Title: Faust's Leben, Thaten und Höllenfahrt. English - Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom
Author: Klinger, Friedrich Maximilian, 1752-1831
Language: English
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Transcribed from the 1864 W. Kent and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org



FAUSTUS:
HIS
LIFE, DEATH, AND DOOM.


                           A ROMANCE IN PROSE.

                       Translated from the German.

          "Speed thee, speed thee,
          Liberty lead thee,
    Many this night shall hearken and heed thee.
          Far abroad,
          Demi-god,
    Who shall appal thee!
    Javal, or devil, or what else we call thee."

                                 LONDON:
                    W. KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW.
                                  1864.

                                 LONDON:
              ROBSON AND LEVEY, PRINTERS, GREAT NEW STREET,
                               FETTER LANE.



THE TRANSLATOR TO THE PUBLIC.


The publication of the present volume may at first sight appear to
require some brief explanation from the Translator, inasmuch as the
character of the incidents may justify such an expectation on the part of
the reader.  It is therefore necessary to state, that although strange
scenes of vice and crime are here exhibited, it is in the hope that they
may serve as beacons, to guide the ignorant and unwary from the shoals on
which they might otherwise be wrecked.

The work, when considered as a whole, is strictly moral.  The Catholic
priest is not praised for burning his fellow-creature at an _auto-da-fe_,
and for wallowing in licentiousness; nor is the Calvinist commended for
his unrelenting malignity to all those whose tenets are different from
his own, and for crying down the most innocent pleasures and relaxations
which a bountiful and just God has been pleased to place within the reach
of his earthly children.

The tyrant and the oppressor of mankind will here find himself depicted
in his proper colours.

Neither will the _champions of freedom_ pass the fiery ordeal with feet
unseared; since a glorious specimen of what they all are will be found
among the following pages.  Ye who with ever-open mouths are constantly
clamouring at whatever is established, whether it be beneficial to the
human race or injurious, will here find the motives for your conduct
pointed out and held up to contempt and execration.

But, above all, this work contains the following highly useful advice:

Let every one bear his lot with patience, and not seek, at the expense of
his repose, to penetrate into those secrets which the spirit of man,
while dressed in the garb of mortality, cannot and must not unveil.  Let
every one bridle those emotions which the strange and frequently
revolting phenomena of the moral world may cause to arise in his bosom,
and beware of deciding upon them; for He alone who has power to check or
permit them, can know how and why they happen, whither they tend, and
what will be their ultimate consequence.  To the mind of man all is dark;
he is an enigma to himself: let him live, therefore, in the hope of once
seeing clearly; and happy indeed is he who in this manner passes his
days.

The present translation, it should be added, has been executed with as
much fidelity to the original as the difference of the two languages, and
other considerations, would allow.



CONTENTS.
            CHAPTER I.              1
Ambitious Character of
Faustus--His Discovery of
Printing--Journey to
Frankfort--The Devil, the White
Nun, and Father Gebhardt of
Mayence--Faustus offers his Bible
to the Council of Frankfort--His
first Interview with a
Spirit--The Infernal
Banquet--Speech of
Satan--Allegorical Entertainments
of Leviathan--Faustus's Dialogue
with the Devil
           CHAPTER II.              60
Leviathan meets Faustus at an Inn
at Frankfort--Assembling of the
Council, and Discussion on
Faustus's Bible--Corporation
Squabbles--Leviathan and Faustus
invited to a grand Civic
Entertainment--Faustus presents
his Bible to the City--His
Introduction to the
Mayoress--Knighthood of the
Mayor--The Devil's Revenge on the
Corrupt Corporation--The Hermit
of Homburg--A Lesson to
Misanthropists--The Hermit and
the lovely Pilgrim--His Hut burnt
by Leviathan, and he perishes in
the Flames--Faustus returns to
his Wife and Family at
Mayence--Espouses the Cause of a
despairing Client, and corrupts
the Judge--Dispute about the Nun
Clara--Leviathan's Revenge on the
avaricious Judge--Faustus's
Adventure with Clara--Takes leave
of his Family--Rescues a Youth
from Drowning
           CHAPTER III.             116
The Devil and Faustus continue
their Journey on the Banks of the
Fulda--The oppressive
Prince-Bishop--Faustus's
Interview with the
Bishop--Clerical Luxury--Case of
Dr. Robertus, the Protector of
the People--Faustus espouses his
Cause, and liberates the
"Patriot"--The Devil and Faustus
visit the Court of the Prince of
---.--The betrayed Minister and
his Daughter--The Devil and
Faustus imprisoned--The Fiend
suffocates the Prince, and, with
Faustus, resumes his Journey--The
Wildgrave and burning
Village--The infatuated
Monk--School of
Physiognomy--Faustus and the
Virgin Student--The Devil's
Peep-show, and its Talismanic
Influence--Portrait of the Fiend
           CHAPTER IV.              181
France in the Reign of Louis
XI.--Interview of the Devil and
Faustus with Father Vesois--Loves
of Madame de Monserau--Faustus
and the French Widow--The Fatal
Supper--Arrival of Faustus and
the Devil at Paris--Execution of
the Duke of Nemours--Faustus and
the avaricious
Father--Infanticide
recommended--Horrible Death of
the Miser, and Ruin of his
Daughter--Trial of a humane
Surgeon, and ungrateful
Murderer--Anatomical
Cruelties--Prisons of
Paris--Bishop of Verdun's
Cages--Perillus, the Tyrant
Phalaris, and the Brazen
Bull--Atrocious Character of
Louis XI.--The Hermit of
Calabria--Faustus and the Devil
visit England--Cruelties of
Richard, Duke of Gloucester--The
Devil's Portraiture of the
English Character--Arrival of
Faustus and the Fiend at
Milan--Murder of the Duke Galeas
Sforza--Florence--Spanish
Auto-da-Fe--Pope Alexander
VI.--Combat of a Papal General
with one of his Officers for a
White Goat--Machinations of the
Pope--Ancient and Modern Rome,
and her Abominations--Cardinal
Caesar Borgia--Licentious
Entertainments at the
Vatican--The Pope and his
Illegitimates--Caesar Borgia and
Michelotto--Stratagem to depose
his Brother Francisco--Murder of
the latter--Faustus and the
lovely Lucretia--Vanity of Human
Philosophy, and Sophistry of its
Professors--Atrocious Plots and
Excesses of Pope Alexander--His
Sale of Indulgences--Amended
Catalogue, with increased
Prices--Murder of Alphonso of
Arragon--Caesar Borgia's Letter
to the Pope--Cardinal
Orsini--Borgia's Triumphal Entry
into Rome--Marriage of
Lucretia--Gross Festivities--The
Devil's Apostrophe
thereon--Descent of the Pope into
Hell, and Death of Caesar Borgia
            CHAPTER V.              261
Faustus's Consolation for his
Crimes--Philosophy of
Voltaire--Faustus's portentous
Dream--Apparition of his
Father--Baseness and Ingratitude
of Man--Flight of the Devil and
Faustus to Mayence--Death of his
Son, and Destruction of his
Family--Retrospect of his
criminal Career--Accursed Destiny
of Faustus, and Triumph of the
Devil--Descent of Faustus into
Hell
 CHAPTER I.


Faustus, having long struggled with the shadows of Theology, the bubbles
of Metaphysics, and the _ignes-fatui_ of Morality, without being able to
bring his mind to a firm conviction, at length cast himself into the dark
fields of Magic, in the hope of forcing from Nature what she had so
obstinately withheld from him.  His first attainment was the remarkable
invention of Printing; but his second was horrible.  He discovered,
almost fortuitously, the dreadful formula by which devils are called out
of hell, and made subservient to the will of man.  But as yet he had not
exerted his power, out of love to his immortal soul, for whose welfare
every Christian is so anxious.  At this period he was in the full bloom
of manhood.  Nature had favoured him in his person, and had given him a
noble and expressive countenance.  Here was enough to bespeak his
happiness in the world; but she superadded pride and untamable
impetuosity of mind, which displayed itself in deep determination of
purpose, and in the constant workings of a heated imagination, which was
never satisfied with the present, but affected to discover the emptiness
and insufficiency of the acquired object, even in the zest of its
enjoyment.

Faustus soon lost the path by which moderation leads frail mortals to the
abode of true happiness.  He soon felt the narrow limits of humanity, and
endeavoured to burst their bonds.  By what he had learnt and believed in
his youth, he entertained a high opinion of the capacity and moral worth
of man; and, in comparing himself with others, he naturally laid the
greatest part of the sum-total to his own account.  Here were fine
materials for greatness and glory: but true greatness and true glory
generally fly from him who is on the point of attaining them, just before
he can separate their fine pure forms from the mist and vapour which
delusion has shed round them.  It appeared to Faustus that, in his
situation, the nearest and most convenient way to honour and reputation
would be the sciences; yet scarcely had he tasted their enchantment when
his soul became inflamed with an ardent passion after truth.  Every one
who is acquainted with these sirens, and has heard their deceitful song,
must know that, provided he does not make a mere trade of them, he must
infallibly miss his aim, from the necessity of assuaging the burning
thirst with which they inspire him.  Faustus, after he had for a long
time groped about in the labyrinth, found that his earnings were doubt;
displeasure at the short-sightedness of man; and discontent and murmuring
against the Being who had formed him.  He might still have been
comparatively happy had he had only these feelings to combat: but when
the perusal of the sages and the poets awakened a thousand new wants in
his soul, and his now winged and artificial imagination conjured up
before his eyes the many intoxicating enjoyments which gold and
reputation could only procure him, his blood ran like fire through his
veins, and all his faculties were soon swallowed up by this sensation.

By the discovery of Printing, Faustus thought he had at length opened the
door to riches, honour, and enjoyment.  He exerted himself to the utmost,
in order to bring the art to perfection, and he now laid his discovery
before mankind; but their lukewarmness quickly convinced him that,
although the greatest inventor of his age, he and his family would soon
perish with hunger unless his genius continually displayed itself in some
new forms.  Hurled from the pinnacle of hope, oppressed by heavy
debts,--which he had incurred by generosity and extravagant living, and
by his becoming security for false friends,--he now surveyed the world
through a gloomy medium.  His domestic ties, when he no longer knew how
to support his family, became an intolerable burden.  He began to think
that there was a malign influence in the distribution of men's fortunes:
or how did it happen that the noble and intellectual man was every where
oppressed, neglected, and in misery; whilst the knave and the fool were
rich, prosperous, and honoured in life?

