With these words he stretched forth his hand. She again knelt, and kissed it devoutly; and pulling his black robe and cowl more closely about his face and person, the monk disappeared by the concealed door.

Magdalena still knelt, overcome by her various emotions, when a sound from the window looking into the river startled her, and caused her to turn round. An involuntary scream burst from her lips; for from among the branches of a tree that grew upon the river’s banks, and overhung the window, peered, through the dingy panes, the pale face of the witchfinder.

It was about the hour of vespers; and an unusually dense crowd of the town’s people of Hammelburg, of all ages, ranks, and sexes, swarmed in the small open space before the fine old Gothic church of the town, and stood in many a checkered group—here, of fat thriving bourgeois and their portly wives, dragging in their hands chubby and rebellious little urchins, who looked all but spherical in their monstrous puffed hose or short wadded multifold petticoats, the miniature reproductions of the paternal and maternal monstrosities of attire—there, of more noisy and clamorous artizans, in humbler and less preposterous dress—on the one side, of chattering serving-damsels, almost crushed under their high pyramidical black caps, worn in imitation of an ancient fashion of their betters—on the other, of grave counsellors and schreibers in their black costumes, interlarding their pompous phrases with most canine Latin—here again, of the plumed and checkered soldiers of the civic guard—there, of ragged-robed beggars, whose whine had become a second nature—all in a constant ferment of movement and noise, until the square might be fancied to look like the living and crawling mass of an old worm-eaten cheese.

The congregation of the multitude had been induced by a report prevalent throughout the town, that the Prince Bishop, whose arrival from Fulda at his castle of Saaleck, close at hand, had been announced, was about to make his entrance in grand state, and that a holy and solemn service to celebrate this event was to be performed at the high church.

Already, however, other rumours were afloat among the crowd; and it began to be confidently stated, that a sudden change of plans had forced the Prince Bishop to renounce his intention.

Listening with anxiety, on the outskirts of a group, to the discussion upon the probabilities or improbabilities of the service taking place in the absence of the Prince, stood Magdalena. She was attired in her usual dark semi-monastic dress; but to this was now added the scrip, wallet, and tall crossheaded staff of the wandering pilgrim. As the prevailing opinion appeared to be that the Ober-Amtmann would attend, at all events, at the celebration of the church rites intended to be performed, Magdalena turned away with a calmer air, murmuring to herself the words—

“I shall see her once more—once, and for the last time: and God surely will forgive the sin, if such it be. One look of last farewell! and then again a long expiation of penitence and prayer.”

So saying, she traversed the small square to the broad stairs of the church, where she sat herself down upon the highest step, among a group of beggar women and ragged children, and, sinking her head to the ground, seemed to dispose herself to wait with patience.

Shortly afterwards, a young man also began to mount the steps leading to the great entrance of the church, as if with the intention of placing himself near the arch, in so favourable a position as to be close by all those who should pass into the interior. He bounded upwards with anxious haste and beating heart—although there was yet a long interval before the commencement of the service—and with a movement so hurried and agitated, that he brushed rudely against one person of a group in his way. He turned, with a gentleness of feeling unusual at the time towards the lower classes, to crave of the female he had pushed a pardon for his awkwardness. At the sound of his voice the old woman raised her head.

“Alas! kind, gentle Master Gottlob,” replied Magdalena in a tone of the bitterest sadness, as she rose from her seat, “my hour is arrived, and I must leave you. Ask me not why. I must go as I have come, in silence and mystery. But oh! I beseech you, deem me not ungrateful. I had not quitted you without a last farewell—a last assurance that all your gentle charities are engraven here, upon my heart for ever.”

“Magdalena!” again exclaimed Gottlob, still astonished at this unexpected announcement, “thou leavest me thus abruptly?”

“Again, I pray you, gentle Master,” said the old woman sobbing, “think me not unkind or cold. The will of another is far stronger than my own. The will of God is above all. We shall meet no more on earth, young man; at least I fear so: my destiny leads me from the world. But my prayers shall be offered up, morning and evening, at my noontide meal as at my lying down; at all times, and in all places, whenever it shall please Heaven to hear them, for my generous benefactor.”

