ceivable that any one should have been able so long to deceive people who were constantly with him and always on the alert. And it is remarkable that they who saw most of Caspar, and knew him best, were most firmly convinced of his integrity, whilst his traducers were, almost without an exception, men who had never known him intimately. Feuerbach, Daumer, Binder, Meier, Fuhrmann, and many others, maintain his honesty in the strongest terms. On the other hand, it is said, that it is equally impossible for a person to have been kept in any community in the manner in which it is asserted that he was kept; discovery was inevitable. But it must be remembered that this instance does not stand alone. If search were made, many cases of the same kind might be collected. It is by no means so rare an occurrence for persons to be kept secluded in such a manner as to conceal their existence from the world. Daumer mentions two similar cases which happened about the same time. The very year that Caspar Hauser appeared, the son of a lawyer, named Fleischmann, just deceased, was discovered in a retired chamber of the house. He was thirty-eight years old, and had been confined there since his twelfth year. The other case, also mentioned by Feuerbach, was still more distressing. Dr. Horn saw, in the infirmary at Salzburg, a girl, twenty-two years of age, who had been brought up in a pig-sty. One of her legs was quite crooked, from her having sat with them crossed; she grunted like a hog; and her actions were "brutishly unseemly in human dress." Daumer also relates a third case, which was made the subject of a romantic story published in a Nuremberg paper, but which, he says, lacks confirmation. It was the discovery, in a secret place, of the grown-up son of a clergyman by his housekeeper. Whether this be true or not, both Feuerbach and Daumer believe that many similar instances do exist, which never come to light. It is not impossible, therefore, that Caspar Hauser was confined in a cellar to which none but his keeper sought entrance. Who would suspect the existence of a human being, taught to be perfectly submissive and quiet and to have no wants, in such a place, when even the existence of the subterranean prison itself was probably unknown? The cases mentioned above were certainly more singular in this respect. But Eschricht's opinion is the most peculiar of all. In his "Unverstand und schlechte Erziehung," he maintains that Caspar was an idiot until he was brought to Nuremberg, that his mind was then strengthened and developed, and that he was then transformed from an idiot into an impostor. This is still more impossible than Stanhope's theory; for in this case Daumer, Feuerbach, Hiltel the jailer, Binder the mayor, and indeed all Caspar's earliest friends, instead of being victims of an imposture, are made partakers in the fraud. No one acquainted with the irreproachable character of these men could entertain the idea for a minute; and when we remember that it was not one, but many, who must have been parties to it, it becomes doubly impossible. We come now to consider the opinion of Feuerbach; and we shall do it the more carefully, because in it, we feel confident, lies the true solution of the question. He was at the time President of the Court of Appeal of the Circle of Rezat. He had risen to this honorable position gradually, and it was the reward of his distinguished merit alone. His works on criminal jurisprudence, and the penal code which he drew up for the kingdom of Bavaria, and which was adopted by other states, had placed him in the first rank of criminal lawyers. It was he who conducted the first judicial investigations concerning Caspar Hau it to the world. In his book on Caspar Hauser he makes no mention of it; but in 1832 he addressed a paper to Queen Caroline of Bavaria, headed, "Who might Caspar Hauser be?" in which he endeavors to show that he was the son of the Grand-Duchess Stephanie. This paper was, we believe, first published in 1852, in his "Life and Works," by his son. The first part of it treats of Caspar's rank and position in general, and he comes to the following conclusions. Caspar was a legitimate child. Had he been illegitimate, less dangerous and far easier means would have been resorted to for concealing his existence and suppressing a knowledge of his parentage. And here we may add, that the supposition It would be inter past recollections. The second division of the paper relates to the imprisonment, and here he takes a ground entirely opposed to the opinions of others. He believes that he was thus kept as a protection against some greater evil. His wants were supplied, he was well taken care of, and his his protector. Daumer sees in the keeper nothing but a hired murderer, whose courage or whose wickedness