actions, and his charming innocence and amiability, interested at the
time all Europe in his behalf. Thrown upon the world in a state of utter
helplessness, he was adopted by one of the cities of Germany, and became
not only a universal pet, but a sight which people flocked from all
parts to see. It became a perfect fever, raging throughout Germany, and
extending also to other countries. The papers teemed with accounts and
conjectures. Innumerable essays and even books were written, almost
every one advancing a different theory for the solution of the mystery.
But his death was still more the occasion for their appearance, and for
some time thereafter they literally swarmed from the press. Every one
who had in any way come in contact with him, and a great many who knew
him by reputation only, thought themselves called upon to give their
views, so that in a little while the subject acquired almost a
literature of its own.

But this excitement gradually disappeared, and with it most of the
literature which it had called forth. There are a few names, however,
which occur frequently in connection with that of Caspar Hauser, to
whose opinions we shall subsequently call attention. They are Feuerbach,
Daumer, Merker, Stanhope, Binder, Meier, and Fuhrmann.[A] Of these,
Binder was his earliest protector; Feuerbach conducted the legal
investigations to which Caspar's mysterious appearance gave rise; Daumer
was for a long time his teacher and host; Stanhope adopted him; Meier
afterwards filled Daumer's place; and Fuhrmann was the clergyman who
attended his death-bed. Merker, though never thrown very closely in
contact with Caspar, was a Prussian Counsellor of Police, and as such
his opinion may perhaps have more than ordinary weight with some. Most
of them published their various opinions during Caspar's life or soon
after his death, and the subject was then allowed to sink to its proper
level and attract no further attention. Within a few years, however, it
has again been brought into prominent light by some new publications.
One of these is an essay written by Feuerbach and published in his works
edited by his son, in which he endeavors to prove that Caspar Hauser was
the son of the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden; another is a book by
Daumer, which he devotes entirely to the explosion of all theories that
have ever been advanced; and a third, by Dr. Eschricht, contends
that Caspar was at first an idiot and afterwards an impos