“But you must not quit me thus,” said the young man—“thus unassisted, in penury and want. I have but little, it is true, but that little shall be thine. What matter the gauds I thought to purchase? the dainty plume to deck my cap?” Still, in spite of himself, an unconscious sigh broke, as he spoke, from the breast of “Gentle Gottlob,” at the anticipated renunciation of the braveries that were to give him a price in the eye of the fair object of his adoration. “Can my poor savings be better bestowed than upon thee?”

“I need not thy generous sacrifice, kind youth,” replied Magdalena. “The pilgrim lacketh nothing in a Christian land; and soon I shall be beyond all want.”

“Oh! speak not thus sadly,” said Gottlob, taking her hand.

“I meant it not so sadly as you deem. I am resigned still to live on, until it please God to release me from this world of sin and sorrow, more easily resigned and with a calmer spirit, since, through the mist of solitary darkness around me, I see a way of hope that shines not upon me, but upon the bright forms most dear to me.”

“What meanest thou, Magdalena?” cried the young man.

“Strive not to comprehend me,” said the old woman in a more subdued tone—“I would not foster vain delusions;” and, as if to remove the impression of what she had said from Gottlob’s mind, she hastily added, “You have not seen the Prince at Saaleck?”

“Alas, no!” replied the young artist. “My noble patron had already left the castle with a small retinue, and I was too late to meet him. It was said that he was gone upon a visit to all the various monasteries in this part of the country, in order to hold secret counsel with the different dignitaries of the church in his domain, respecting the late heresies that have appeared, and already spread so widely throughout the land.”

Magdalena was about to answer, when a new and general movement among the crowd, showed that the expectation of the multitude was aroused. The tapers upon the altars in the church had been lighted in splendid profusion. The vapour of incense already scented the air, as it floated down the aisles. The organ pealed through the church; and the priests, in their sacerdotal robes, were seen advancing along the middle aisle towards the entrance, to meet the expected dignitary. But Gottlob and Magdalena gazed not upon this priestly show; their heads were turned in another direction, and looked from the church across the square. Their hearts beat with one feeling. Both murmured to themselves with one accord, “She comes!”

Already the pikes of the guard preceding the noble Ober-Amtmann appeared emerging from the street leading to the episcopal palace, and the soldiers, entering the square, cleared the way rudely through the crowd, when Magdalena again pressed tightly her companion’s arm.

Gottlob looked at the excited woman with much surprise.

“Swear to me that you will not trouble her unconscious heart with words of love, until, perhaps, a better time may come!” she continued, with hesitation.

“Magdalena, I understand thee not,” replied the young man. “But before me she is as a holy saint of heaven, at whose shrine we may bow down and pray, but whom we cannot pollute with earthly touch.”

“God grant you happiness, young man!” said Magdalena, dropping her flowing tears upon the hand she held in her own.

Gottlob’s attention was too much absorbed in the sight of the one object of his eager gaze, to heed more seriously, at that moment, the strange and solemn adjuration of the old woman. His heart beat with intense violence, his cheek flushed, his mild blue eyes dilated with animation, as he followed along the square the form of Bertha, who was advancing in the procession by her father’s side. And now she was about to mount the church steps, she would be obliged to pass close by him, perhaps near enough for her dress to touch his own; for the crowd was dense behind, and pressed forward upon those who stood, like him, in the foremost row. The agitation of his companion equaled, perhaps exceeded, his own.

The clergy now stood under the church gate—the preceding guards had stationed themselves on either side of the arch—the Ober-Amtmann, leading his daughter by the hand, had reached the broad surface of the highest step, where stood the aged female and the young artist, when the agitated Magdalena, unable to control her feelings as the governor and his fair child passed so near, bent lowly down, and seized the hem of Bertha’s garment to kiss it unperceived. At that moment, a rude gripe seized her arm and dragged her up, and a harsh voice shrieked in her ear—“Touch her not, hag of hell, to cast thy infernal spells upon her!” A scream of terror burst from Magdalena as she recognised Black Claus, the witchfinder.