In this melancholy state of mind Faustus wandered from Mayence to
Frankfort, intending to sell one of his printed Latin Bibles to the
magistracy, and then to return and buy with the produce food for his
hungry children.  He had been able to accomplish nothing in his native
city, because at that time the Archbishop was at war with the whole
Chapter, and all Mayence found itself in the greatest confusion.  The
cause was as follows: a Dominican monk had dreamt that he passed the
night with his penitent, the lovely Clara, who was a white nun, and a
niece of the Archbishop.  In the morning it was his turn to read mass; he
did so, and, unabsolved from the night of sin, received the host in his
profane hands.  At eve-tide, after a cup or two of Rhenish, he related
his dream to a young novice.  The dream tickled the imagination of the
novice: he told it with some additions to a monk; and in this manner the
story, embellished with horrors and licentiousness, ran through the
convent, until it came to the ears of the Prior himself.  This holy man,
who hated Father Gebhardt on account of his intimacy with the most
respectable houses, was shocked at the scandalousness of the affair,
which he considered as a profanation of the holy sacrament; and, refusing
to decide on such a weighty matter, he referred it to the Archbishop.
The Archbishop, wisely concluding that whatever sinful man wishes or
thinks by day he dreams of by night, denounced the ban of the Church
against the monk.  The Chapter, whose hatred to an Archbishop always
increases the longer he lives, and gladly seizes every opportunity to
annoy him, took Father Gerhardt under its protection, and opposed the ban
on these grounds: "It is well known that the Devil tempted St. Anthony
with the most licentious representations and voluptuous enticements; and
if the Devil dared to act so with a saint, whose equal was not to be
found in the calendar, what should prevent him from playing off his
pranks with a Dominican?  We must therefore advise the monk to follow the
example of the holy Anthony, and, like him, to oppose the temptations of
the fiend with the weapons of prayer and fasting.  It is, however, much
to be lamented, that Satan should have so little respect for the
Archbishop as to make the instrument of his wiles assume the figure of
one of his reverence's family."  The Chapter conducted itself in this
case exactly in the same manner as hereditary princes do whose fathers
live too long.  But what served more completely to confuse the case was a
report from the nunnery.  The nuns had assembled in the refectory, and
were busied in dressing up a Madonna for the next festival, hoping to
surpass by its magnificence their rivals the black nuns, when suddenly
the old porteress entered, told the licentious story, and added, that the
Dominican, whose name she had forgot, would certainly be burnt alive, for
that the Chapter had even then assembled for the purpose of trying him.
Whilst the porteress was relating the tale with its various
circumstances, the faces of the young nuns were violently flushed, and
Sin, who never loses an opportunity of corrupting innocent hearts, shot
into their blood, and hastily pictured the dangerous scene to their
imaginations.  Fury and consternation, in the mean time, deformed the
features of the old ones.  The abbess trembled and leaned on her staff,
while the spectacles fell from her face.  But when the porteress added,
that it was the sister Clara whom the fiend had brought to the Dominican
in his dream, a dreadful shriek filled the whole hall.  Clara alone
remained tranquil, and when the uproar had ceased, she said, smiling:
"Dear sisters, why do you shriek so fearfully?  I myself dreamt that I
passed the night with Father Gebhardt, my confessor; and if it was the
work of the fiend" (here she and all the rest made the sign of the
cross), "why, we must give him the discipline."  "The Father Gebhardt!"
cried the porteress; "now, all ye saints and angels, that is the very
person who dreamt of you; that is he whom they are about to burn."  The
porteress having thus expressed herself, this second version of the dream
was immediately circulated through the city.  The Madonna was allowed to
remain naked, for the sisters cared now very little if the black nuns
bore away the palm.  The abbess did all in her power to spread the news
abroad, the housekeeper followed her example, the porteress harangued an
audience beneath the gateway, and Clara candidly replied to the yet more
candid questions of her companions.  The last trumpet could not have
diffused in Mayence more terror and confusion than did this extraordinary
tale.

No sooner did the Dominican prior hear of this accident than he ran to
the assembled Chapter, and gave, by his information, a new turn to the
affair.  The Archbishop would willingly have suppressed the whole
business; but it was now time for the Chapter to take it up, and all the
canons were unanimously of opinion, that so strange a circumstance ought
to be communicated to the Holy Father at Rome.  They now became
infuriated, and nothing but the midday bell had power to separate them.
From that moment, all Mayence, clergy and laity, divided into two
parties; and for many years nothing was heard, spoken, or dreamt of, but
the Devil, the white nun, and Father Gebhardt.  The matter was argued
from the pulpit of every sect: mountebanks, Capuchins, and dog-doctors,
made it their theme; while the lawyers, after having taken the
depositions of the nun and the father, and confronted them with each
other, wrote folio volumes concerning the sinful and unsinful chances of
the dream.  Was this a time for Faustus and his discoveries to succeed?

In Frankfort, which is at the present day the asylum of science, Faustus,
however, hoped for better fortune.  He offered his Bible to the reverend
Town Council for two hundred gold guilders; but, as a large sum had just
been expended in purchasing five hogsheads of prime Rhenish for the
council cellar, his demand came rather unseasonably.  He paid his court
to the town-clerk, to the speaker, and to the senators,--from the proud
patrician to the yet prouder head of the shoemaker guild.  He was
promised by all favour, protection, and assistance.

At length he attached himself to the then presiding mayor, from whom he
for a long time gained nothing; but, as if in recompense, the
lady-mayoress kindled a violent passion in his susceptible heart.  One
evening the mayor assured him that the council, on their next day of
meeting, would come to a determination, by virtue of which the assembled
members would most probably pay down the sum for the Bible.  Faustus
replied, that his children might very possibly die of hunger before so
enlightened an assembly had decided; and, maddened with despair, he now
returned to his solitary apartment.  In this moment he suddenly
recollected his magic formula.  The thought of running some bold risk,
and of purchasing independence of man by an alliance with the Devil,
rushed more vividly than ever through his brain.  Yet the idea terrified
him.  With hasty steps, furious gestures, and fearful cries, he strode up
and down the chamber, struggling with his rebellious spirit, which urged
him to penetrate the surrounding darkness; still his soul shuddered and
was unresolved.  The clock struck eleven from the neighbouring tower.
Black night hung about the earth.  The north-wind howled, and clouds
obscured the face of the full moon.  Nature now appeared in a second
chaos.  A night more suited to bewilder an excited imagination could not
be conceived.  Yet was the beam of his mind balanced.  In one scale hung
religion and its firm supporter--the hope of immortality; while thirst
for independence and knowledge, pride, pleasure, malevolence, and
bitterness filled the other.

At length Faustus, according to the custom of magic, drew the horrible
circle which was for ever to remove him from the providential care of the
Omnipotent, and from the sweet ties of humanity.  His eyes sparkled, his
heart beat louder, and his yellow tresses stood erect on his head.  At
this moment he thought he saw his aged father and his blooming wife and
children wring their hands in despair, and fall down upon their knees to
pray for him to that Being whom he was about to renounce.  "It is their
misery, it is their situation, that maddens me," he wildly shrieked, and
stamped on the ground with his foot.  He now became enraged at the
weakness of his heart, and advanced towards the circle; the storm rattled
against the windows, the foundation of the house trembled: a noble
angelic figure appeared before him, exclaiming, "Stay, Faustus!" and the
following colloquy ensued:

_Faustus_.  Who art thou, that disturbest my daring work?

_Figure_.  I am the Genius of Man, and will save thee, if thou art to be
saved.

_Faustus_.  What canst thou give me to assuage my thirst for knowledge,
and my desire for freedom and enjoyment?

_Figure_.  Humility, resignation in suffering, content, and a proper
estimation of thyself; above all, an easy death, and light in the world
to come.

_Faustus_.  Begone, vision of my heated fancy!  I know thee by the
cunning with which thou wouldst deceive the wretches whom thou hast made
subservient to power.  Begone, and hover around the brows of the beggar,
of the monk, of the debased slave, and of all those who have their hearts
fettered by unnatural bonds; and who keep their senses locked up, in
order to escape from the claws of despair.  The powers of my soul require
room, and let Him who has given me it answer for its workings.

"Farewell, unhappy man," sighed the Genius, and disappeared.

Faustus cried, "Am I to be frightened on the very brink of hell by
nursery-tales?  But they shall not prevent me from piercing the darkness;
I will know what the gloomy curtain conceals, which a tyrannical hand has
drawn before our eyes.  And who is to blame, I repeat?  Was it I that
formed myself so that trifling exertion exhausts my strength?  Did I
plant in my bosom the seeds of passion?  Did I place there that impulse
for aggrandisement which never lets me rest?  Did I fashion my soul, so
that it will not submit, and will not bear contempt?  Perhaps I am like
the earthen pot, which, formed by a strange hand, is broken into pieces,
because it does not hit the fancy of the maker, and because it does not
answer the use for which it appears to have been designed.  Alas! I am a
mere vessel; yet wherefore then this struggle with my destiny, which
would fetter my noblest resolves?  And was mind given for no purpose?
Surely not!  The bull trusts in his horns, and the stag in his swiftness
to escape from the hunter; and is that which so eminently distinguishes
man less his own?  Mind I possess; I employed it for the benefit of my
fellow-men, and neglect was my reward; perhaps the devils will respect it
more."

Here he sprung furiously into the circle; while the lamentations of his
wife, father, and children seemed to echo, in the deep tones of despair,
"Lost! for ever lost!"

Satan, ruler of hell, had, by the hoarse sound of his trumpets, which
echoed even to the glowing sides of the sun, announced to all the fallen
spirits dispersed through the upper and lower world, that he intended on
this day to give a great festival.  The spirits assembled at the mighty
call.  Even his envoys at the papal stool, and at the different courts of
Europe, forsook their posts; for the invitation led them to expect
something great and important.

Already the monstrous vaults of hell resounded with the wild cries of the
fiendish populace, while myriads seated themselves upon the scorched
ground.  The princes then stepped forth, and commanded silence to the
multitude, whilst Satan heard the intelligence brought by his envoys from
the upper world.  The devils obeyed, and a death-like stillness prevailed
amid the thick, misty darkness, interrupted only by the groans of the
damned.  In the mean time the slaves of the fiends--shades who are
neither worthy of happiness nor damnation--prepared the immeasurable
tables for the banquet; and they deserved to be under the thraldom of
such a task.  When they were yet in flesh and blood, and ate the fruits
of the earth, they were of that equivocal kind, who seem the friends of
all men and yet are the friends of none; whose tongues continually
prattle of the noble precepts of virtue, which they feel not in their
hearts; who only abstain from evil because it is accompanied by danger,
and from doing good because it requires courage and self-denial; who
traffic with religion, and, like avaricious Jews, lay out their capital
at interest, for the purpose of securing a comfortable berth for their
miserable souls; and who worship God from fear, and tremble before Him
like slaves.

The devils, who, to say the truth, are no better masters than the Polish,
Livonian, and Hungarian nobility, drove them about in hell at a furious
rate.  Others were sweating in the infernal kitchen, and cooking the meal
for their haughty lords--an unpleasant service for a soul which had once
supported its own human body by eating and drinking.  For although the
devils originally neither ate nor drank, yet they had learnt from men the
custom of celebrating every solemnity by means of the glass and platter;
and on such occasions they feast on souls.  The general of each legion
(for hell is arranged on a military footing, and in this respect
resembles every despotic government, or rather every despotic government
in this respect resembles hell) chooses a certain number of damned souls,
as food for his subalterns.  These are delivered over to the slaves, who
stew, broil, and baste them with infernal sauce.  It frequently happens
that these wretches have to stick their own wives, daughters, fathers,
sons, or brothers upon the spits, and to keep up the purgatorial fire
beneath them; a truly horrible and tragic employment, rendered yet more
so, since their overseer, a capricious devil, like all understrappers of
great lords, stands behind them with a whip in order to expedite the
work.  On the present occasion two popes, a conqueror, a celebrated
philosopher, and a recently canonised saint, were intended to feast the
palates of Satan, his viziers, and his favourites.  Abundance of fresh
victuals had just arrived for the common people.  The pope had a little
time before set by the ears two armies of French, Italians, Spaniards,
and Germans, in order to fish up in the tumult certain districts, to add
to the patrimony of St. Peter.  They fought like heroes, and fell by
thousands into the infernal regions.  What happiness would it be for the
souls intended for these devilish repasts, if they were thereby to find
an end to their torments!  But no sooner are they swallowed, digested,
and returned piecemeal into the pools of hell than they are regenerated,
and arise to become the patients of new suffering.

While these victims were writhing on the spits, the cellarers and
butlers, slaves of the above-mentioned order, decked out the sideboards.
The flasks were filled with tears of hypocrites, of would-be saints, of
pretenders to sensibility, and of persons who repent from weakness of
soul; with tears which envy squeezes out on hearing of another's
prosperity; with tears of egotists who weep for joy because they
themselves have escaped the misfortunes by which others are overwhelmed;
and of sons who weep over the palls of their harsh and avaricious
fathers.  The flasks on the supper-table were filled with the tears of
priests, who, like actors, play a part in the pulpit, in order to move
their auditors; and to give the liquor a sharper flavour, it was mingled
with tears of courtesans, who walk the streets weeping for hunger, until
some inexperienced youth barters his dollar with them for sin.  Reserved
for Satan and his princes stood, on various sideboards, flasks of the
noblest drink.  This was heady and foaming, being a mixture of the tears
of monarchs, who weep for the misery of their subjects, whilst they issue
commands only calculated to perpetuate it; of the tears of maidens who
weep for the loss of their chastity with streaming eyes; and of the tears
of favourites who have fallen into disgrace, and now weep because they
can no longer rob and oppress under the protection of their masters.

