his countrymen, and bravely offered to oppose it, by introducing new systems of learning, and suppressing the seminaries of monastic ignorance, in spite of the ingenuity of Padré Frejo, whose book of vulgar errors so finely exposes the monkish stupidity of the times, the religious have prevailed. Ensanada has been banished, and now lives in exile; Frejo has incurred the hatred and contempt of every bigot, whose errors he has attempted to oppose, and feels, no doubt, the unremitting displeasure of the priesthood. Persecution is a tribute, the Great must ever pay for preheminence.

is a little extraordinary, however, why Spain, whose genius is naturally fine, should be so much behind the rest of Europe, in this particular; or why school divinity should