Such was the life of Caspar Hauser. For nearly seventeen years the inmate of a dreary prison, shut out from the light, without a single companion in his misery, drugged when it was necessary to change his linen, with no food but bread,--for seventeen years did he thus exist, --his mind a perfect blank. Suddenly cast upon the world, amid strange beings whom he could not understand and by whom he was not understood, he long knew scarcely a sensation save that of pain. And when at last he did become accustomed to civilized life, and the darkness which enshrouded him disappeared before the rays of light that found entrance into his intellect, it was only to awake to a knowledge of the utter misery of his position. He then saw himself a helpless orphan, the inferior of all with whom he came in contact, and a dependant upon the charity of others for his support. He awoke to find that he had lost seventeen years of this beautiful life, seventeen years which he never could recall,--that he never could take his stand amongst men as their equal, but would always be regarded as an unhappy being meriting their pity,--much like that felt for the pains of some suffering brute. Nor was this all. During the few years that were granted him in our world, persecuted by some unknown person, against whom he was helpless,--knowing that his life was aimed at by some one, but unable to protect himself, and at last falling a victim to the threatened blow,--and, worst of all, charged on his death-bed with being an impostor,--such was the life of Caspar Hauser!