Baron von Stromwalter's dressed in a brilliant uniform and covered with orders, and had given himself out as an envoy from Thalreuter's pretended father. He added that a considerable part of the money thus obtained had been employed by Stang in increasing his business and enlarging his shop, and also that many of the things stolen from his foster-parents had fallen to the share of Stang; and, not content with these accusations, he charged Stang with being a cheat and a forger by trade, with carrying on a regular fabrication of forged drafts, lottery tickets, exchequer bills, and tontine scrip, and with selling plated articles stamped with the mark of real silver. All these charges were supported by detailed statements of specific facts. Thus, for instance, he enumerated a long list of bills forged by Stang, specifying the persons by whom they purported to be drawn, the houses on which they were drawn, the persons who accepted them, and the time when the bills were negotiable, accompanying his statements with so many minute circumstances, that it would have been easier to doubt the light of the sun at noonday than the truth of his assertions. At every fresh examination these charges were strengthened by new disclosures or new accusations, which, according to Thalreuter, recurred by degrees to his memory. Among other things Thalreuter even asserted that, in order to open a fresh supply to the failing resources of the Von Stromwalters, Stang had proposed to poison Baroness von Stromwalter's rich brother, and that he had prepared the poison, which he kept in a bottle in a place which Thalreuter described. "Stang, a married man, and the father of a family, was not exactly the sort of person whom one would suspect of such actions. He maintained himself, to all appearance honestly, by his business, which he had greatly extended by his activity, cleverness, and economy, and which was quite sufficient to support himself and his family respectably. But previous to the establishment of his toy-shop, which had happened within a few years, his life had not been altogether free from suspicion. He was originally a tailor, and then entered the service of a merchant, who discharged him in a short time, and gave him but a doubtful character. He then wandered about the country as a conjuror. It was notorious that Thalreuter and Stang were continually together, and that the latter took part in all Thalreuter's dissipations, and also that he lorded it in the Stromwalters' house. Moreover it appeared impossible for a lad of fifteen to have conceived or executed all that has been already re lated, without assistance; and Thalreuter's frank confession afforded sufficient ground for presuming that Stang was his accomplice, and for arresting him accordingly.. "Thalreuter's accusations were not, however, confined to Stang; several other persons figured in this story as accomplices in a greater or less degree. Wolositz, a wealthy Jewish merchant, was pointed out by him as the receiver of Stang's bills, knowing them to be forged; and the accusation was supported by a statement of circumstances which gave it every appearance of truth. He likewise named an iunkeeper called Brechtal, as one intimately associated in all Stang's criminal secrets, and whose business it was to travel about and pass these forgeries in the disguise of an officer. Thalreuter accused both these men, but more especially Brechtal, of instigating him to rob and cheat his fosterparents, and stated that he had bought for the latter out of the stolen money a horse, a butt of wine, &c.; and that inside of this butt hung a small water-tight barrel, in which Brechtal kept Stang's forged bills. Wolositz and Brechtal were accordingly taken into custody, and four other persons were involved in the same suspicion by Thalreuter's charges. "In order to obtain proofs of the truth of the various charges, and to secure the articles designated by Thalreuter as belonging to the Stromwalters, the houses of the suspected parties were searched; Stang's house repeatedly, for no sooner was one search ended than Thalreuter prepared some new charge against Stang, which rendered a fresh search necessary. Thalreuter, who was present on these occasions, employed himself in pointing out to the authorities either those things which belonged to his foster-parents or had been bought with their money, or the materials, proofs, and instruments of the various forgeries. Each search led to fresh discoveries on Thalreuter's part, until at length the rooms appropriated to the purpose were crowded with effects of all sorts. In Stang's private dwelling the authorities seized silver spoons, tin and copper utensils, glasses, bottles and jars, napkins and table-covers, bedding, children's toys, and even articles of clothing, such as Stang's boots and trowsers. Out of his shop they took all sorts of objects of the supposed plated material, and other articles of value, watches, lace, buckles, telescopes, eyeglasses, ladies' reticules, rouge-boxes, cosmetics, scented pomatums and soaps. The innkeeper Brechtal fared no better: they took from him his gun and a pair of waterproof boots (for Brechtal was also a shoe maker); his horse out of the stable, and all the wine out of his cellar. "While these domiciliary visits were going on, the gaoler