I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that the whole spirit of this work--which faithfully reflects the whole spirit of the "justice" of the Middle Ages--inclines in a ferocious, wolfish manner to extend and multiply punishment of the most horrible kinds to every small offence against the Church--to manufacture and increase crime as if it were capital for business, and enlarge the sphere of torture so as to create power and awe. Nous avons changé tout cela, say the descendants of those fiends in human form. But if it was wrong then why did you do it if you were infallible inspired judges? And if you now believe that to be atrocious which was once holy, and a vast portion of your whole system, how can you say that the Church does not follow the laws of evolution and progress--and if so, where will it stop? It is a curious reflection that if the Pope and Cardinals of 1890 had lived four hundred years ago they would (with the exception, perhaps, of the Spaniards) have all been burned alive for heresy. Which is literally true. Within a minute's walk from where I sit, and indeed visible from my window in this town of Homburg vor der Höhe, are two round towers of other days--grim and picturesque relics of the early Middle Ages. One is called the Hexenthurm or Witches' Tower. In it gypsies, witches, and heretics were confined--it was the hotel specially reserved for them when they visited Homburg, and in its cells which are of the smallest between walls of the thickest, I or you, reader, might be confined to-day, but for one Martin Luther and certain laws of evolution or progress of which Paulus Grillandus did not dream. As I was sketching the tower, an old woman told me that there were many strange tales about it. That I can well believe but I dare say they are all summed up in the following ballad from the German of Heine:-- "The Witch." "Folks said when my granny Eliza bewitched, She must die for her horrid transgression; Much ink from his pen the old magistrate pitched, But he could not extort a confession. And when in the kettle my granny was thrown She yelled 'Death' and 'Murder!' while dying; And when the black smoke all around us was blown, As a raven she rose and went flying. Little black grandmother, feathered so well, Oh, come to the tower where I'm sitting: Bring cakes and bring cheese to me here in the cell, Through the iron-barred window flitting. Little black grandmother, feathered and wise, Just give my aunt a warning, Lest she should come flying and pick out my eyes When I merrily swing in the morning."