It has often been remarked, with perfect justice, that the French writers, a translation of one of whose works is here attempted, are singularly faithful in their to historic truth. Remove the thread of obvious fiction which is indispensable to make these admirable productions romances or tales, and what we have left is reliable history. It is this feature mainly which gives the indescribable charm to their historical tales—a charm powerfully realised in the original, though less in an imperfect translation.
The same claim to perfect in all essential points may be placed to the credit of the following "Roman Populaire," notwithstanding the startling supernatural element on which the story is founded. Erckmann-Chatrian have not thought it right or necessary to depart in this case from their practice of from all prefaces or notes in every edition of their works. Yet perhaps the translator may be forgiven, and even with thanks, if he ventures upon an explanation tending to show that the tale of Hugh the Wolf is not founded upon and the supernatural.
"Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him!" Such was the sentence pronounced and executed upon him of Babylon whose pride called for from the Lord. Dr. (Medica Sacra, p. 59) observes that there was known among the ancients a mental called lycanthropy, the victims of which fancied themselves wolves, and went about howling and attacking and tearing sheep and young children (Aetius, Lib. Med. vi., Paul Ægineta, iii. 16). So, again, Virgil tells of the daughters of Prætus, who fancied themselves to be cows, and running wildly about the pastures, "implêrunt falsis mugitibus agros."—Ecl. vi. 48. This horrible disease appears happily to have been a rare one, and recoveries from it have taken place, for it is not destructive of the sufferer's life. It has even been cured after a of many years.
Dr. Pusey (Notes on Daniel, p. 425), in a disquisition of great fulness upon the disease of Nebuchadnezzar, refers to a communication which he received from Dr. Browne, a of the Board of Lunacy for Scotland, in which he says, "My opinion is that in all mental powers or conditions the idea of personal identity is but rarely enfeebled, and that it is never extinguished. The and non-ego may be confused; the ego, however, continues to preserve the personality. All the angels, devils, dukes, lords, kings, "gods many" that I have had under my care remained what they were before they became angels, dukes, etc., in a sense, and even . I have seen a man declaring himself the or St. Paul sign himself James Thomson, and attend worship as regularly as if the notion of divinity had never entered into his head."
Esquirol, a very trustworthy writer, has a description of an extraordinary outbreak of lycanthropy in France (in the Jura, at , and other places in Eastern France) in the 16th century.
"This terrible affliction began to manifest itself in France in the 15th century, and the name of 'loups-garous' has been given to the sufferers. These unhappy beings fly from the society of mankind and live in the woods, the , or old ruins, prowling about the open country only by night, howling as they go. They let their beard and nails grow, and then seeing themselves armed with claws and covered with shaggy hair, they become confirmed in the belief that they are wolves. by ferocity or want, they throw themselves upon young children and tear, kill, and them." (Esquiról, Des Maladies Mentales, Paris, 1838, vol i., p. 521.) Those whom the French called loups-garous were in German termed werewolves.
It may be observed on this that when the nails of the fingers and toes are cut they grow indefinitely; but if they are allowed to grow unchecked they soon curve over the , form or claws, and cease to grow—answering to the Scriptural account of the effects of the mental disorder of Nebuchadnezzar.
Of course for every case of real many were or charged upon poor creatures, who were driven to madness by groundless charges of and sorcery, and being loups-garous in secret. Many innocent people were in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries burnt at the stake as wolves in human form.
A correspondent has supplied the following information:—"When in Oude in India, twenty-six years ago, we heard of several instances of native babies being carried off out of the villages by she-wolves, and placed with their whelps, and brought up wild there; there was one about when we were there, , but retaining much of the nature with the wolf's milk, and having been accustomed to go on all-fours—i.e., knees and elbows; but I conclude these were not with 'Lycanthropy.'"
With a few touches of his magic pencil the Laureate has a powerful picture of such a state of things in ancient Britain, of which we can scarcely deny the literal faithfulness. It is not a conception; it is historic truth:—
"And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour; but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her , there at their meat would ,
And mock their foster-mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves."
Coming of Arthur.
The following tale, in which the lycanthropy is far from being altogether a effort of the imagination, appears to be founded upon the belief in the continued existence of this rare species of madness down to our own day—or near it—for the story seems to belong to the year 1832.
The English reader will not fail to notice the correspondence between the title and the well-known designation of the illustrious head of the noble house of Grosvenor. Whatever connection there may or may not be between that German Hugh Lupus of a thousand years ago and the truly British Hugh Lupus of our day, all the base qualities of his supposed have disappeared in him who is with all the qualities which make the English nobility rank as the pride and the flower of our land.
F. A. M.
The Vicaraqe, Broughton-in-Furness.