one day discovered, while changing Thalreuter's prison, seventeen florins concealed in his straw mattress. On examination, Thalreuter confessed that he had taken the opportunity of one of these visits at Stang's house, to steal this sum out of his writing-desk. When asked how this was possible, as one of the officers of the court constantly had his eye upon him, he replied that the presence of the officer had not prevented his gaining possession of the money by a sleight of hand which he had learnt from Stang himself. "When the charges against Stang and others came to be sifted, many of them proved to be utterly false. A lottery ticket found in Stang's possession, and denounced as a forgery, was pronounced at Frankfort to be genuine: several bills which he was accused of having forged and put in circulation were never presented. It was moreover discovered that no such firms existed as those on which some of the other bills were said to have been drawn. When this was represented to Thalreuter on his twelfth examination, he not only retracted a great part of his accusation against Stang, but declared his whole statement about Wolositz and the four others, who were most respectable persons, to be sheer calumny. His motives for making all these false charges were various. One had excited his hatred at a fight, another had abused him; a third had found fault with him behind his back, while a fourth had laughed at his bad riding. Stang and Brechtal did not get out of the scrape quite so easily, but every step in the inquiry was the means of discovering some fresh falsehoods, more especially with respect to Stang. For example, all the articles which Thalreuter had asserted to be plated were found to be real silver: many of the things said to have belonged to Baroness von Stromwalter were not hers, but were proved to have been long in the possession of Stang and his family. The small secret barrel concealed in Brechtal's butt of wine never could be found, and the bottles said to contain poison for Baroness von Stromwalter's rich brother were filled with most innocent scent and hair-oil. Thalreuter, however, retracted only so much of his accusation against Stang as was proved to be false, and although forced to declare one charge after another to be mere inventions, he still persisted through several examinations in accusing his boon companion of enough to ensure him an imprisonment of several years with hard labour. It was not until his twenty-second examination that he declared all his accusations against Stang to be pure inventions dictated by revenge, adding that he could never forgive Stang for taking advantage of his youthful inexperience, and encouraging him in all his debaucheries and excesses. But these excuses for his false accusations were also false. In his twenty-sixth examination he was compelled to retract even this, and to own that he had no other reason for involving Stang in this criminal prosecution than that Stang had charged him too much for his wares neither had he any cause for accusing Brechtal, beyond that he had occasionally scored a double reckoning against him. Thus it was proved beyond doubt that this young villain not only had no assistance in effecting the ruin of his old foster-parents beyond that of his own wit and the weakness and simplicity of the old people, but that he had also used the criminal court itself as a stage upon which further to display his instinctive talent for stealing and lying. 66 "Those innocent persons who had been taken into custody upon Thalreuter's accusations were immediately released. Thalreuter, in consideration of his youth, was sentenced, on the 25th September, 1826, to eight years' imprisonment with hard labour, for his forgeries, thefts, and other deceits. He was to receive twenty-five lashes on his entrance into prison as a further punishment, and to have warm food only on every third day. Directions were also given that this young criminal should receive all necessary instruction, and that the greatest attention should be paid to his moral and religious training. "Fortunately for the community and for himself, Thalreuter did not outlive the term of his imprisonment. He died in 1828, in the Bridewell at Munich." The innocent persons were released! It is thus that Feuerbach coolly dismisses the case. Innocent persons imprisoned on the random assertions of a notorious liar and vagabond, assertions that the slightest inquiry would have proved to be unfounded, and which the judicial officials must have been nearly as credulous as the baron and baroness to have believed, or so eager in the pursuit of crime as to have altogether overlooked the character of the accuser and the improbability of the offences! MODERN PROPHETS. MANY were the echoes caught of old from the far To Come; oracles spoke to the Greeks from the silence of rock and fountain; stars, to the Chaldeans' gaze, cast their light upon futurity; and the Scythian shepherd saw the shadows of coming years in the clouds that flitted across the sky of his desert; but the old prophet voices, haunting grot and grove of the early world, are gone. The earth has outlived the mystery as well as the faith of her childhood. We have left the Grecian Pythoness, the Roman Sibyl, and the Crusader's astrologer, far behind among the débris