“Noble Ober-Amtmann, hear me!” cried the cripple, pushing forward with force, and arresting with a wild gesture the progress of the dignitary. “I here denounce, before your noble honour, this wretched woman as a most foul and most notorious witch.”

In the rude attack thus made upon the unhappy woman—on her terror and surprise—the cross-topped pilgrim’s staff slipped from her grasp, and slightly wounding the fair neck of Bertha, it fell upon the pavement, and was splintered into several pieces.

“See, see!” screamed the witchfinder, “how she strives to harm the innocent and good, and destroys and tramples under foot—curses on her!—the holy symbols of the church.”

With a feeling of horror and alarm, for which the credence in witchcraft and its agents that pervaded all ranks and classes at that age gave full warrant, Bertha clung with a scream to her father’s breast, and sought protection in his arms. At this sight the unhappy Magdalena uttered a bitter cry of despair, and raising her clasped hands aloft, exclaimed—“O God! Thou punishest me too bitterly.”

“Hear ye,” cried the witchfinder, “how she owneth her crime even in her blasphemy!”

With one arm the Ober-Amtmann pressed the terrified Bertha to his bosom, and, with the other, signed to some of the guards to surround the old woman. At this moment the sight of the blood which had trickled in a few insignificant drops upon her veil, caught the eye of the alarmed girl, and turning very pale, she held forth a crucifix, which hung about her neck, towards the spot where stood Magdalena, as if to exorcise the powers of witchcraft directed against her, and sobbed—“Oh! take her from my sight—save me—she would destroy me!”

“It is she condemns me!” cried Magdalena; and, with another heart-rending exclamation of despair, she fell forward to the earth as if in violent convulsions.

The bystanders shrank in horror from the prostrate form of the unhappy woman. The guards, who had approached, kept at a sufficient distance to avoid all contact with the reputed witch, although near enough to prevent her escape.

Petrified with astonishment and dismay at the strange scene that had passed thus rapidly before him, and shocked at the sight of Bertha’s wound and terror, Gottlob had stood at first incapable of movement. But when he saw Magdalena thus stricken to the earth, he forgot all the terrors of witchcraft—he forgot the horrible denunciation—he forgot even Bertha’s fainting form; the instinctive impulse of his kindly nature was to rush forward and to raise the poor old woman. Before he could reach her, however, twenty hands had pulled him back with force—twenty voices screamed in his ear, “Touch her not—beware!” In vain he struggled, and strove to extricate himself—in vain he protested the poor woman’s innocence—he was held back by force.

In the meanwhile, although those nearest to the accused woman drew back with terror, the remoter crowd rushed forward towards the church steps in violent excitement, preferring loud cries of “A witch!—a witch! To the stake with her—to the stake!” The deeper voices of the men mingling with the shriller cries of the women and children.

In the midst of this scene of tumult, the Ober-Amtmann conveyed his daughter in his arms—for she had now completely fainted—to the church, and confided her to the care of her women. Upon returning, he sternly gave orders that the accused female should be placed in the prison of the town, with a guard before the door, until the denouncer should be heard against her.

“Come hither man, black cripple!” he continued, with some disgust, to Claus: “We know that the dreadful crime of witchcraft has, like heresy, made much and notable progress in the land of late; and although our reverend brother views the former abomination with more lenient eye than ourselves, we think that fagot and stake are but too slight a punishment for such black and damning sin. But still, of late, thy denunciations against this crime have much multiplied; and sometimes, it has seemed to our justice, upon but small and vague proof—although popular voice demanded the condemnation of the wretched women. Have a care, then, how thou wrongfully preferrest such a charge—have a care how thou jugglest with our sense of right and wrong; for though there seemeth, in truth, to be some appearance of the demon and his works in the horror which that woman has expressed for the symbols of our holy religion, and in the manner in which she has drawn blood from our young and innocent daughter, yet were we to find thy accusation to be inspired by motive or the spirit of falsehood, as we live that pile which threatens the sorceress and hag shall be thy own seat—the fire thy death-garment.”

