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conclusion of his lectures, his regular auditors seldom failed to assemble in groups before his house to discuss the dark enigmas which he had pronounced, and on which they made comments still darker and more absurd.

The impression produced by these effusions of his prophetic talent, however, was not equally strong on all his disciples. Some laughed at and ridiculed his silly vanity; others, from a spirit of orthodoxy, doomed him, as a necromancer, to the flames; while the majority were disposed and resolved to follow implicitly the supernatural light of their instructor.

Among the former was a student, whom we shall designate by his initial T., a native of Hanover, who was accidentally brought into company with some of the enthusiastic party. At first he launched forth sarcastic observations against his weak opponents, or pitied them on account of the derangement of their intellects; but though he could neither comprehend nor confute their senseless assertions, still the contagion of fanaticism began gradually to operate on his mind also. He was now frequently absorbed in serious meditation. The infatuation of his acquaintance appeared to him most insensate and ridiculous; but still there seemed to be some truth in the thing itself. At length he even contrived to compose from all these absurdities a serious whole.