of the past. The German prophets, the French visionists, and all of the Solomon Eagle school, rest with the swords of the Thirty Years' War, the shades of the Huguenots, and the ashes of the Covenant, save when some rag of their time-tattered mantle descends on the shoulders of a Mormon among the slave-markets that illustrate "American Freedom." The future is now indeed our Isis with the still unlifted veil. Yet, even in this age of steam and commerce-the two great allied sovereigns that share our world between them; amid the flutter of railway scrip, the flourish of pens, both steel and goosequill; the rattle of types, and the buzz of growing factories-we have our prophets yet; ay, reader, and prophetesses too, who deliver their oracles with a good will that rarely waits to be consulted. It may be the very liberality of their wisdom at times makes it undervalued, for even diamonds, when given away, are despised, as the lately discovered mines of Bahia are expected to prove; but certain it is, that most of our modern prophets share the fate of Cassandra, for they find few believers, though marvellously strong in the faith of their own revealings. But let us descend to particular description for the benefit of those who may not have met with a specimen of the inspired. They are found in all ranks of society, from the palace to the hovel, but most frequently in that widely diffused though rather indefinite order known as "The Middle Class." The external appearance of their fleshly tabernacles, however, differs considerably from those of the far-seeing souls of elder time, whose wasted frames, haggard faces, and dishevelled hair proclaimed how fearful a thing it was to draw the curtains of fate. But the Jonahs that warn our modern Ninevehs are, on the contrary, portly, well-dressed, "well-to-do-in-the-world-looking" individuals, rather elderly,— for we never knew either man or woman take to prophesying earlier than thirty; and, from our own observation and experience, we believe that inspiration scldem becomes habitual till after the fortieth year. They are, moreover, generally married. Bachelors rarely utter predictions, except they happen to own a considerable sum in the funds, and a proportionate number of nephews and nieces in the neighbourhood; and old maids never, except in extreme cases, or when "coming scandals cast their tattle before." But whether in single or double blessedness, it is a fact not to be disputed, that the prophets and prophetesses of our age are invariably in possession of more of the current coin of the realm than the whole of their kindred and acquaintances, to whom they are usually most bounteous of advice, and ready on all occasions-particularly when the least dissent from their opinions is expressed-to inform them what shall befall them in their latter days. The most notable prophet of our acquaintance—and it has comprehended some originals, including ourselves (peace to their shades who have gone before us, for we begin to be alone), but the most remarkable in the prophesying line was Samson Heavyside. Samson was or rather had been the principal shopkeeper of Chatterford, a small country-town known to our memory as home, in the years when home was precious as a place of friends and holidays; that stood out in brilliant contrast with the cold and tiresome school. Well, we remember it yet; its broad great streets, where a row would have made an era, and a crowd was never known; its old-fashioned brick houses with their narrow windows, and the girls that looked out at them, are all changed since, except in our dreams; its small sober-looking shops, that seemed to our childhood's fancy rich with a wealth we never found in all the world of men; but above all we remember-Samson Heavyside. Politeness would have termed him a rather stout gentleman, for his circumference considerably exceeded his altitude, which was at the best a something below the middle stature; in youth he had been handsome-at least Mrs. Heavyside said so, and we suppose she ought to know; but the period had passed before our recollection, and to us he appeared with a countenance round and rosy as the full rising moon,-poets, forgive the simile; a globular head bald as that of the seer of old, for Time himself had shaven it; and a pair of small blue eyes filled with an unvarying expression of self-satisfaction, for he had grown rich, and was listened to in Chatterford; and he also possessed such a peculiar knack of closing the said windows of his soul against our external world and all its vanities on occasions of high and solemn prediction, that the act served as a signal to his acquaintances, informing them that prophecy on a great scale was about to commence. Samson had been in business almost from his boyhood, and seemed one of those destined by nature to "have and to hold," as the church service hath it; with knowledge just sufficient to carry on trade in the country; habits that were constitutionally regular and steady; and a mind that never strayed beyond the same narrow circle of commonplace ideas. He had scraped and plodded on in the village where he was born, and though gifted with little energy and less enterprise, had contrived to become the Rothschild of Chatterford, while scores of his contemporaries with better abilities and more