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helped, wisely thought it the best plan, as no life had been lost, not to institute any further proceedings.

There is a certain dingy old kneipe near the Manheim Thor, in Heidelberg, in one of the back streets which leads down to the Neckar, called the Viehof, the host of which boasts of no less than seven very handsome daughters, with black hair and blue eyes; this kneipe be. ing well known to all the students for the excellence and strength of the beer brewed therein, is much resorted to by students who have a partiality for good liquor. It so happened that a certain student from Munich, of a very amorous nature, tempted by the beauty of the wirth's blue-eyed daughters, as well as by the reputation of his beer, quit ted his lodgings, one dark evening in November, accompanied by his poodle, who, for the redness of his eyes, and the shortness of his tail, was the admiration of all Heidelberg, bearing his master's pipe, ornamented with the blue and red tassels of the Munenerch "Rhenanen,"* and stalked in the direction of the Manheimer Thor. He found the attractions of the wirth's haus fully to equal, if not exceed, his expectations. The combined influences of the bright blue eyes and the clear amber liquid called "cerevis," produced such an effect upon his brains, that in a moment of temporary irrelation, he was tempted to hurl a heavy brass candlestick, which stood on the table before him, at the head of the warlike Frei-herr von Langerman, who sate twirling his moustaches and smoking, in solemn silence opposite to him. "Dummer junge,' was the baron's immediate reply, as by a lucky motion of his head he escaped the effect of the unpleasant missile; and immediately an awful din, caused by the hurling of all kinds of aggressive weapons, with numberless challenges ensued.

"Donner wetter," shouted the baron, "pistols of course."

"Tausend! sacrament!" screamed the Munich student, "Sabres. Ohne binden und bandagen."

The latter pleasant alternative was ultimately agreed upon. Eight o'clock the next morning was the hour appointed, and the ancient and respectable Hirsch-gasse named as the place of con

The name of a chore in Munich.

flict. Both parties were on the ground at the appointed time; the one with his seconds and implements, all ready, accompanied by the fiery-eyed poodle before mentioned, who evinced, by a sort of spasmodic movement of his caudal extremity, a knowledge of what was about to happen. The Frei-Herr, on the contrary, appeared without a second, totally unarmed, and smoking his meerschaum with an air of calm satisfac tion and easy nonchalance, whistling, as he ascended the stairs, the wellknown air of

"Morgen Roth! Morgen Roth!

Du leuchtest mich zum fruhen tod."

And at the same time exclaimed against the tardiness of the Prussians, who, although they had promised to act as his friends upon the occasion, had not yet appeared upon the ground. But the red fisherman having been examined upon this point, declared that he had left the whole of the Prussian chore in a state of hopeless imbecility in their kneipe on the Riesen Sein,* in consequence of the quantity of beer and champagne they had imbibed at a commers on the previous evening.

"There will not," said the Herr Acherman, with a grim smile, "be one of them sober these four hours to come unless, indeed, they are pumped upon."

The baron looked a little dismayed; but, with an internal chuckle, as he descended the stairs, to seek some other chore, began to hum the words of

"Wir sind soldaten,

Und zeihen zum Feld."

But as it was now drawing near to nine o'clock, and time was pressing, the other "chore Paukereien, be tween the Vandals and Suabians, who at that time were hostile, had to be fought, so that there was ample occupation to fill up the leisure hours. At eleven o'clock the baron was ob served quietly to return, bringing with him a tall youth, sparingly attired in black, with dragoon spurs, which gave him a military air. It was, however, whispered by some of the Westphalians who had been in the habit of frequenting the spiel houses at the city of the fountains, that he was croupier to one of the gaming tables in that fashionable resort.

The name of a beer-house near the Kainer-street in Heidelberg. These are the common chore duels when the bursch and foxes fight.

1848.] Chapter III.—The Baron who preferred Eating to Fighting. 261

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However this may be, it was avowed by the baron, that the Nassau chore were ready to assist him, and that at twelve o'clock they would be on the ground. The hour of noon soon arrived, and with it a carriage, containing the senior of the Nassau, with two of the crack men of the chore, having in their custody a black leather case of portentous appearance, whispered to contain "Solinger sabel Klinge."