No sooner had the slaves decked the table, and stationed themselves
behind the chairs of their masters, than the grandees poured forth from
the chambers of Satan.  The furies went foremost; the body-guards
followed them, and were succeeded by the chamberlains.  Then came pages
bearing lighted torches, woven out of the souls of monks who entrap
wives, and press round the deathbed of husbands to force them to leave
their property to the Church, without reflecting that their own
illegitimate spawn must beg for bread through the land.  Then came Satan
himself, closely followed by the remaining nobility of his court,
according to their rank and favour.  The devils bowed their heads in
reverence, the pages placed the torches upon the table of their
sovereign; while Satan, with a triumphant air, mounted his high throne,
and delivered the following speech:

"Princes, potentates, immortal spirits, welcome! thrice welcome!
Rapturous emotions glow through me when I cast my eyes along your
squadrons of countless heroes.  We are yet what we were when, for the
first time, we awoke in this pool from the stunning consequences of our
fall, and for the first time assembled here.  Only one feeling still
rules,--unanimity alone maintains her sway, and in this place only do all
devote themselves to the same end.  He who has the happiness of
commanding you may easily forget all other glory.  I own we have
suffered, and still suffer, much, especially since the full exercise of
our powers is restrained.  But in the feeling of the vengeance which we
take on the sons of dust,--in the contemplation of their madness and
crimes, by which they continually thwart the purposes of their
being,--lies a recompense for our suffering.  Welcome, thrice welcome,
all ye whom this sentiment inflames.

"Hear now the occasion of the festival which I intend this day to
celebrate with you.  Faustus, a daring mortal, who, like us, is at war
with the Eternal, and who, through the strength of his spirit, may at
some future period be deemed worthy to dwell along with us here, has
discovered the art of multiplying, on an easy principle, a thousand and a
thousandfold, those things denominated books,--those dangerous toys of
men,--those vehicles of delusion, of error, of lies, and of
horror,--those sources of pride and of painful doubt.  Until now they
have been too costly, and only in the hands of the rich, whom they filled
with fancies, and from whom they chased that humility which God had for
their happiness infused into their hearts.  Triumph!  Soon will the
poison of knowledge and inquiry be communicated to all classes.  New
cravings, new wants, will arise; and I doubt whether my enormous kingdom
will be able to contain all those who will destroy themselves by this
delicious poison.  But this were only a slight victory: my eye pierces
deeper into that distant period, which is to us no more than an hour is
to man.  Soon will cavillers and haters of the established Church spread
about like the plague: pretended reformers of heaven and earth will
arise, and their doctrines, from the facility of communication, will
penetrate even into the hut of the beggar.  They will think to do good,
and to purify the object of their hope from falsehood.  But, if men begin
well, how long do they continue to act so!  Sin is not more inseparable
from them than are ill consequences from their noblest pursuits.  The
well-beloved people of God, whom he endeavoured to snatch from evil by
the sacrifice of his only Son, will quarrel about tenets which no one
understands, and will tear each other to pieces like wild-beasts.
Horrible atrocities, surpassing all the abominations perpetrated by men
since they first sprung into existence, will desolate unhappy Europe.  My
hopes appear to you too bold,--I read it in your doubting countenances;
but listen to me whilst I explain.  Religious disagreements will give
rise to these frenzies.  Then first will Fanaticism, the wild son of
Hatred and Superstition, untie all the bonds of nature and humanity.  The
father will murder the son, and the son the father; kings will joyfully
dip their fingers in the blood of their subjects, and place the sword in
the hands of bigots, in order that they may slaughter their brothers by
thousands, because their opinions are different.  Then will the water of
the rivers turn into streams of blood, and the shrieks of the murdered
will shake hell to its very centre.  We shall see wretches come down to
us stained with crimes for which we have had hitherto neither names nor
punishments.  Already do I see them attack the papal chair, which keeps
together the fragile fabric through treachery and deceit, whilst it
undermines itself through crime and luxury.  The great props of the
religion which we dread give way; and, if the sinking structure be not
sustained by means of new miracles, it will disappear from the face of
the earth, and we shall once more shine in the temples as worshiped
divinities.  Where will the spirit of man stop, when he has once
undertaken to illumine that which he formerly honoured as a mystery?  He
will dance on the grave of the tyrant, at whose frown he the day before
trembled.  He will break to pieces the altar on which he lately
sacrificed, if he once endeavour to find the way to heaven by his own
wisdom.  Will the Creator take home to himself a human being, who is not
a million times more allied to us than to him?  Man abuses every thing,
even the strength of his soul as well as of his body.  He abuses all that
he sees, hears, feels, or thinks; and all with which he trifles, or with
which he is seriously engaged.  Not content with deforming whatever he
can seize with his hands, he soars upon the wings of imagination into
worlds to him unknown, and arrays them in ideal deformity.  Even freedom,
the noblest of his treasures, to obtain which he has shed rivers of
blood, he readily sells for gold and pleasure, before he has tasted its
sweets.  Incapable of good, he yet trembles at evil, he heaps horror upon
horror to escape it, and then destroys his own handiwork.

"After the bloodshed of war, mankind, wearied with slaughter, will take a
few moments' repose, and then their venomous hatred will be displayed in
petty and private bickerings.  Some, indeed, will every now and then
raise piles of wood and fagot, and burn those alive who disagree with
them in religion; others will attempt the solution of inexplicable
riddles; and those born for darkness will dare to struggle for light;
their imaginations will become inflamed, and their desires insatiable.
Truth, simplicity, and religion will be trodden under foot, for the sake
of writing a book.  Yes, yes, book-writing will become a universal
employment, by which fools and men of genius will alike seek fame and
emolument; caring very little whether they confuse the heads of their
fellow-creatures, and hurl firebrands into the hearts of the innocent.
The heaven, the earth, the secret strength of nature, the dark causes of
her phenomena, the power which rules the stars and bowls the comets
through space,--every thing visible and invisible,--they will wish to
handle, measure, and dive into.  They will invent, for all that is
incomprehensible, words and numbers; and heap system upon system, till
they have brought deeper darkness upon the earth, through which doubt,
like the fen-fire, will only shine to allure the wanderer into the
morass.  Only then will they think to see clearly, and then I expect
them.  After they have shovelled away religion, and are forced, out of
the remains, to patch together a new and monstrous mixture of human
wisdom and superstition, then I expect them.  And then open wide the
gates of hell, that the race of man may enter.  The first step is already
taken; the second is near.  But this must be preceded by a horrible
revolution upon the face of the earth.  Soon will the inhabitants of the
old world emigrate, for the purpose of discovering new, and to them
unknown, regions of the globe.  They will there attack and slaughter
millions, to possess themselves of that gold which the innocents value
not.  They will fill this new world with all their crimes, and then
return with materials for corrupting even the old one.  Thus will nations
become our prey, whom till now innocence and ignorance have protected
from us.  And thus shall we, by the assistance of the favourites of
heaven, triumph.

"This, then, O potentates! is what I wished to communicate to you; and
now rejoice with me over this mighty day, and enjoy in anticipation the
victory which I, who know men, promise you.  Long live Faustus!"

With horrible uproar, which made the axis of the earth tremble, and the
bones of the dead rattle in their coffins, the devils shouted, "Long live
Faustus!"  "Long live the corrupter of the sons of dust!"  Hereupon the
chief nobility of the kingdom were permitted to kiss the hand of his
Satanic majesty.

The triumphant devils now sat down to table, and fell upon the prepared
meal.  The goblets clattered, the souls were craunched between their iron
teeth; and they drank the health of Satan, of Faustus, of the clergy, of
the tyrants of the earth, and of future and living authors, amidst the
clang of hellish artillery.  In order to render the banquet more
magnificent, the masters of the revels went to the pools, drew out the
burning souls, and chased them over the tables, to illumine the gloomy
scene; while they ran behind the wretches with poisoned whips, forcing
them to caper; and sparks ascended to the blackened roofs, crackling like
wheat-sheaves ignited by lightning in an autumn storm.  That the devils
might have music to their meat, others hastened to the pools, and poured
molten metal amid the flames, so that the damned howled and cursed in
grisly despair.  If priests now could, instead of their cold and
fruitless sermons about penitence, give a specimen upon earth of these
horrid cries, sinners would quickly turn a deaf ear to the voluptuous
warblings of castrati, and join in some pious psalm: but, alas, hell is
distant, and pleasure close at hand.  After the banquet a great stage was
erected, and various plays were performed, founded on the heroic deeds of
Satan; for example, the Fall of Man, the Betrayal of Judas Iscariot, &c.

The performance was then suddenly changed to an allegorical ballet.  The
scene was a wild and dreary spot.  In a dark cavern sat Metaphysics, in
the shape of an Egyptian mummy, whose eyes were fixed upon five
glittering words, which flitted continually backwards and forwards, and
at each change had a different import.  The mummy ceased not to follow
them with its stony eyes; while in a corner stood a little roguish devil,
who incessantly blew bubbles of air into its face.  Pride, the amanuensis
of Metaphysics, gathered the bubbles up as they fell, pressed the air
out, and kneaded them into hypotheses.  The mummy was clothed in an
Egyptian waistcoat, embroidered with mystic characters.  Over this it
wore a Grecian mantle, which ought to have concealed the characters, but
was much too short and too narrow for that purpose.  Its legs, thighs,
and body, were cased in long loose drawers, which did not, however,
entirely conceal its nakedness.  A huge doctorial hat covered its bald
head, which was marked with the scratches worn by its long nails in
provoking deep reflection.  Its shoes were made after the European
fashion, and sprinkled with the finest dust of the schools and
universities.  After it had gazed a considerable time on the moving
words, without being able to understand them, its attendant, Pride, gave
the wink to Delusion, who was walking near.  He seized a wooden trumpet,
and sounded a dance.  No sooner did the mummy hear the noise than it took
Pride by the hand, and danced about with antic gambols; but its thin
withered legs could not bear this long, and it soon sunk breathless into
its former posture.

Then came forward Morality, a fine female form, hooded in a veil, which,
chameleon-like, sported all colours.  She held Virtue and Vice by the
hands, and danced a trio with them.  For music, a naked savage played
upon an oaten pipe, a European philosopher scraped the fiddle, while an
Asiatic beat the drum; and although these contradictory tones would have
distracted an harmonious ear, yet the dancers did not once lose the
step,--so well had they learnt their parts.  When the maiden gave Vice
her hand, she coquetted and languished significantly before him; but when
she gave it to Virtue, she moved along with the modest gait of a matron.
After the dance, she reposed upon a thin, transparent, and
beautifully-painted cloud, which her admirers had woven out of various
shreds and remnants.

Next appeared nude Poetry: she danced with Sensuality a characteristic
dance, to which Imagination played the flute d'amour.

History then advanced upon the stage.  Before her went Fame, with a long
brazen trumpet.  She herself was hung round with stories of murders,
poisonings, perjuries, conspiracies, and other horrors.  Behind her
panted, beneath a prodigious load of chronicles, diplomas, and documents,
a strong nervous man, clothed in the German fashion.  She danced with
Slavery, to the rustling of the stories with which she was hung.
Falsehood at length took the trumpet from the mouth of Fame, and tuned it
to the dance; and Flattery led the figures.

Then appeared Medicine and Quackery, and were received with loud
laughter: they danced a minuet, to which Death clinked the music with a
purse of gold.

After them were seen Astrology, Cabala, Theosophy, and Mysticism.  They
grasped each other by the hands, and whirled around in intricate figures;
while Superstition, Delusion, and Fraud stood near, and blew the
bagpipes.

These were followed by Jurisprudence, a sleek, rosy-faced dame, fed with
fees, and hung about with commentaries--she coughed through a tedious
solo; and Chicanery played the bass-viol.