prosperous beginnings, were still struggling amid the thousand difficulties which beset fathers of large and respectable families. Fortune had charmed Samson from all such drains on the purse, for he had no family except what was constituted by himself and Mrs. Heavyside-a thrifty but simpleminded dame, remarkable only for her activity in housekeeping, and an immoveable trust in the prophetic powers of her husband. They had married prudently, though somewhat late in life, yet with a due consideration of each other's worldly possessions; and after saving and managing together for more than twenty years, during which Samson's ability and readiness for prediction increased with every additional hundred that swelled his credit at the bank, Mr. Heavyside at length made up his mind to retire from business to a large house which he had built-to use his own words—“ on purpose for himself," leaving the now empty shop and long brick edifice which he had formerly occupied to a widowed sister with two sons and as many daughters, who managed to keep up a decent appearance by their united industry, and also afforded matter for their uncle's foretelling wisdom when other subjects were scarce in Chatterford. Often were their fortunes declared, and under various aspects, for Samson had now nothing to do but prophesy. We know not whether it was the weight of unemployed time or the silence of his home, unbroken by the music of young voices, that made the old man's stay within its walls so brief, for his oracles were generally delivered where most of his hours were spent, wind and weather permitting,—at the open door. Worthy old. Samson Heavyside: he rises still to our imagination most prominent of the things that were in Chatterford. We see him in his old accustomed station one sunny morning, clad, or rather rolled up, in black broadcloth-for he was one of those individuals whose garments seem intended as swaddling-bands for themcasting ominous and wrathful glances over the way at the new and handsome window with which his nephews had commenced shop-keeping in the scene of his early sales; and still less gentle looks at the other extremity of the house, where an advertisement-board proclaimed to all concerned the long list of accomplishments taught in the seminary" for young ladies" just opened by the widow's two daughters. "A great change that, Mr. Heavyside," said the apothecary next door, as he stepped out with a warning word to the young apprentice. "Now, that's what I call improvement." Samson answered only by an awful shake of the head, and then, closing his eyes in due form, he proceeded to business. "Yes, Dr. Smith, no doubt you would call it improvement; but I can tell you that family will be ruined, totally ruined and undone within the next twelve months a dark deal shutter will cover their nice-trimmed window, and they 'll all be in the debtors' prison or somewhere worse, and that's just their deserving. Couldn't them there foolish young men keep the shop as I had it before them? They'll never make as much money, I fancy! And as for the girls, what call had they for a school? Couldn't they wash, and sew, and darn, as their mother did? though they mightn't earn much, it would keep them out of harm's way. There's no standing the pride of young people, doctor; but mind, I tell you it will get a downcome!" Such were Samson's responses; and a year passed over the earth with all its chance and change, and left some traces of its footsteps even on that small community. Samson stood again at his door on another sweet sunny morning, such as our English summer sheds on the quiet villages. But Chatterford was not then quiet; the bells of the old church were ringing a wild and merry peal, and half the town were moving to the sound with a flutter of white ribbons and muslin, for the widow's eldest daughter was to be married to a young artist, the son of a neighbour, and born to prospects even less brilliant than her own. There had been an early promise between them, which he returned to claim after years of toil in a distant city, where he had won less wealth than reputation, and that day was Mary's wedding. Samson stood forth, but not to join the bridal procession, for he remembered that young Burnell's father made shoes while he sold sugar; therefore he voted the match low, and prophesied against it accordingly. Out stepped Dr. Smith, again to enjoy the usual gossip, and after him out stepped to the door the young apprentice. Readers, we are above concealing the fact, that apprentice was ourselves; but we had not then assumed the plural, for time had not yet given the royalty of the pen, in which we now rejoice, meagre and circumscribed though it be as that of a German margrave, and put to sad shifts at times to maintain its dignity, especially in the “financial department.” -But let us not speak of those things, for they, and more than they, were foretold to us a thousand times by the prescience of Samson, though we believed in better; and our first sonnet was already written: it was never printed, except in our memory, and the subject thereof was Mary. The doctor opened the session by observing "That it was a fine day, and a very fine wedding." But Samson's eyes were already closed in prophetic fashion. "Yes, doctor," said he, "simple people may imagine |