It was soon announced that everything was in readiness. The Munich student was standing in the middle of the floor, in full fighting costume, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, a black bandage bound around his wrist, and his sabre firmly grasped in his hand, looking as fierce as he possibly could. The poodle, who appeared to enter quite into the spirit of the thing (possibly because he thought he might soon have the pleasure of eating somebody's nose his master's, or any one else's), eyeing the proceeding with great satisfaction. But here a difficulty of a very unexpected nature arose; the baron was nowhere to be found.

"Wo ist er? Der himmel sacrament!" shouted Hammersdorf, greatly excited.

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Ich weiss nicht," replied the second, shrugging his shoulders, "possibly he is gone to bed-early rising does not agree with him."

"Tausend," said a Nassau man, "I fear he is a hasenfuss.'"t

At this critical juncture a "brand fox" came tearing into the apartment, and said he had seen the baron rapidly descending the garden steps a few minute previously.

All the formidable preparations for fighting were accordingly abandoned, and the respective parties went to dinner, relieving their minds by various anathemas, levelled against the recreant baron.

The Munich student and his friend went across the river to the Freund

licher Mann, where they spent the rest of the evening in drinking gleewine; and towards midnight repaired to the dusky kneipe where the "skandal" of the previous evening had taken place, armed with various horsewhips. They had hardly taken their seats in a quiet corner, when in came the baron, roaring drunk, and loudly exclaiming that he had that morning "abgefürht"‡ a man at the Hirsch-gasse.

"Who was it?" thundered the Munich student, rising from his seat.

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It ought to have been you," exclaimed the baron with quiet effrontery, and a power of face that did him much credit.

"You are," exclaimed the man from Munich, in a towering passion, "Elender wicht."§

"Tausend!" said the baron, "would you have me lose my dinner which I had paid for in the Wein-berg?' besides I was hungry."

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"You were right," said the Munchener; "had you remained you would never have eaten another."

"Oh, as for that," said the baron, "come out into the garden and I'll box you for a gulden.'

"We don't fight like knoten in the place I come from," replied the student from Munich.

Just at this moment the blackwhiskered friend of the baron entered the apartment, and in his eagerness to explain to him the cause of his disappearance, he contrived, in the midst of his awkward gesticulations, to give the "Münchener a dig with his elbow.

"

"Du Unverschämter," shouted his antagonist, catching the baron by the collar with one hand, while in the other he grasped a horsewhip, with which formidable weapon he immediately proceeded to administer a severe castigation; and so ended one of the most ridiculously dramatic scenes we ever recollect to have witnessed.

A rare and beautiful species of sword-blade, quite as finely tempered as Damascus steel.

† Literally "harefooted"-the student term for a coward.

Given a blow so severe as to disable the combatant. § A miserable coward.

PYTHONIC AND DEMONIAC POSSESSIONS IN INDIA AND JUDEA.

PART I

IN a former number* we laid before our readers, the theory of demoniac possession prevalent among the Hindoos, and pointed out the resemblance which its actual phenomena present to a class of symptoms, that, throughout Europe, in the present age, are regarded as manifestations of physical disease; as varieties of lunacy or mania; forms of epilepsy, hysteria, chorea; or anomalous consequences of nervous derangement, or functional irregula rity. We next noticed the kindred, though in theory the antagonist, state of divine possession, known by the name of uvusuru, the season of divine visitation; or, still more popularly, by that of Waren, the living, moving, wind, pneuma, or afflatus of deity; and, finding in the practical exemplifications of the latter, that, though there exists some difference in the accompanying circumstances, and in the supposed causes, immediate or remote, and a very great difference in the moral medium through which the possessed and the spectators behold the occurrence, and the consequent language which they hold regarding it, the radical phenomena in the person, and the consciousness of the individual supposed to be divinely possessedcases of clear imposture, or self-excitement, and self-delusion, excepted-present no essential difference, though often less intense in degree, and less painful in character, from those exhibited in demoniac possession; being still, apparently, identical or analogous with what we encounter in some of the varieties of phrenetic, convulsive, or nervous disease; a few of the higher and more rare examples, affording a parallel to what has been observed in cases of theomania and mesmeric exaltation, whatever the real nature of these conditions be; finding, moreover, that the same possessions are viewed by different classes, and by