Last of all entered Policy, in a triumphant car drawn by two mares,
Weakness and Deceit.  On her right sat Theology, holding in one hand a
sharp-pointed dagger, and in the other a blazing torch.  Policy herself
wore a golden crown upon her head, and supported a sceptre over her right
shoulder.  She descended from the car, and danced with Theology a
pas-de-deux, to which Cunning, Ambition, and Tyranny played on soft
tinkling instruments.  After she had finished the pas-de-deux, she made
all the other figures a sign to begin a general dance.  They immediately
obeyed, and sprang about in wild confusion.  All the before-mentioned
musicians played on their instruments, and raised a din, only surpassed
in loudness by the table-music of Satan.  Yet Contention soon insinuated
herself among the unsuspicious dancers; and, animated by Zeal and Fury,
they hastily snatched up weapons.  When Theology perceived that all
embraced delightful Poetry, and that Morality wished to tear off her own
veil, in order to cover her with it, she gave the latter a thrust with a
poniard from behind, and singed the nude and tender Poetry with her
flaming torch.  Both raised a dreadful shriek: Policy commanded silence,
and Quackery hastened to bind up the wound of Morality, whilst Medicine
cut a shred from her robe in payment.  Death stretched out his claw from
under the mantle of thievish Medicine to seize Morality, but Policy gave
him such a blow that he yelled aloud, and grinned most hideously.  Poetry
was allowed to hop about, because she was naked, and had nothing to be
despoiled of.  At length History took pity on her, and laid upon the burn
a wet leaf from a sentimental romance.  Policy then tied them all behind
her chariot, and drove away in triumph.

All hell expressed approbation of this last spectacle by reiterated
clappings; and Satan embraced the devil Leviathan for having got up the
entertainment, which flattered him exceedingly, it being one of his chief
whims to be reckoned by the fiends as the inventor of the sciences.  He
often said, in his pride, that he had begotten them in his intercourse
with the daughters of earth, in order to divert men from the
straightforward and noble feelings of their hearts; to remove from their
eyes the mystic veil which constitutes their happiness; to make them
acquainted with their state of restriction and weakness; and to fill them
with painful doubt concerning their after destination.  "I taught them,"
he would continue, "by their means, to reason, so that they might forget
to practise virtue, and to worship.  We ourselves have defied Heaven with
bold and open weapons, and I have at least shown them the way of
skirmishing incessantly with the Eternal."

The sensible reader will here pause, and admire the strict resemblance of
all courts to each other: that is, how the great, through the service,
toil, and sweat of the little, win the favour of their sovereigns, and
bear away the rewards.  Leviathan gave himself out as the inventor of
this allegorical ballet, and was on that account thanked and caressed,
although the real author of it was the Bavarian Poet Laureate, who a
short time before had died of hunger, and found his way to hell.  He
prepared the ballet after the latest court-fashion, by the command of
Prince Leviathan, who had at least talent enough to discover merit: the
reason of his bitter allusions to the sciences was, probably, because
they had so ill supported him; and perhaps Leviathan, who knew perfectly
well what would please Satan, had given him a hint to that effect.  Be
this as it may, the devil had the reward, and the thin shade of the
Bavarian Laureate sat cowering behind a rock of the theatre, and observed
with bitterest agony the marks of unmerited favour which Satan had
lavished on Leviathan.

The half-intoxicated devils now became so clamorous as nearly to drown
the howls of the damned; when suddenly the powerful voice of Faustus
echoed from the upper world through hell.  He had at length surmounted
every obstacle, and now summoned before him one of the first princes of
the kingdom of darkness.

Satan started up in ecstasy: "It is Faustus who calls there.  No one else
has the power; and no one else, if he had such power, would dare to knock
so loudly against the iron portals.  Up! up! a man like him is worth a
thousand of the scoundrels who come down hither every day by rote."
Then, turning to the devil Leviathan, his favourite, he added, "I choose
thee, the subtlest seducer, the deadliest hater of the human race, to
ascend and purchase for me, by thy dangerous services, the soul of this
desperado.  Only thou canst chain, satiate, and then, drive to despair,
his craving heart and his proud and restless spirit.  Quick, quick!
ascend! dispel the vapours of school-wisdom from his brain.  Consume with
the fire of voluptuousness the noble feelings of his heart.  Disclose to
him the treasures of nature, and hurry him into life, that he may the
sooner grow tired of it.  Let him see evil arise from good, vice
rewarded, justice and innocence trodden under foot, as is the custom of
men.  Conduct him through the wild and terrible scenes of human life; let
him mistake its aim, and lose among its horrors the guiding thread of
virtue.  And when he stands separated from all natural and heavenly ties,
in doubt concerning the noble destination of his race,--when even
pleasure and enjoyment have left him, and the inward worm awakes,--then
depict to him, with infernal bitterness, the consequences of his deeds
and delusions, and unfold to him all their links, extending to remotest
generations.  If despair should then seize him, hurl him down, and return
in triumph to hell."

_Leviathan_.  Wherefore, O Satan, dost thou impose this work upon me?
Thou knowest that I have long ago had enough of men, and of their
playground,--the world.  What is to be made out of wretches who, as thou
hast observed, have strength neither for good nor evil?  Gold, ambition,
or pleasure, can quickly make rascals of them, who have for a short
period pursued the phantom virtue; and if any one should move boldly at
first along the path of vice, he will be driven back when half-way by the
spectres of his crazy imagination.  If, indeed, it were a proud
hot-headed Spaniard, a revengeful assassinating Italian, or even a wild
lascivious Frenchman, whom you wanted me to catch--but a German, one of
those thick-pated swine, who slavishly bend before rank, riches, and all
the artificial distinctions of men, who believe that their lords and
princes are made of superior materials to themselves, and have a right to
dispose of them just as they please, either in fighting their own
battles, or those of other sovereigns!  Hast thou heard from them for
centuries a single word of rebellion against tyranny, or of shedding
blood for the rights of man?  Not one of them has, as yet, come down to
hell in glory; a proof that these people have no distinguished heads
among them.  Those are to my mind who wish to clear up every thing, who
fight with the adamantine shield of individuality, against which all
prejudices, earthly or heavenly, are shivered.  Show me such a man who is
willing to become great on earth at the expense of his soul, and I will
immediately ascend.

_Satan_.  Shall devils, O Leviathan, be blinded by prejudice, like the
sons of dust?  I tell thee, the man after our own heart is born under
that district of heaven.  He is one of those who, endued by nature with
hot and furious passions, rebel against all the old-established customs
of society.  When such a spirit tears its way through these cobwebs, it
resembles a flame, which, by its own fury, speedily consumes the
materials which feed its lustre.  He is one of those visionary
philosophers who strive to seize, through imagination, what is denied to
cold understanding; and who, if they are unsuccessful, laugh at all
knowledge, and make pleasure and enjoyment their gods.  Away, away,
Leviathan! soon shall a fire break out in Germany which will spread
through all Europe.  Already is the germ of that delusion springing up
which shall endure for centuries.  What the German has once caught, he
will not easily let go.

The commanding voice of Faustus now resounded for the second time.  Satan
continued:

"Thou mayst know by this call that he is no trembler.  Hasten to him,
for, if thou delayest, perhaps he may doubt the strength of his charms,
and hell will lose the fruits of his temerity.  Truly, the fellow is such
a genius, that I can almost overlook his origin."

The devil Leviathan angrily replied: "I swear, by the hot and foul pool
of the damned, that the rebel shall one day blaspheme, and curse this and
the hour of his birth."

He went away wrapt in a veil of smoke, and the fiends pursued him with
loud huzzas.

Faustus stood within the magic circle, while his breast swelled with
rage.  For the third time he repeated the dreadful formula, in a voice
that resembled thunder.  The door suddenly flew open; a thick vapour
hovered around the margin of the circle; he struck into it with his magic
rod, and cried in triumph, "Unveil thyself, thou thing of darkness!"  The
vapour dispersed, and Faustus saw a tall figure concealed beneath a red
mantle.

_Faustus_.  Why this tedious disguise to one who wishes to see thee?
Discover thyself to him, who fears thee not in whatever shape thou mayst
appear.

The Devil flung back his mantle, and stood in a daring and majestic
attitude before the circle.  His fiery eyes sparkled from beneath their
black brows, between which malice, hatred, fury, agony, and scorn had
formed themselves in thick folds.  These furrows were sunk in a smooth,
clear, high-arched forehead, which contrasted strangely with the fiendish
marks between the eyes.  A finely-formed aquiline nose inclined towards a
mouth which seemed to have been framed only for the enjoyment of immortal
things.  He had the mien of a fallen angel, whose countenance was once
illuminated by the Godhead, but which was now obscured by a gloomy veil.

_Faustus_ (_in surprise_).  Is man, then, every where at home?  Who art
thou?

_Devil_.  I am a prince of hell, and come because thy mighty call compels
me.

_Faustus_.  A prince of hell under this mask; under the figure of a man!
I wished for a fiend, and not one of my own race.

_Devil_.  Perhaps, Faustus, we are most so when we resemble ye; at least,
no mask suits us better.  Besides, is it not your custom to conceal what
ye are, and to appear what ye are not?

_Faustus_.  Bitter enough, and yet true as bitter; for, if our outsides
looked like our insides, we should not be very different from that which
we imagine you to be; still, I expected to see thee more terrible, and
even hoped that thy appearance would try the strength of my courage.

_Devil_.  Thus do ye always imagine things contrary to what they are.
Probably you expected a devil with horns and a cloven foot, as the
cowardly age has depicted him.  But since you have ceased to worship the
powers of nature, they have forsaken you, and you can no longer conceive
any thing great.  If I were to stand before thee such as I really am,--my
eyes threatening comets, my body a dark, hovering cloud, which shoots
lightning from its gloom, in my hand the sword which I once brandished
against the Avenger, and on my arm the ponderous shield which his thunder
pierced,--thou wouldst become a heap of ashes in thy circle.

_Faustus_.  But then I should at least see something great.

_Devil_.  I might admire your courage; but you are never more ridiculous
than in these would-be grand bursts of feeling, when you contrast the
little you can embrace with the monstrous and great which are so high
above you.  Thus may the worm measure the trampling elephant, and reckon
his weight in the moment when it dies beneath his powerful foot.

_Faustus_.  Mocker! and what, then, is the spirit within me, which, if it
once get fairly on the ladder, will mount from step to step into
infinity?  What are its limits?

_Devil_.  The length of your own nose.  But, if you called me out of hell
merely for this chit-chat, permit me to return for ever.  I have long
known your inclination to prate about that which you do not understand.

_Faustus_.  Thy bitterness pleases me; it chimes in with my humour, and I
should like to be better acquainted with thee.  What is thy name?

_Devil_.  Leviathan; which signifies _all_, for I can do all.

_Faustus_.  Hear the braggart!  Are devils, then, so boastful?

_Devil_.  'Twas said merely to do honour to the shape in which thou seest
me: but words are vain.  Set me to the proof.  What dost thou require?

_Faustus_.  Require?  What an indefinite word for a devil!  If thou art
what thou seemest, anticipate desires, and gratify them ere they become
wishes.

_Devil_.  The noble steed champs the bit in fury when curbed by a timid
rider: how he then resembles the man who feels wings that could bear him
into light, yet who is kept down in the dark abyss!  Faustus, thou art
one of those fiery spirits who are not contented with the scanty meal of
knowledge which Omniscience has set before them.  Great is thy strength,
mighty is thy soul, and bold thy will; but the curse of finite reason
lies upon thee, as it does upon all.  Faustus, thou art as great as man
can be.

_Faustus_.  Masquerading fiend, return into hell; must thou, too, deceive
us by flattery?

_Devil_.  Faustus, I am a spirit formed of flaming light; I saw the
monstrous worlds arise out of nothing: thou art of dust, and of
yesterday.  Do I flatter thee?

_Faustus_.  And yet must thou serve me if I command.

_Devil_.  For that I expect the approbation of hell, besides a reward;
neither man nor devil will work for nothing.

_Faustus_.  What reward dost thou expect?

_Devil_.  To have that which animates thee; that which would make thee my
equal if it had power.

