n
and much belaboured opponent of the heavenly powers, in a half
ludicrous, half terrific dress. Among the Germans he had his disguises;
the horns, the goats' or horses' foot, the halting gait, the tail, and
the black colour. It is possible that the details of his costume may be
taken from recollections of the ancient satyrs, but similar strange
animal figures are to be found in the festive processions of German
heathendom, and in the rising cities of the middle ages, the dress of
the chimney sweeper was an inestimable help.

Such were the notions which prevailed about the devil in Germany for
about a thousand years. They were influenced by all the great
excitements and changes of the popular mind. In times of great
religious zeal, they bore a wild misanthropic aspect; but in days when
the people were engrossed with worldly pleasures, they assumed a more
comic and harmless form.

Then came Luther and the Reformation. Together with every one else in
Germany, the devil also was brought into the great struggle of the
century. The Roman Catholics looked upon him as the head of the whole
body of heretics; while the Protestants took the popular view of him as
a figure standing with a bellows behind the pope and cardinals,
inflating them with attacks on the reformed doctrines. He was mixed up
in all theological and political transactions; he sat on Tetzel's box
of indulgences, visited Luther at the Wartburg, made intrigues between
the Emperor and Pope, humbled the Protestants by the Smalkaldic war,
and the Roman Catholic party by the apostacy of the Elector Maurice;
and in all the concerns, small and great, of the people he appeared,
and was busy everywhere.

This enlargement in his powers of action would probably have taken
place at any period of zealous faith; but in the person and teaching of
the great character who gave to the whole of the sixteenth century its
impress and colour, there was something peculiar by which even the
reverse of all that was holy was remoulded.

First of all, Luther was the son of a German peasant. In the
recollections of his childhood, as revived by him amid the circle of
his companions at Wittenberg, the devil wore a very old-fashioned, nay,
heathenish, aspect; he brought devastating storms, while the angels
brought the good winds, as once upon a time the gigantic eagles did
from the furthest corners of the world by the stroke of their
wings;[66] he sat as a water-god under the bridges, dr