failed him. It is certainly difficult to imagine a kind friend immuring one in a dark subterranean vault, feeding one on bread, excluding light, fellowship, amusement, thoughts, never saying a word, but studiously allowing one's mind to become a dreary waste. It is a friendship to which most of us would prefer death. We are therefore inclined to think that Daumer is here in the right. But whatever the nature of his imprisonment, the principal argument does not lose its force. has never prevailed that he was the off-keeper is therefore to be looked upon as spring of a criminal connection, and that these means were taken for suppressing the mother's disgrace. A note which Caspar brought with him, when he appeared at Nuremberg, indicated that such was the case, but it was so evidently a piece of deception that it never obtained much credit. The second conclusion at which Feuerbach arrives is, that people were implicated who had command of great and unusual means, means which could prompt an attempt at murder in a crowded city and in the open day, and which could over-bribe all rewards offered for a disclosure. Third, Caspar was a person on whose life or death great interests depended, else there would not have been such care to conceal his existence. Interest, and not revenge or hate, was the motive. He must have been a person of high rank. To prove this, Feuerbach refers to dreams of Caspar's. On one occasion, particularly, he dreamt that he was conducted through a large castle, the appearance of which he imagined that he recognized, and afterwards minutely described. This Feuerbach thinks was only the awakening of *ANSELM RITTER VON FEUERBACH'S Leben und Wirken, aus seinen ausgedruckten Briefen, Tagebüchern, Vorträgen und Denkschriften, veröffentlicht von seinem Sohne, LUDWIG FEUERBACH. Leipzig, 1852. In the third place, Feuerbach speaks of the family to which Caspar must have belonged. Just about the time of Caspar's birth, the eldest son of the GrandDuchess of Baden died an infant. His death was followed in a few years by that of his only brother, leaving several sisters, who could not inherit the duchy. By these deaths the old House of the Zähringer became extinct, and the offspring of a morganatic marriage became the heirs to the throne. It was, therefore, for their interest that the other branch should die out. In addition to this, the mother of the new house was a woman of unbounded ambition and determined character, and had a bitter hatred for the Grand-Duchess. Without laying too much stress, then, upon the nearness in date of the elder child's death and Caspar's birth, as given in the letter, there is reason to suppose that they were the same person. There was every feeling of interest to prompt the deed, there was the opportunity of sickness to accomplish it in, and there was an unscrupulous woman to take advantage of it. Is it, then, impossible that she, having command of the household, should have been able to substitute a dead for the living child? Accept the proposition, and the mystery is solved; reject it, and we are still groping in the dark. Nevertheless, there are circumstances which, even then, are incapable of explanation; but it is the most satisfactory theory, and certainly has less objections than the others. Feuerbach came to this conclusion early; for his paper addressed to Queen Caroline of Bavaria was written in 1832, the year before Caspar's death. Delicacy forbade the open discussion of the question; but, even at the time, this theory found many supporters. Some even went so far as to say that Feuerbach's sudden death the same year was owing to the indefatigable zeal with which he was ferreting out the mystery. Of all the different explanations, then, which have been given, that of Feuerbach seems to be the most satisfactory. At the same time, like the rest, it is founded on conjecture. Its truth may never be proved. They whose interest it was to suppress the matter thirty years ago, and who resorted to such extreme measures in doing so, no doubt took ample precaution that every trace should be erased. It is barely possible that some confession or the discovery of some paper may cast light upon the subject; but the length of time which has elapsed renders it exceedingly improbable, and the mystery of Caspar Hauser, like the mysteries of the Iron Mask and Junius, will always remain a fruitful source of conjecture only. It may not be uninteresting to close this sketch with the consideration of a point of law raised by Feuerbach in connection with the subject. It will be rec ollected that he calls his book "Caspar Hauser. An Example of a Crime against the Life of Man's Soul." The crime committed against Caspar Hauser was, according to the Bavarian code, twofold. There was the crime of illegal