_Faustus_.  I were well off then, truly; yet, adept as thou art, thou
knowest little of men, if thou doubtest the strength of one who has set
himself free from the bonds which nature has drawn so tightly round our
hearts.  How gentle did they appear to me once, when the eye of my youth
clothed men and the world in the pure colours of morning!  'Tis gone;
dark is my horizon; I stand on the gloomy verge of eternity, and have
broken through the laws which keep the human race in harmony.

_Devil_.  What madness is this, Faustus?  Harmony! does _she_ rule the
confused dance of life?

_Faustus_.  Silence!  I feel it perhaps for the last time; and perhaps
look back for the last time upon the pleasant, joyous days of youth.  How
lamentable that man must awake from this dream of bliss; that the plant
must shoot up, in order to wither away as a tree, or be felled!  Ha,
demon, smile; I was once happy.  But let that be forgotten which can
never be recalled.  Yes, we have only strength when we pursue wickedness.
But wherein am I great?  If I were so, should I want thee?  Go, cunning
flatterer; thou wilt only make me feel my own littleness.

_Devil_.  He who is capable of feeling where the shoe pinches him, and
has courage enough to tear away the cause of it, is at least great so
far.  More I will not say, and woe to thee if I were to stimulate thee
with words.

_Faustus_.  Observe me now, and tell me what my spirit requires, but what
I dare not utter.

At these words Faustus pointed to himself, then towards the heavens, and
moved his magic staff towards the east and the west.  He then continued,
"Thou wast, when nothing was."  He laid his hand upon his breast and
forehead: "Here is darkness; let it be dispelled."

_Devil_.  Desperate man! full well I know thy wish, and tremble, devil as
I am, at thy boldness.

_Faustus_.  Wretched spirit! thou shalt not escape by this subterfuge.
In my burning thirst I would undertake to drink dry the deep sea, if I
hoped to find at its bottom what I sought.  I am thine, or another's: I
yet stand where no devil can penetrate.  Faustus is yet his own master.

_Devil_.  Thou wast so a few minutes since.  But thy lot was cast when
thou enteredst this circle.  Whoever has looked me in the face turns back
in vain; and thus I leave thee.

_Faustus_.  Thou shalt speak, and remove the dark covering which conceals
from me the world of spirits.  I will know the destination of man, and
the cause of moral evil in the world; I will know wherefore virtue
suffers, and vice is rewarded; I will know why we must purchase a
moment's enjoyment by years of agony and sorrow.  Thou shalt disclose to
me the source of things, and the mysterious causes of the phenomena of
the physical and moral world.  Thou shalt make Him, who has arranged all,
comprehensible to me--yes! even if the vivid lightnings, which at this
moment shoot from thy demon eyes, were to stretch me lifeless in this
circle of damnation.  Dost thou think that I have summoned thee merely
for pleasure and gold?  Any dastard may fill his belly, and satiate the
desires of the flesh.  Thou tremblest!  Have I more courage than thyself?
What quaking devil has hell vomited out?  And thou callest thyself
Leviathan, who canst do all!  Away, away! thou art no fiend, but a
miserable thing like myself.

_Devil_.  Madman! thou hast not yet felt, as I have, the vindictiveness
of the Avenger, the anticipation of which alone would make thee return to
dust, even if thou didst bear in thy bosom the united strength of men
from the first to the last sinner.  Urge me no farther.

_Faustus_.  I will, and am resolved.

_Devil_.  Thou inspirest me with reverence and pity.

_Faustus_.  Obedience is all I require.

_Devil_.  Go to war with him who has lighted up a torch within thee which
will consume thee, if fear do not extinguish it.

_Faustus_.  I have done so, and in vain.  Obey!

_Devil_.  Insatiable man!  But know that a devil has his bounds too.
Since our fall, we have lost the idea of these sublime secrets, and
forget even the language to express them.  The pure spirits of yonder
world can alone sing and imagine them.

_Faustus_.  Dost thou think by this crafty excuse to cheat me of that
which I desire?

_Devil_.  Fool!  I would wish for no better revenge upon thee than to be
able to paint to thy soul, in the glittering colours of Paradise, all
that thou hast lost, and then see thee writhe in despair.  Knew I more
than I know, can the tongue formed of flesh make intelligible to the ear
of flesh what lies beyond the bounds of sense, and the disembodied spirit
only comprehends?

_Faustus_.  Then be a spirit, and speak!  Shake off this figure.

_Devil_.  Wilt thou then understand me?

_Faustus_.  Shake off this figure, and let me see thee as a spirit.

_Devil_.  Thy words are folly.  Now, then, see me: I shall exist, but not
for thee; I shall speak, but thou wilt not catch my meaning.

Leviathan then melted into a thin clear flame, and disappeared.

_Faustus_.  Speak, and unfold the enigma.

As the soft west wind moves along the perfumed meadows and gently kisses
the tender flowers, so did it murmur around the ears of Faustus.  Then
the murmur changed to a loud continued tumult, which resembled the
rolling of thunder, or the dash of a breaker against the coral reef, or
its howl and bellow in the caves of the ocean.  Faustus crept close
within his circle, and with difficulty supported himself.

_Faustus_.  Ah, if this be the language of spirits, my dream has
vanished; I am deceived, and must gnash my teeth in darkness.  I have,
then, exchanged my soul for the gratification of earthly lust! for that
is all in which this intriguing devil can assist me.  That is all against
which I risked eternity!  I thought to move among men enlightened as no
one had ever yet been, and to dazzle them with my glory like the rising
sun.  The sublime thought of living for ever as the greatest in their
hearts is gone; and I am more wretched than I was.  Where art thou,
trickster, that I may vent my fury upon thee?

_Devil_ (_in his former figure_).  Here I am.  I spoke, and thou didst
not understand the sense of my words.  Dost thou not feel that thou art
born for darkness?  Thou canst not become that which thou must not.
Withdraw thy mind from impossibilities, and direct it to what is
attainable.  Thou wishedst to hear the language of spirits; thou heardst
it, and wert stunned and deafened by the sound.

_Faustus_.  Provoke but my wrath, and I will bruise thee to tears with my
magic rod.  I will chain thee to the rim of my circle, and then stamp on
thy neck.

_Devil_.  Do it, and hell will laugh at thy anger.  For every tear thou
makest me shed, Despair shall one day wring a drop of blood from thy
brow, and Revenge shall hold the scales to catch and weigh it.

_Faustus_.  How revolting to a noble creature like myself to hold
converse with an outcast, who has only sense for wickedness, and will
only assist in wickedness!

_Devil_.  How disgusting to be forced to listen to a man who reproaches
the Devil because he is a devil, and does not boast of that shadow,
Virtue, like one of you!

_Faustus_.  Vain boast.  If thou couldst but taste the moral value of
man, by which he approaches the immortal, and which makes him worthy of
immortality!

_Devil_.  I can prove that it does not exist.

_Faustus_.  Yes; I believe thou canst.  And so can any one of us who
makes the measure of his own wickedness that of all mankind, and who
makes that virtue contemptible which he has never felt in his breast.  We
have had philosophers who in this matter have long had the start of the
Devil.

_Devil_.  Better if thou hadst never read them; thy head would then have
been more clear, and thy heart more sound.

_Faustus_.  Damnation!  Is the Devil always right?

_Devil_.  I will show you that which those philosophers only talk of.  I
will blow away from your eyes the clouds which pride, vanity, and
self-love have collected, and so charmingly coloured.

_Faustus_.  How wilt thou accomplish that?

_Devil_.  By conducting thee through the theatre of the world, and
showing thee men in their nakedness.  Let us travel by water, by land, on
foot, on horseback, on the rapid winds, and see the race of man.  Perhaps
we may discover that for which so many thousand adventurers have broken
their necks.

_Faustus_.  Agreed.  Let us go through the world; I must intoxicate
myself by variety and enjoyment; and I have long wished for a broader
sphere of observation than my own wild heart.  Let us go forth, and I
will force the Devil to believe in human virtue.  He shall avow to me
that man is the eye-apple of Him whom I now no more must name.

_Devil_.  Then will I return to hell a convicted liar, and give thee back
the bond which thou wilt presently sign with thy blood.

_Faustus_.  But if I were to trust a devil, who might palm upon me his
own fiendish performances for the works of men, how would the scoffer
laugh?

_Devil_.  Such a monkish notion I should not have expected from one who
has so long toyed with philosophy; but in this ye are all alike, fools
and wise men.  If any thing goes wrong, pride and self-love will never
permit you to lay the blame on yourselves.  Observe now those two words,
Good and Evil, which you would fain stamp into ideas; for when you have
words, you always think you have coined the empty sound into a thought.
You labour with your eyes closed, and when you open them it is but
natural that the good should be your own work, and the evil that of the
Devil.  Thus, then, must we poor devils ride about day and night, in
order to turn to this or that piece of roguery the heart or the
imagination of this or that scoundrel, who, if it had not been for us,
would have remained an honest fellow.  Faustus! Faustus! man seeks abroad
and in the clouds a thousand things which lie in his own bosom, or before
his face.  No; during our tour I will add to nothing, except thou command
me.  All that thou seest shall be the work of men; and thou wilt soon
perceive that they do not require the Devil to incite them.

_Faustus_.  And is this all that thou canst afford me?

_Devil_.  I will lead you from step to step; when we have run through
this course, another scene will immediately open.  Get first acquainted
with that which surrounds thee, and then mount upwards.  The treasures of
the earth are thine; thou mayst command my power: do but dream--do but
wish.

_Faustus_.  That is something.

_Devil_.  Only something!  Discontented being, thou shalt be able to
force Leviathan to further the projects which thou callest good and
noble, and the consequences of them shall be thy earnings, and the reward
of thy heart.

_Faustus_.  That were more, if the Devil did not say it.

_Devil_.  Who can boast that he has forced the fiend to do good?
However, let this thought inflate thy bosom.  Faustus, step out of the
circle!

_Faustus_.  It is not yet time.

_Devil_.  Dost thou fear me?  I repeat, thou shalt spend the moments
allotted to thee according to thy own pleasure: yes, Faustus, I will fill
for thee the intoxicating cup of enjoyment, as it has never been filled
for any other mortal.  Thy nerves shall wear away before thou hast
emptied it.  Count the sands of the shore, and thence thou mayst guess
the number of joys that I will strew before thee.

Thereupon he placed a casket of gold near the circle.  The figures of the
mayoress and a train of lovely maidens then passed by.

_Faustus_.  Ha, devil, who has showed thee the way to my heart?

_Devil_.  Is not my name Leviathan?  I have weighed thee, and thy
strength.  Dost thou respect these?

(He shook upon the ground, from a sack, a quantity of orders of
knighthood, bishops' hats, crosses of honour, and diplomas of nobility.)

"No, no; I know Faustus better: knowledge and pleasure are his gods.
Remain what you are; these things are vain and futile.  Thus, by
different bribes may ye all be won; and for the sake of lust or
advancement, ye would work bare your hands and your intellects.  But,
whilst fools toil for them in the sweat of their brow, and in the
exhaustion of their mind, do thou enjoy, without care or labour, what I
shall serve up.  To-morrow, with thy consent, I will conduct thee to the
mayoress."

_Faustus_.  But how?

_Devil_.  Accept the conditions, and I will tell thee.  Come out of the
circle; thou lookest still like a drunken man.

_Faustus_.  I would annihilate myself if it were not for one thought!

_Devil_.  Which is--

_Faustus_.  That I shall only thereby sooner fall into thy power.

_Devil_.  How rash and hasty are men!  Learn but to know me, and, if I
cannot gratify thy wildest earthly desires, return to poverty, to
contempt, and thy starving philosophy.  Step forth, I say.

_Faustus_.  The fury of a lion inflames me, and, if hell were to yawn
beneath my foot, I would spring beyond the limits of humanity.

He sprang out of the circle, and cried,

"I am thy lord."

_Devil_.  Yes; as long as thy time runs.  I lead a mighty man by the
hand, and am proud to be his slave.



CHAPTER II.


