thought entered his mind that
the "Minister of Police was having him leaded lest he should slip out
as contraband;"--he was shrivelled up to a mummy almost, so that, owing
to his small size as well, a woman could carry him in her arms. Though
his body was thus a perfect wreck, his mental powers were as brilliant
and keen as ever; and when his hands proved useless to him, he engaged
the services of an amanuensis and went on dictating until almost the
very hour of his death. In fact, the last thing he spoke about was a
direction for his writer to read to him the passages where he had
broken off in _Der Feind_; then he turned his face to the wall; the
fatal rattle was heard in his throat; and all Hoffmann's earthly
troubles were over (June 25, 1822).

It is very remarkable that the works dictated by this extraordinary man
on his deathbed show an almost total departure from the style of most
of his previous tales. He no longer records his own experiences,--the
events and occurrences, the sentiments and thoughts, that were
peculiarly his own,--but he writes from a purely objective standpoint,
and _creates_. Of most of his other works it may be said that they are
_he_; but of these it can only be said they are _his_ in the sense that
they owed their origin to him. _Meister Johannes Wacht_, one of these,
is translated in Vol. II. The scene is laid in Bamberg, and the
characters of the story were also said to be faithful portraits of
actual people in Bamberg; yet we look in vain to find anything like
Hoffmann himself in it. _Des Vetters Eckfenster_, though hardly a tale,
is yet one of the best things Hoffmann has written. Those who know
Emile Souvestre's _Un Philosophe sous les Toits_ would find in this
thing of Hoffmann's dying days something to their taste; it is a
running commentary on personages seen in the market from the writer's
own window, and each little scene brings before us a true and lifelike
character in a few weighty and well-chosen words. _Die Genesung_, a
mere sketch, arose out of the dying man's pathetic longing to see the
green of the woods and the meadows. _Der Feind_, a fragment full of
promise, is a tale of old Nuremberg of the days of Albrecht Duerer, who
figures in it. Before being deprived of the use of his hands he had
written several other short tales, amongst which may be mentioned _Die
Doppeltgaenger_, as being a favourite theme with Hoffmann, and _Der
Elementargeist_, a weird, entrancing story. In