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 impostor.  Before considering these different theories, let us recall the principal incidents of his life.  These have, indeed, been placed within the reach of the English reader by the Earl of Stanhope’s book and by a translation of Feuerbach’s “Kaspar Hauser.  Beispiel eines Verbrechens am Seelenleben des Menschen,"[B] published in Boston in 1832; but, as the former has, we believe, obtained little circulation in this country, and the latter is now probably out of print, a short account of the life of this singular being may not be deemed amiss.

[Footnote A:  Daumer, in his Disclosures concerning Caspar Hauser, refers to a great many more than these; but it is impossible to follow his example in so limited a space.]