On the following morning the devil Leviathan came with all the pomp and
retinue of a nobleman to the inn where Faustus sojourned.  He alighted
from his richly caparisoned steed, and asked the host whether the famous
Faustus sojourned there?

The host replied by a reverential bow, and ushered him into the house.
The Devil then advanced to Faustus, and said to him, in the presence of
the host:

"Your renown, your great talents, and, above all, your mighty invention,
have induced me to make a wide circuit in my journey in order to become
acquainted with so remarkable a man, whom the world, in spite of its
lukewarmness, knows how to value.  I came, likewise, to request your
company in the tour of Europe, and shall be happy to accede to whatever
stipulations you may choose to make, for I am perfectly aware that such a
pleasure is above all price."

Faustus played his part agreeably to that of the Devil; and the host
hurried out in order to relate the adventure to his household.  The
rumour was immediately spread, by a thousand channels, through all
Frankfort; and the arrival of the distinguished stranger was soon known,
from the sentinel at the city-gate to his most worshipful the mayor
himself.  Away ran the magistrates, as if the Devil drove them, to the
senate-house, leaving all the weighty affairs of state to remain
unsettled whilst they consulted about this unexpected apparition.  The
senior alderman, a patrician, who was particularly expert in deciphering
the meaning of the signs which occasionally appeared in the political
horizon, and had thereby obtained a powerful ascendency in the council,
pressed his fat chin into furrows, and his narrow brow into wrinkles,
and, with reflection in his little eyes, assured his sapient brethren
that "This distinguished stranger was nothing else than a secret envoy of
his imperial majesty, who was come into Germany to observe attentively
the situation, the comparative strength, the disagreements, and the
alliances, of the various states and princes; so that the high and mighty
court, at the opening of the approaching Diet, might know how to comport
itself.  And since the imperial court had always kept a watchful eye upon
their republic, they must now endeavour to convince this distinguished
visitor of the fiery zeal which they had always entertained for the high
imperial house, and not let him depart without winning him over to the
interest of the state.  That they must, in so doing, take as their
pattern the prudent senate of Venice, who never failed to show the
greatest friendship and honour towards him whom they intended to
deceive."

The subordinate members of the assembly affirmed that the alderman had
spoken like the Doge of Venice himself; but the mayor, who bore the
alderman a secret grudge, because the latter, like a true patrician,
hated the democratic form of government, and was accustomed to say,
whenever he was outvoted, "Ha, thus it goes when tradesmen and
shopkeepers are made statesmen," quickly took up the cudgels against him
in these words:

"Truly laudable and excellent, most sapient masters, seems to me that
which our most prudent and politic brother has now advanced, were it not
for one single circumstance which unhappily spoils all.  I, indeed, do
not make a boast of possessing the deep visual penetration of the
alderman,--a penetration, my brethren, which can spy out a storm before
it arises; nevertheless, whether it be from chance or reflection, I have
long foreseen, and have long foretold, that which is now gathering around
us.  You must all remember, that at each of our sittings I advised you
not to treat this Faustus so contemptuously, but to purchase his Latin
Bible for the small sum he demanded.  Even my wife, who is a mere woman,
like all other women, has frequently said that, although we ourselves
neither understood nor could use the book, we ought nevertheless to have
it; and, on account of the beautiful letters in the title-page, and of
the curious invention, to make a show of it, as we do of our golden bull,
and attract strangers from all parts.  It was likewise fitting that a
free and rich state like ours should protect the arts, and give them a
helping hand.  But I know very well what was in your minds; 'twas
envy--sheer envy.  You could not brook that my name should be rendered
immortal.  You could not digest that posterity should read in the
chronicle, '_Sub consulatu_ . . . a Latin Bible was bought from Faustus
of Mayence for two hundred gold guilders.'  Yes, yes; 'twas that stuck in
your gizzards; but, as you have brewed, so may you drink: Faustus is a
devilish wild fellow, and a very strange hand to deal with; I saw that
proved yesterday.  And now that the imperial envoy has travelled hither
merely on his account, merely on account of him whom we have treated
worse than a poor cobbler, think ye not he will blow us up with the envoy
out of revenge, and all our scrapings and grimaces will serve for nothing
but to make us appear ridiculous before the citizens?  But he who has
driven his cart into the mire may draw it out again.  I wash my hands of
the whole business, and, like Pilate, am innocent of Israel's blindness
and destruction."

Here followed a deep silence.  The bloody battle of Cannae, which
threatened Rome with ruin, did not terrify her senate more than did this
eloquent philippic the enlightened magistracy of Frankfort.  Already the
mayor triumphed in proud anticipation: he thought even that he had hurled
the alderman entirely out of his saddle; when the latter, collecting his
political wisdom and heroic strength, hastened to the assistance of the
sinking state, and bellowing aloud, _ad majora_, undauntedly proposed
"immediately to send an embassy from the council to the hotel, in order
to welcome the distinguished guest, and to offer Faustus four hundred
gold guilders for his Latin Bible, and thereby to appease him, and to
make him favourable to the state."

The mayor scoffed at the idea of giving four hundred gold guilders for a
thing which the day before they might, in all probability, have had for
one hundred; but his jeers and his scoffs availed nothing.  "_Salus
populi suprema lex_," cried the alderman; and, with the approbation of
the council, he commanded the mayor to entertain Faustus and the envoy in
the most sumptuous manner, at the expense of the state.

This circumstance consoled his worship, who willingly displayed his
wealth, partly on account of his defeat by the alderman, while the
concluding words, "at the expense of the state," put him in good humour.
The junior alderman immediately set out with one of the four syndics, and
the mayor sent to his house to order every thing proper for the festival.
The devil Leviathan was engaged with Faustus in a deep discourse when
these ambassadors were announced.  They were instantly admitted.  They
welcomed, with all humility, in the name of the senate, the distinguished
guest, and gave him to understand that his noble person, as well as his
important errand, were well known to them; assuring him at the same time,
in set terms, of their zeal and devotion for the high imperial house.
The Devil, upon this, screwed up his features, turned to Faustus, took
him by the hand, and assured the speakers that nothing had brought him to
their town but the desire of removing from it this great man, whom he had
no doubt they knew how to prize.  The ambassadors were now somewhat
disturbed; however, they soon recollected themselves, and continued thus:

"It rejoiced them highly that they could give him on the spot a
convincing proof of the respect which the magistracy entertained for so
great a man, as they were authorised to tender to Faustus four hundred
gold guilders for his Latin Bible, which they had long been anxious to
possess, and preserve as a precious treasure.  The illustrious magistracy
would also be most happy to enrol him, if it were agreeable, among the
number of citizens, and thereby open to him the way to glory and
emolument."

This last stroke was added by their own political wisdom; a proof that
they, as skilful negotiators, knew how to supply and fill up every vacuum
which had been at first overlooked.

Faustus started up in a fury, stamped on the ground, and cried:

"Base, lying, deceitful pack!  How long did I not fawn upon you, from the
proud patrician down to the shoemaker and the pepper-seller, around whose
necks you hang the magisterial insignia, like halters around asses?  And
did ye not permit me to wait at your dirty thresholds without deigning me
a single look?  And now that you hear this noble personage sees that in
me which you did not, you come and would pay me back in my own coin.  But
see, here is gold; for which you would barter the Holy Roman Empire,
provided you could find fools gross enough to buy the huge, monstrous
carcass, without head, sense, or proportion."

The Devil highly enjoyed the rage of Faustus and the downcast looks of
the young senators; but they, who had never read Roman history, were not
so high-spirited as to fling Faustus a declaration of war from beneath
their closely-folded robes of office; on the contrary, they communicated
the invitation to the mayor's festival in as unconcerned a tone as if
nothing had happened,--a new proof of their expertness in negotiation.
Had they, for example, replied to the insult, they would thereby have
acknowledged that they felt the force of it; but when they let it fall
flat upon the ground, as if it were nothing to any of them, it lost all
its power, and assumed the colour of an unfair reproach.  Genius alone is
capable in such critical moments of like discrimination.

At the word "mayor," Faustus pricked up his ears, and the Devil gave him
a significant side-glance.  Faustus thereupon took the Bible from the
casket, handed it over to the senators, and said, with some degree of
complaisance,

"That, upon due consideration, he was determined to make the city a
present of his Bible, on condition that they showed the sentence which he
marked under, and of which he wrote a German translation on the margin,
to the assembled magistrates; and, in remembrance of him, caused it to be
written in letters of gold on the wall of the council-chamber."

The senators hastened back to their brethren, as delighted as envoys who,
after a ruinous war, return with an advantageous peace.  They were
received with great joy, and, the Bible being opened at the appointed
place, they read--

"_And lo_!_ the fools sat in council_, _and idiots clamoured in the
judgment-chamber_."

They swallowed this bitter pill, because the presumptive shadow of
imperial majesty, in the form of the demon, prevented them from spitting
it out.  They comforted themselves with having been spared the four
hundred gold guilders, and wished each other joy for having escaped so
well out of this unpleasant affair.  The envoys received a vote of
thanks, and it is to be regretted that their names are not handed down to
posterity.  When at last they spoke of Faustus's well-filled money-chest,
the glitter of gold darted like lightning through the souls of all, and
each secretly determined to make the man his friend, in order to get
possession of it.  The alderman shouted, "We must make him a citizen, and
give him a seat and voice in the council.  Policy demands that we should
overstep law and custom, if the advantage of the State depends upon it."

Faustus, in the mean time, strolled out with the Devil; but they found
the people of the place modelled after so unsightly a pattern, with such
ugly figures and fiat features, that the Devil owned he had never seen
them equalled, except by the inhabitants of an English town called N---,
when dressed in their Sunday's best.  "Envy, malice, curiosity, and
avarice," said he, "are here and there the sole springs of action; and
both places are governed by a pitiful mercantile spirit, which prevents
them from being grandly wicked or nobly virtuous.  In short, Faustus,
there is little to be done in either place by a man of spirit, and we
will hurry away from hence as soon as you have brought the mayoress to
the point you wish her."

The clock sounded the hour of dinner; the Devil and Faustus, mounted upon
noble horses, and attended by a numerous retinue, proceeded to the house
of the mayor.  They entered the hall of assembly, where all the
magistrates awaited them, and, on their appearance, bowed before them
even to the dust.  The fat, bloated mayor, after a long speech,
introduced them to the wives of the dignitaries of the corporation, whose
figures, loaded with tawdry ornaments, seemed now to display a double
portion of awkwardness and vulgarity.  They stared like a flock of geese,
and could not satiate themselves with looking at the dress and
physiognomy of Leviathan; but the mayoress, a native of Saxony, towered
above them all, like an Oriad.  The expressive look of Faustus had
attracted her attention, as well as his prepossessing figure, and his
fine handsome face.  She blushed when he saluted her, and could find no
other answer to his eloquent address than a few broken words, which the
ears of Faustus caught like enchanting music.  The senators exerted their
wits to the utmost in complimenting their guests, and all now sat down to
the well-spread table.  After dinner the Devil led the mayor by the hand
to a private apartment,--a circumstance which flattered him
extraordinarily, but which was a dagger-blow to all the other guests,
especially to the alderman.

The mayor, heated with wine, and intoxicated with the honour which the
supposed imperial envoy showed him, in a bending attitude and with
staring eyes awaited the communication.  The Devil assured him, in soft,
silvery tones, how much he was flattered by the mayor's hospitable
reception, and how very desirous he was to prove himself thankful;
adding, that he carried with him a number of letters of nobility, signed
by the emperor's own hand, and he would gladly bestow the first upon him,
provided--

Joy, transport, and astonishment darted through the mayor's soul; he
stood before the Devil with wide-gaping mouth, and at length stammered
out, "Provided how--what--oh!"  The Devil then murmured softly into his
ear: "His friend Faustus was desperately in love with the beautiful
mayoress, and that for his sake only he would do it; and if the mayoress
would retire with Faustus for a few moments,--which would be entirely
unobserved amid the noise and confusion of a festival,--he should deliver
into her hand the patent of nobility."