mere

the same classes, at different stages, in opposite lights: the demoniac, frequently brightening into the divineand the divine, detected by some Ithuriel touch, or, by the test of time alone, casting off the counterfeit garment of light, in which they had exacted homage, and standing forth confessed, angels of darkness-demoniac tabernacles; finding this essential identity of phenomena amidst two opposite modes of moral judgment, and these two moral judgments themselves often melting into each other, we ventured to propose a theory, which would explain the difficulty, and account for the confusion; and, ascending beyond the present dual form of possession to the unity of the original idea, suggest ed the mode in, and the causes from which, the first notion of possession by deity, at a time when all deity was synonymous with malignant, supernatural power, became, in man's onward progress, modified, and divided into the two opposing notions, of a posses sion, evil and demoniac, and a possession, benignant and divine.

That theory, it must be remember. ed, is intended to account philosophi cally for the existence, among pagan nations, of the notion of a dual possession, in connexion with certain physical and psychological phenomena; which duality in the notion, is obviously false for all Christians, at least, will deny the possibility of the alleged possession of the Hindoos by Devee or Shivu being, in truth, a genuine divine possession; and will, therefore, agree with us, that both possessions are intrinsically of the same radical character, whatever that character may be which duality, therefore, being false, not being dependent on, or proceeding from two really antago nist powers, and not being, on the other hand, attributable, at least in the antagonism of its character and

* Vide DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE for March-" Theory and Phenomena of Possession among the Hindoos."

operations, to a single demoniac influence, for this were to array Satan against Satan-must be sought for in purely natural and philosophical causes in the history of the human mind-in the appearance of certain natural phenomena and in the impression which, at certain periods of man's advancement, these latter present to the former, as evidence or indicia of the spiritual world. So far only, to afford some solution for this mysterious duality of possession among pagan nations, this curious distinction between the demoniac and the divine, among those to whom the true divine was unknown, and all whose worshipped Numina, if they had any spiritual existence at all, we must regard as alike demoniac; philosophical reasoning is admissible, nay, is absolutely necessary: and so far it does not in any way trench on the religious question, i. e., on the real nature of these possessions, now stripped of their false duality, and reduced to one category. But the religious question is not far off; nay, it was this which originated, and lent its main interest to the whole inquiry, and it must, eventually, be encountered. For in truth, it is, in the first place, difficult to witness, or be cognisant of the facts which occur in the possessions of the Hindoos, without being convinced, that the cases belong precisely to the same class as those of the demoniacs of the Gospel Hindoo associations merely superseding Jewish or Chaldean. Who, for example, hearing a man, subject to epileptic fits, declare that, as he was passing along an estuary, a jhupaté or devil-blast, entered him, and that this devil (who by the way, conformably to the theory of demons laid down in our former paper, was described as the spirit of a wicked Mussulman deceased) would often throw him into the fire, or drive him into the sea, to which "ipsissima verba" we can attest from our own knowledge- could fail to recall the demoniac mentioned in Matt. xvii. and Mark ix.: or, who could listen to one, subject to the supposed

divine possession-also, an epilepticasserting, that he was possessed by seven divine powers at once, and proceeding to enumerate them, as Girja Baee, &c., ; all varieties, be it observed, of the ever-recurring Hecate Devee-who could hear this, as we with our own ears have heard it, and not recall the demon whose name was "Legion," or fail to remember that passage in Mark xvi. 9-" Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven. devils."

On the other hand, no person having any extended medical experience, or even a moderate acquaintance with medical works, can fail to recognise in the main features of these Hindoo possessions, as well as in those of the Gospels, the common symptoms of lunacy, epilepsy, and other forms of disease, above mentioned.