imprisonment, and the crime of exposure. And here Feuerbach advances the doctrine, that it was not only the actual confinement which amounted to illegal imprisonment, but that "we must incontestably, and, indeed, principally, regard as such the cruel withholding from him of the most ordinary gifts which Nature with a liberal hand extends even to the most indigent, the depriving him of all the means of mental development and culture, the unnatural detention of a human soul in a state of irrational ani mality." "An attempt," he says, "by artificial contrivances, to seclude a man from Nature and from all intercourse with rational beings, to change the course of his human destiny, and to withdraw from him all the nourishment afforded by those spiritual substances which Nature has appointed for food to the human mind, that it may grow and flourish, and be instructed and developed and formed, such an attempt must, even quite independently of its actual consequences, be considered as, in itself, a highly criminal invasion of man's most sacred and most peculiar property,— of the freedom and the destiny of his soul. ... . . Inasmuch as the whole earlier part of his life was thus taken from him, he may be said to have been the subject of a partial soul-murder." This crime, if recognized, would, according to Feuerbach, far outweigh the mere crime of illegal imprisonment, and the latter would be merged in it. Tittmann, in his "Hand-Book of Penal Law," also speaks of crimes against the intellect, and particularly mentions the separation of a person from all human society, if practised upon a child before it has learned to speak and until the intellect has become sealed up, as well as the intentional rearing of a person to ignorance, as reducible to this head. This was written before Caspar's case had occurred. He says, also, that they are similar to cases of homicide; because the latter are punished for destroying the rational being, and not the physical man. Murder and the destruction of the intellect are, therefore, equally punishable. The one merits the punishment of death as well as the other. Nor are we to take the possibility of a cure into consideration, any more than we do the possibility of extinguishing a fire. But where the law does not prescribe the punishment of death irrespectively of the possibility of recovery, the punishment would rarely exceed ten years in the House of Correction. We must understand Tittmann's remarks, however, to refer entirely to the law of Saxony,— that being the government under which he lived, and the only one in whose criminal code this crime is recognized. Feuerbach wished to have this murder of the soul inserted in the criminal code of Bavaria as a punishable crime; but he was unsuccessful, and the whole doctrine has subsequently been condemned. Mittermaier, in a note to his edition of Feuerbach's "Text-Book of German Criminal Law," denies that there is any foundation for the distinction taken by him and Tittmann. He says, that, in the first place, it has not such an actual existence as is capable of proof; and, secondly, all crimes under it can easily be reached by some other law. The last objection does not, however, seem to be a very serious one. If, as Feuerbach says, the crime against the soul is more heinous than that against the body, it certainly deserves the first attention, even if the one is not merged in the other. The crime being greater, the punishment would be greater; and the demands of justice would no more be satisfied by the milder punishment than if a murderer were prosecuted as a nuisance. The fact, therefore, that the crime is reducible to some different head, is not an objection. We meet with the most serious difficulty when we consider the possibility of proof. Taking it for granted that the crime does exist in the abstract, the only question is, whether it is of such a nature that it would be expedient for government to take cognizance of it. The soul being in its nature so far beyond the reach of man, and the difficulty of ever proving the effect of human actions upon it, would seem to indicate that it were better to allow a few exceptional cases to pass unnoticed than to involve the criminal courts in endless and fruitless inquiry. Upon the ground of expediency only should the crime go unnoticed, and not because it can be reached in some other way. For proof that it does exist, we can point to nothing more convincing than the life of Caspar Hauser itself. No one can doubt that his soul was the victim of a crime, for which the perpetrator, untouched by human laws, stands accused before the throne of God. PAMPENEA. AN IDYL. LYING by the summer sea, Chalky cliffs and miles of sand, Ragged reefs and salty caves, And the sparkling emerald waves Faded; and I seemed to stand, |