Thereupon the Devil hastened to Faustus, informed him of what had
happened, and gave him the letter of nobility, with certainty of success.
Faustus doubted, and the Devil laughed at his doubts.

The mayor remained in his cabinet almost petrified.  The sudden glitter
of such unexpected happiness was at once so clouded by an odious and
detestable condition, that he determined upon rejecting it.  But all at
once Ambition blew into his ear: "Ho! ho! Mr. Mayor; to be dubbed a
nobleman at once, and in such an off-hand manner, as the saying is, and
thereby to be placed on a footing with the proudest of thy foes, and to
raise thy voice in the council like a trumpet, and appear among those
there like a man whom, on account of his services, his imperial majesty
will exalt above the heads of all!"

Another feeling softly whispered--

"Uh! uh! with my own knowledge and consent to be thus disgraced!  But
then, again, who will know it? and what is there in the whole affair?  I
receive a certain good in lieu of what has long ceased to have any charms
for me.  The evil consists in the idea alone, and it will be a secret
between me and my wife.  But, stating the case fairly, can I arrive at so
high a distinction at a cheaper rate?  Will it not be a nail in the
alderman's coffin; and what will the citizens not say when they see that
his imperial majesty knows how to value me?  Shall I not get every thing
into my power, and revenge myself on those who have thwarted and
contradicted me?  Ho! ho! Mr. Mayor; be no fool; seize fortune by the
forelock.  Man is only what he appears in the eyes of the world, and no
one asks the nobleman how he became so.  But there is my wife; she will
set herself against my advancement, for I well know her Saxon prudery."

At that very moment she entered the room, eager to learn from her husband
what the magnificent stranger had confided to him in private.  He looked
at her with a roguish leer, but still with some degree of bashfulness.

_Mayor_.  Well, my chick, suppose I were to make thee a noblewoman
to-day?

_Mayoress_.  Then, duck, the wives of all the citizens and magistrates
would swoon with envy, and the alderman's lady would instantly die of
that husky cough which has so long assailed her.

_Mayor_.  That she would, for certain; and I could crush her proud
husband beneath my foot.  But hark, my chick: it only rests with you to
bring all this about.

_Mayoress_.  Who ever heard of wives making their husbands noblemen,
duck?

_Mayor_.  Who knows, my child, how many have been made so?  But be not
terrified; you have driven that cursed Faustus out of his wits.  (_The
Mayoress blushed_; _he continued_)  Only on his account will the envoy
create me a nobleman, and Faustus is to deliver to thee the patent of
nobility in private.  You understand me, I perceive.  Hem! What do you
think of the plan?

_Mayoress_.  I was thinking, my treasure, that if these two gentlemen
were to change their minds, we should certainly lose the patent.

_Mayor_.  Curse it! so we might.  Let us be quick, my mouse; such
bargains are not met with every day.

The company had in the mean while dispersed themselves in the garden; and
his worship, getting behind Faustus, whispered softly in his ear that
"his wife would esteem it an honour to receive the patent of nobility
from his hand; and he had only to step up a back staircase, which he
would show him, to an apartment where he would find her.  That as for
himself, he feared nothing from a man who had shown so much honour and
conscience."  He led him thereupon to the back staircase.  Faustus glided
up immediately, and entered a chamber, where he found the mayoress: he
flew to her, and created the mayor a knight of the Holy Roman Empire.
She then went and delivered to her spouse the letter of nobility; and
they determined between them that it should be laid upon the supper-table
in a covered golden dish, in order, by its unexpected appearance, to make
the blow more painful to the guests.  The Devil, to whom the mayor
confided the plan, highly approved of it; but Faustus murmured in the ear
of Leviathan, "I command thee to play this rascal, who has prostituted
his wife for ambition's sake, a thorough knavish trick; and to revenge
me, at the same time, on all these sheep-headed magistrates, who so long
forced me to pay my court to them."

They sat down to supper, and the glasses went quickly round; when all at
once the Devil commanded the dish, which had so long excited the
Curiosity of the surrounders, to be uncovered; then, holding up the
letter of nobility, he delivered it to the mayor with these words:
"Worthy sir, his majesty the emperor, my master, is pleased by this
patent letter of nobility to create you, on account of your fidelity and
services, a knight of the Holy Roman Empire.  I hope and trust that you
will never grow lukewarm in your zeal for the high imperial house; and
now, Sir Knight, I have the honour of first drinking your health."

These words rolled like thunder in the ears of the guests.  The drunken
became sober, and the sober drunk; the lips of the women turned blue with
rage, and could scarcely stammer out a congratulation.  The alderman was
seized with an apoplectic fit, and his wife was near dying of her husky
cough.  Fear, in the mean time, obliged the rest to assume a joyous
countenance; and they drank, with a loud huzza, the health of the
new-made knight.  While the tumult was at the highest pitch, a thin
vapour suddenly filled the hall; the glasses began to dance about upon
the tables; and the roasted geese, turkeys, and fowls cackled, gobbled,
and crowed.  The calves, sheep, and boars' heads cried, bleated, and
grunted, bounced across the table, and snapped at the fingers of the
guests.  The wine issued in blue flames from out the flasks; and the
patent of nobility caught fire, and was burnt to ashes in the hands of
the trembling mayor.  The whole assembly now sat like so many ridiculous
characters in a mad masquerade.  The mayor bore a stag's head upon his
shoulders; and the rest, men and women, adorned with grotesque masks,
spoke, cackled, crowed, neighed, or bellowed, according to the kind of
mask which had been allotted to each individual.  The alderman alone, in
the dress of a harlequin, sat motionless; and Faustus avowed to the Devil
that the ruse did great honour to his ingenuity.  After Faustus had
satiated himself by gazing at the spectacle, he gave the Devil the wink,
and they both flew out of the window; the latter personage, according to
custom, leaving behind him the sulphurous stench.

By and by the whole illusion disappeared; and when the sapient
magistrates re-assembled next morning in the council-chamber, they
scarcely mentioned to each other what had taken place the night before.
They kept the whole matter a state secret, and only revealed it now and
then to a chosen few.  All that the mayor got by this business was, that
his adversary, the alderman, lost the use of his limbs, and never again
took his seat in the council.

Faustus and Leviathan, in the mean time, passed over the city-walls; and
when they were in the open field, the Devil despatched an attendant
spirit to the hotel, in order to pay the reckoning, and to fetch away
Faustus's baggage.  Then turning to the young German, he asked him if he
were contented with this first feat.

_Faustus_.  Hem! if the Devil wants praise, I am content to give it him.
But I should never have imagined that yon pompous scoundrel would have
sold his wife for ambition's sake.

_Devil_.  Let us proceed a little further, my Faustus, and I will soon
convince thee that Ambition is the godhead which ye all worship; although
you disguise it under all kind of glittering forms, in order to conceal
its nakedness.  Till now you have studied man merely in books and
philosophical treatises; or, in other words, you have been thrashing
empty straw.  But the film will soon fall from your eyes.  We will
shortly quit this dirty country of yours, where priestcraft, pedantry,
and oppression reign unmolested and undisturbed.  I will usher you upon a
stage where the passions have a freer scope, and where great energies are
employed to great ends.

_Faustus_.  But I will force thee to believe in the moral worth of man
before we quit my native land.  Not far from hence lives a prince, whom
all Germany praises as a paragon of every virtue.  Let us seek him, and
put him to the test.

_Devil_.  Agreed; such a man would please me for his rarity.

The spirit now returned with the baggage, and was sent forward to Mayence
to bespeak a lodging in an hotel.  Faustus, for secret reasons which the
Devil guessed, proposed spending the night with a hermit who dwelt in the
hill of Homburg, and who was renowned through the whole neighbourhood for
his piety.  They reached the hermitage about midnight, and knocked at the
door.  The solitary opened it; and Faustus, who had dressed himself in
the richest clothes which the Devil had provided for him, begged pardon
for disturbing the repose of the holy man, and said that the night had
surprised him and his companion while hunting, and had separated them
from their attendants, and that they should be obliged by his giving them
house-room for a few hours.  The hermit looked on the ground, and
replied, with a deep sigh:

"He who lives for heaven seldom abandons himself to dangerous repose.
You have not disturbed me; and, if you wish to stay here till sunrise,
you must take things as you find them.  Bread and water, with straw to
lie on, is all I can afford you."

_Faustus_.  Brother hermit, we have brought all that the stomach requires
along with us.  We will only trouble you for a draught of water.

(_The hermit took his pitcher and went to a fountain_.)

_Faustus_.  Peace dwells in his heart as well as on his brow, and I may
think myself happy that he is not acquainted with that which binds me to
thee.  Faith and hope serve him instead of those things which I have
damned myself for; at least it seems so.

_Devil_.  And only seems.  What if I were to prove that your heart is
pure as gold in comparison with his?

_Faustus_.  Devil!

_Devil_.  Faustus, thou wert poor, ill-treated, and despised; thou didst
see thyself in the dust; but, like an energetic being, thou hast sprung
out of contempt at thy own risk.  Thou wert incapable of gratifying thy
lusts by the murder of thy fellow-creatures, as this saint would if I led
him into temptation.

_Faustus_.  I see all thy infernal craftiness.  If I were to command thee
to put him to a fair trial, thou wouldst confuse the senses of the just
man, so that he would commit acts which his heart abhorred.

_Devil_.  Ridiculous!  Why, then, do ye boast of your free-will, and
thereby ascribe your deeds to your own hearts?  But ye are all saints
while there is nothing to tempt ye.  No, Faustus; I will remain neuter,
and merely offer delights to his senses; for the Devil has no need to
creep into ye when you are already disposed for wickedness.

_Faustus_.  And if things do not turn out as you assert, think not that
your assurance shall remain unpunished.

_Devil_.  Thou mayst then torment me a whole day by preaching of the
virtues of men.  Let us see whether this will allure him.

A table, provided with dainty meats and delicious wines, now appeared in
the middle of the hermitage.  The solitary entered, and silently placed
the pitcher before Faustus, and then retired into a corner, without
heeding the luxurious banquet.

_Faustus_.  Now, brother hermit, since the things are on the table, fall
to without waiting to be asked twice.  You may eat of our fare without
the least injury to your reputation.  I see your mouth begins to water.
Come, a glass to the honour of your patron saint.  What is his name?

_Hermit_.  St. George.

_Faustus_.  Here's his health.

_Devil_.  Ho, ho, brother hermit! the renowned St. George of Cappadocia
was a fellow after my own heart; and if you take him for a model, you
cannot go wrong.  I am perfectly well acquainted with his history, and
will relate it in a few words for your instruction.  He was the son of
wretchedly poor people, and was born in a miserable hut in Cilicia.  As
he grew up, he early perceived his own talents, and, by force of
flattery, servility, and corruption, found his way into the houses of the
great and opulent, who at length, out of gratitude for his services,
procured him a commission in the army of the Greek emperor.  But when
there he pilfered and plundered to so enormous an extent, that he was
soon obliged to fly, to avoid being hanged.  Thereupon he joined himself
to the sect of the Arians, and, by his quick parts, soon learnt to gabble
the unintelligible jargon of theology and metaphysics.  About this time
the Arian emperor, Constantine, kicked from the episcopal chair at
Alexandria the good and most Catholic Athanasius; and your redoubtable
Cappadocian was, by an Arian synod, appointed to the vacant see.  George
was now completely in his element: he puffed, strutted, and filled his
paunch.  But when he, by his injustice and cruelty, had driven his
subjects to the verge of madness, they put him to death, and carried his
body in triumph through the streets of Alexandria.  Thus did he become a
martyr, and consequently a saint.

_Hermit_.  There is not a word of this in the legend.

_Devil_.  I believe ye, brother; and, for the sake of truth, the Devil
only ought to have written it.

The hermit then crossed himself.

_Faustus_.  Do you call eating and drinking crimes?

_Hermit_.  They may tempt us to commit crimes.

_Devil_.  Your virtue must be very weak if it cannot resist temptation;
for temptation and resistance should be the glory of a saint.

_Hermit_.  You are right so far; but every one is not a saint.