“Noble Amtmann,” cried the witchfinder, undaunted by this address, “I fear not the proof. Again I denounce that woman as dealing in witchcraft, and consorting with the powers of darkness.”

As the guard drew nearer, to force the unhappy woman with their pike-heads to rise from the ground, where she still lay crouched together, the wretched Magdalena raised her head, and her eyes fell upon the dark face of the witchfinder, as it glared upon her in triumph. The hideous yells of the crowd prevented her hearing the only faint voice of pity raised in her behalf—that of gentle Gottlob. Her brain whirled with terror—she thought that her last hour was come; and, with a heavy shudder throughout her whole frame, she fell senseless to the ground.

Now, as they are here stated, the two opinions are not necessarily contradictory; differences in external condition may effect remarkable changes in tribes of human beings, and yet the collective body may be made up of different races: and to set before the reader a clear and distinct notion, is to prove nothing, although indeed, as we shall see in the sequel, the author has a very strong conviction, and believes that he succeeds in proving, as far as a matter incapable of mathematical demonstration can be proved, the negative of the latter proposition. What the author seems to intend, or rather what the whole tenor of his book imports, though his expressions at times go much further, is, not that community of origin is proved inductively by the researches which have been made into the existing and past state of man, but that the natural history of man presents nothing inconsistent with such a view.

The researches of Cuvier and others have negatived the theory of Lamarcke as to the transmutation of species. The “nisus formativus” is admitted, but admitted with limits, “quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum”.

The extreme rarity of hybrids, their inability of continuous procreation, the absence of any well-authenticated cases of a permanent species formed by the union of two distinct ones, the return to the original type when the disturbing causes are removed, with various other arguments tending the same way, have been considered, by the most competent and impartial judges, as conclusive evidence of the real and permanent existence in nature of distinct species. These arguments are stated in detail in the second volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, to which we refer those of our readers who wish for further information.

Having briefly stated these and similar arguments, Dr Prichard expresses his conclusion as follows:—

This conclusion is repeated a little further on.

Granting, then, the truth of the limitation of species to be established, and taking as the definition of species the power of continual propagation, we have it proved at the commencement of the work, that “all human races are of one species;” the only question which remains is, whether, admitting them to be of one species, the deduction that they have a common origin is necessary; or, if not necessary, whether it is proved in the course of the author’s work. It does not appear to us a necessary conclusion; for there appears no reason à priori why the Creator should not as well form separately an indefinite number of creatures of the same species as a single pair. This point is not adverted to in the work before us; and whenever identity of origin is assumed, it is upon the same grounds from which identity of species is deduced. In fact, they are generally coupled; thus, at page 487, we have the expression—

And in the last page we have—

The great point as to identity of species being proved, it would be certainly more simple, and more in unison with the economy of nature, to suppose that all were descended from one pair, than that numerous identical members of a common species were simultaneously created. On the other hand, a physiological difficulty occurs, in viewing a race as descended from a single pair, from the fact universally recognised in the later periods of history, viz. the degeneration, and, in the end, destruction or indefinite deterioration of both physical and mental faculties, by continual intermarriage. The houses of Braganza and Hapsburg are notorious instances of this; and, as far as we are aware, there are no counter instances.