This resemblance, indeed, which is so strong as to have been recognised where the disease is witnessed, as in Europe, simply as disease, and without supernatural associations, or clothing of any sort, is doubly striking when beheld, as among the Hindoos, arrayed in a spiritual drapery, and language in many points so analogous to that which the Gospels shew us was prevalent among the Jews.*

The question will then arise, were the cases of demoniac possession recorded in the Gospel, simply cases of physical disease, such as now met with commonly among Christians-rightly, indeed, viewed as evidence of the power of Satan, not according to the Jewish popular notion; but in that profounder sense, in which he is pronounced a murderer from the beginning the author of death, who hath the power of death-rightly, therefore, selected to afford by their cure, triumphant evidence of the power and mission of Him, who came to destroy the works of the devil; and who, in every exertion of His divine and beneficent power, whether it were the cure of the paralytic, or the cleansing of the lepers, or the raising

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An American missionary, who has laboured for many years in Western India, and enjoyed peculiar opportunities of seeing what passes among the common people, once remarked to us, speaking upon the scenes which take place at the exorcist shrine of Kanoba, "Since I have lived and seen what passes daily among the Hindoos, I have begun to take quite a new view of the demoniacs mentioned in the Gospel."

of the dead, or the restoring of God's defaced image on the heart of the repentant sinner, who bathed His feet with her tears, "rebuked the devil," and drave him out of his usurped possession, no less than in the restoration of the demoniacs?

Such is, indeed, the view which several commentators have taken; Dr. Clarke, Newcome, and Hammond, among the rest. Dr. Clarke, for example, noticing the man with the unclean spirit, whose name was Legion, thus speaks:

"In the account of the cure performed by our Saviour on a maniac, in the country of the Gadarenes, these tombs are particularly alluded to."

Newcome, in allusion to the deaf and dumb spirit mentioned in Mark ix. "He was an epileptic at the says, lunar period;" and Hammond observes, "The young man's disease was the falling sickness;" and that "we have here a clear description of epilepsy."

But further, if this be so, was the language which our Lord made use of on some of these occasions, merely a merciful condescension to the weakness of His hearers, both patients and spectators?-were such phrases as"Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him" (Mark ix. 25); or, again, the query to the demoniac, in the county of the Gadarenes, "What is thy name?" (Mark v. 9); and our Lord's granting of the request to enter into the swine, in the word "Go" (Matt. viii. 32)-was this language, this apparent sanctioning of the ideas of possession, entertained by the demoniacs themselves, and by their friends, only such a wise and merciful indulgence towards, and falling in with the predominant ideas of the maniac, as was, if not from the very nature of the disease, necessary, at least the most direct and efficacious method, to obtain, without violence or pain to the sufferer, the command over his spirit, and to effect his cure; analogous to that humouring of the prevalent illusion, which the ablest and most humane managers of lunatics invariably employ at the present day?

And again, was that remarkable passage of our Lord's, which occurs in Matt. xii. 43:-" When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh

through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return unto my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then gooth he, and taketh with him. self seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation," was this passage, which cannot be accounted for on the foregoing principle, as it was addressed, not to a demoniac, but to our Lord's auditors, and which, at the first reading at least, seems so difficult to understand on any other hypothesis than that of the reality of demoniac possession in the popular sense, was this only an inculcation of a profound and universal moral truth in the manner most ready of apprehension to his hearers through the medium of ideas which were current among them, and which he made subservient to this purpose: these ideas themselves being, perhaps, the mythic or personalized form of a deep and mournful verity-the causality and influence of the fallen angel in all the sufferings of man? We find, indeed, that this passage has been viewed by Gilpin and Newcome, as referring, in the language current among the Jews, to the observations made upon relapsed maniacs, and drawing a parallel between their case and the condition of those who, morally healed and enlightened for a time, relapsed again into guilt and unbelief. Gilpin writes thus upon it:-"The Jews, too, as Grotius says, were of opinion, that dæmons delighted in desert and solitary places. This might be grounded on observation. Madmen were driven from society, and are spoken of in the New Testament as 'living among the tombs' -and they who laboured under the power of melancholy would naturally resort to unfrequented parts of the country. The best interpretation, I think, of this passage is, that the Jews, who were once the people of God, and had had the evil spirits, as it were, driven out of them by the law of Moses, had now become more impenitent and more hardened than the Gentiles themselves." Newcome, on the same passage, says: "Our Lord may be supposed to say, in verses 43, 44, 45, in terms adapted to the popular superstitions, that, as the disease of maniacs

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