It may be thought that, in the existing state of man, few marks remain from which his early history may be deduced; but those unacquainted with the progress of inductive research, would be astonished at the magnitude and importance of results derivable from an apparently simple and worthless object. An unthinking wanderer, stumbling upon an ancient tombstone, if reproached with inattention, would ask what is to be learned from such a relic. A word of inscription would give a clue to the language, and, coupled with other observations, to the date of the monument; the character of the stone, whether roughly hewn or elaborately carved, would give evidence as to the tools used in its formation, and consequently furnish a key to the manufacturing and metallurgic knowledge of the fabricators. The stone itself might possibly not be similar to those in the immediate vicinity, and thence would indicate that travelling and the power of transfer were practised, and the skeleton within would indicate the physical formation of the men of that day. We have selected here a case of an ordinary grave, but how much stronger would the case be were we to take a sarcophagus of Egypt, enclosing a mummy? The inscription, the fabric of the cere-cloth, the chemical substances with which it is impregnated, as well as those by which the body is preserved, and the relics commonly deposited with it, would lead, by careful investigation, to a tolerably accurate knowledge of the character and habits of the time; and where many relics of different descriptions, collected from different parts, are skilfully compared, a body of evidence is arrived at, minutely circumstantial in its details, and the veracity of which admits of no dispute. As the researches of comparative anatomists have enabled us, from the examination of a single bone, to pronounce with certainty upon the general conformation and habits of the animal to which it belonged; and as, in many cases, from the existence of such animals, we may go on, step by step, to the nature of the earth’s surface at the period when they lived: so the meanest relic of art will serve the natural historian of man as a fulcrum by which he may turn up a mass of genuine information; with which, as with all knowledge, as its store increases, the power of applying it becomes more facile; until at length it scarcely becomes an exaggeration to say, that every material relic bears in itself its own natural history, and, if artificially modified, the history of its fabricators—what the germ is to futurity the relic is to the past.

We may here state that we quite agree with Dr Prichard, as to the absence of any foundation for the general belief, that all the acts of inferior animals are performed without their consciousness or view to any object or end; on the contrary, there is every probability that they, in carrying into effect their several instincts, seem to themselves to act from similar internal impulses of will and intention, as human beings do.

We need not enter into the vast number of varieties which the most domestic of all domesticated animals, the dog, exhibits; we shall only remark, that, in all their varieties, Dr Prichard says,—

But this passage is enigmatical, as the original type seems to be involved in dense obscurity. Buffon considered the shepherd dog to be the least modified by domestication—very erroneously, according to Dr Prichard; it is still a vexata questio, whether the original progenitor of the dog be a wolf, a jackal, a fox, or an unknown animal differing from all these.

We might extract other instances of physiological and psychological changes induced by domestication, but we think enough have been given to show the character and degree of such changes. The least important change, and that which appears the soonest affected, is the colour of the skin and hair. This is universally of an uniform tint in wild animals, and generally bears a close approximation to the colour of the land in which the animal lives: thus the ptarmigan, inhabiting snowy regions, is white; the grouse has the colour of heath; the hare that of dry fern or furze—a provision which has the effect of protecting the weaker tribes from the stronger and predatory ones. In domesticated animals, from causes apparently not as yet traced, the colour is variegated and various. Closely connected with the colour and nature of the skin, are the size and shape of the horns, their presence and absence. Great as is the apparent variety of appearance effected by horns, changes in these appear to be easily induced: they are connected with the epidermic structure, generally the most easily modified; and we need not cite instances to prove that different breeds of the same tribe, and occasionally different individuals of the same breed, differ materially as to horns. According to Azara, horned horses are sometimes seen in Paraguay.

Very little appears to be known, at least scarcely any intimation is given in the work before us, of the proximate or final cause of these changes. Great as they are, certainly, as far as we can judge, no nisus formativus can account for the enormous horns of the Spanish sheep; nor, looking to the final cause; does there appear any reason why domestic animals should need such overgrown instruments of defence. When, however, we come to the more important anatomical modifications, such as the length and shape of the legs, the bones of the pelvis or of the jaw, the object is more apparent. A greyhound, with the muzzle of a bull-dog, would be an obvious natural inconsistency.

We now pass to the physical distinctions of the different races of men. Here we may observe that a much greater importance is to be attached to comparatively slight variations. Considering the surprising external differences that exist in domesticated animals of the same species, the wonder rather is, that the different races of men differ physically so little as they do, than that they differ so much. Here we will take first, the least important shades of difference—the texture of the skin, hair, and complexion; and then pass on to the more prominent diversities of the bony fabric, cranium, &c.