_Faustus_.  Are you happy, brother?

_Hermit_.  Solitude makes me happy; a good conscience makes me blessed.

_Devil_.  How do you obtain your food?

_Hermit_.  The peasants bring me wherewithal to support my existence.

_Faustus_.  And what do you give them in return?

_Hermit_.  I pray for them.

_Faustus_.  Are they bettered by your prayers?

_Hermit_.  They think so, and I hope so.

_Devil_.  Brother, you are a rogue.

_Hermit_.  The reproaches of the sinful world are what the just man ought
to expect.

_Devil_.  Why do you not look upwards, and why do you blush?  But know,
that I have the art of reading in a man's face what is passing in his
heart.

_Hermit_.  So much the worse for yourself.  You will have little
enjoyment in company.

_Devil_.  Ho, ho! you know that?  (_Looking at Faustus_.)

_Hermit_.  It is a vile world in which we live, and woe for you if
thousands did not hasten into solitude to avert by their prayers the
anger of incensed Heaven from the heads of sinners.

_Faustus_.  Reverend brother, you own yourself that you are paid for your
prayers; and, believe me, it is much easier to pray than work.

_Devil_.  Listen once more.  You have a twist of the mouth which tells me
you are a hypocrite; and your eyes, which revolve in so narrow a circle,
and which are generally cast downward, tell me that you are convinced
they would betray the feelings of your heart, were you to raise them.

The hermit lifted his eyes towards the heavens, prayed with clasped
hands, and said, "Thus does the righteous man reply to the scoffer."

_Faustus_.  Enough.  Come, brother, and bear us company in our repast.

But the hermit remained inflexible.  Faustus looked scornfully on the
Devil, who merely smiled and shook his head.  Suddenly the door opened,
and a young female pilgrim rushed in almost breathless.  When she had
recovered from her fear, she related how she had been pursued by a
knight, from whom she had the good fortune to escape by reaching the cell
of the pious hermit.  She was received in a friendly manner; and,
unclasping her long mantle, she exhibited such beauty as would have made
the victory over the flesh no easy matter for the holy Anthony himself.
She placed herself by the side of Leviathan, ate sparingly of the meal,
and the Devil began to--

                                * * * * *

The hermit was at first shocked, and at last confused; and he had
scarcely power to struggle with the temptation.  The pilgrim tore
herself, ashamed and angry, from the arms of Leviathan, to seek
protection by the side of the hermit, which he could not refuse her.

The Devil and Faustus now pretended to be intoxicated and overwhelmed
with sleep; but before they took repose the Devil placed, in the presence
of the hermit, a weighty purse of money under the straw, and deposited
his own rich rings and those of Faustus in a casket, which the latter
laid close beside him.  On the table they placed their swords and
daggers, and then flung themselves down and soon snored.

The pilgrim softly approached the table, and poured out with her delicate
and snow-white hands a goblet of foaming wine.  She just touched the rim
with her rosy lips, and then offered it to the hermit.  He stood like one
amazed; and in his confusion emptied it, and another besides, and
greedily swallowed the luxurious morsels which the tempter, one after
another, held up to his mouth.  She then led him out, and bursting into
tears, entreated his pardon for having been forced to outrage his holy
eyes.  She then looked mournful and inconsolable, pressed his hand
warmly, and at last fell down on her knees before him.  At this instant
the silvery moon beamed upon her bosom, over which the gentle night-wind
moved her dark, dishevelled locks.  The hermit sank upon this dazzling
bosom, without knowing whether he was dead or alive.  At length the
pilgrim said, "That she would yield herself entirely to his wishes, if he
would revenge her first on those daring reprobates, and take possession
of their treasure, which would enable him and her to live happily to the
end of their days."

The hermit, at these words, recovered in some degree from his
intoxication, and asked her, in a trembling voice, what she meant, and
what she would have him do.

Amongst broken exclamations of rapture she murmured, "Their daggers lie
on the table: do you murder the one; I will manage the other.  Then dress
yourself in their clothes, and seize their treasure.  We will then set
the hermitage on fire, and fly to France together."

The horrible idea of murder made the hermit shudder.  He hesitated, was
undecided, looked on the charms of the siren; he saw that he could make
himself master of her and of the treasure without danger; and, all his
virtue yielding, he forgot heaven and his oft-repeated vows.  The pilgrim
dragged the reeling miscreant into the hut; each seized a dagger; and
just as he was about to aim a blow at Faustus, the Devil burst into the
fiendish scorn-laugh; and Faustus saw the hermit, with a lifted dagger,
standing by his side.

_Faustus_.  Cursed monster, who, under the mask of religion, wouldst
murder thy guest!

The hermit sunk trembling to the earth.  The pilgrim, a phantom of hell,
appeared to him in a frightful form, and then vanished.

Faustus commanded Leviathan to set fire to the hut, and burn it to ashes,
along with the hypocrite.  The Devil obeyed with joy.  The following
morning the peasants shed many tears for the fate of the righteous man;
and, having collected his bones, they preserved them as precious relics.

Faustus and the Devil arrived early the next day at Mayence, and alighted
at the dwelling of the former.  His young wife fell with a cry of joy
upon his neck, embraced him, and then burst into tears of sorrow.  The
children clung sobbing to his knees, and greedily examined his pockets,
to see whether he had brought them any thing.  His old gray-headed father
next staggered towards him, and shook him mournfully by the hand.  The
heart of Faustus was moved, and his eyes began to moisten, while he
trembled, and looked angrily upon the Devil.  When he asked his wife why
she wept, she wrung her hands, and replied, "Ah, Faustus, do you not
perceive how the hungry ones examine your pockets for bread?  How can I
see that without tears?  They have eaten nothing for a long time; we have
been unfortunate, and all thy friends have forsaken us; but now I see
thee again, it is to me as though I saw the countenance of an angel.  I
and thy father have suffered more on thy account than on our own.  We
have had such frightful dreams and visions; and when my eyes, weary with
weeping, have closed for a few hours, I saw thee torn from us by force,
and all was dark and horrible."

_Faustus_.  Thy dream, love, is about to be partly fulfilled.  This
gentleman here will reward thy husband for those talents which his
ungrateful country overlooked or despised.  I have agreed to travel with
him far and wide.

_Old Faustus_.  "My son, stay at home and support thyself honourably,"
says Scripture.

_Faustus_.  And die of hunger, says Experience.

The wife began to weep yet more bitterly, and the children screamed for
bread.  Faustus gave the Devil a sign, and he called to his servant, who
presently afterwards brought into the room a heavy coffer.  Faustus
unlocked it, and flung a large bag of gold upon the table; which being
opened, and the yellow coin appearing, a lively flush of joy was
instantly diffused over the melancholy countenances of the family.  He
then took out magnificent clothes and jewels, which he delivered to his
wife.  Her tears vanished, and vanity at once dried them up, as the
sun-rays dry up the morning dew.  The Devil smiled, and Faustus muttered
to himself, "O magic of gold and of vanity!  I may now go to the
antipodes, and no other tears than those of hypocrisy will be shed."
Then, aloud, "Well, wife, these are the fruits of my journey, reaped in
advance.  Is not this better than staying at home with you and starving?"

But the wife heard him not; for she stood with her rich robes and jewels
before the looking-glass to see how they became her.  The little girls
frolicked around her, took up the clothes and ornaments she had laid
aside, and aped the mother.  In the mean time a servant brought in a
substantial breakfast, the children fell upon it, cried and shouted with
joy; but the mother had, in the mean time, forgotten her hunger.

The old father took Faustus aside, and said, "If thou hast obtained all
these things by honourable means, let us thank God, my son, and enjoy his
bounty; but for some nights past I have had horrible dreams, although I
hope they were merely caused by our necessities."

This remark of the old man sank deep into the heart of Faustus; but the
pleasure of seeing his children eat so heartily, and of observing with
what love and thankfulness his eldest son and favourite looked at him;
the thought of having relieved them from their misery; and, above all, an
inward longing for pleasure,--considerably damped the impression.  The
Devil added a large sum to the money in the bag, presented the young wife
with a costly necklace, gave each of the children a trifle, and assured
the family that he would bring back Faustus to them safe, sound, and
wealthy at no very distant period.

Faustus, attended by the Devil, now went to see a friend, whom he found
much dejected.  He asked him the cause of his unhappiness, and the other
replied:

"This afternoon the law-suit which you have often heard me speak of is to
be determined; and I am certain of losing it, although justice is on my
side.  In short, Master Faustus, nothing remains for me to do but to beg,
or drown myself in the deepest part of the Rhine."

_Faustus_.  How can you be certain that you will lose your cause, if
justice is for you, as you say it is?

_Friend_.  But the five hundred gold guilders which my opponent has given
the Judge are against me; and if I cannot outbid him, I must fall to the
ground.

_Faustus_.  Pooh! does it merely depend on that?  Come, lead me to the
Judge.  I have a friend here who willingly assists people out of such
difficulties.

They found the Judge to be a proud, inflated man, who would scarcely
deign to honour a poor client with a look.  Faustus had long known him
for what he was.  When they entered the room, the Judge, in an imperious
tone, thus addressed Faustus's friend, "Why do you come to trouble me?
Do you not know that tears never interrupt the course of justice?"

The unhappy friend looked humbly to the ground.

_Faustus_.  Mighty sir, you have spoken well: tears are like water; they
merely spoil the eyes of those that shed them.  But do you know that my
friend has right on his side?

_Judge_.  Master Faustus, I know you for a man who plays away his money
at ducks-and-drakes, and who has a loose tongue.  Right and law are very
different things: if he has the first for him, it is no reason that he
should have the second.

_Faustus_.  You say that right and law are two different things:
something like judge and justice, perhaps.

_Judge_.  Master Faustus, I have already said that I know you.

_Faustus_.  Perhaps we are mistaken in each other, most enlightened sir.
But it is mere waste of soap to attempt to wash a blackamoor white.  (_He
opened the door_, _and in stalked the Devil_.)  Here is a gentleman who
will lay before you a document, which I hope will give the cause of my
friend a new aspect.

When the Judge saw the richly-dressed Leviathan, he assumed a more
friendly countenance, and asked them all to be seated.

_Faustus_.  We can settle the whole business standing.  (_To the Devil_)
Produce the document which we have found.

The Devil counted out of his purse five hundred gold guilders; he then
stopped and looked at the Judge.

_Judge_.  The document is by no means a bad one, gentlemen; but the
adverse party has long ago given me one of equal weight.

The Devil continued counting till he had told out a thousand; he then
stopped.

_Judge_.  In truth, I had overlooked this circumstance.  Such vouchers,
however, are not to be withstood.

He then gathered up the gold and secured it in his coffer.

_Faustus_.  I hope now that right and law will go together.

_Judge_.  Master Faustus, you understand the art of appeasing the
bitterest enemies.

Faustus, whom the servility of the Judge as much offended as his former
rudeness, whispered to the Devil, in going away, "Do thou avenge justice
on this wretch."

Thereupon he left his friend, without waiting for his thanks, and went
about with the Devil to discharge his debts.  He then paid visits to his
other friends, showered gold upon them by handfuls, even on those who had
forsaken him in his adversity; and he felt happy in being able to give
unbridled scope to his generosity and greatness of soul.  The Devil,
however, who saw deeper into things than Faustus, laughed within himself
at the consequences.

They now went to the hotel, Faustus, recollecting the conduct of his
wife, once again fell into an exceedingly ill humour.  He could not
pardon her for having ceased to lament his departure the moment she had
seen the gold and jewels.  Till now he had imagined that she loved him
more than all the treasures of the earth; but what he had just observed
forced him to believe the contrary, and his affection for her was turned
to bitterness.  The Devil, who perceived where the shoe pinched,
willingly allowed Faustus to torment himself with these gloomy thoughts,
so that he might tear himself from that sweet tie by which nature still
gently fettered him.  He foresaw, with secret rapture, the dreadful
anguish which would one day arise in the bosom of the headstrong Faustus,
when the future should disclose to him all the horrors which he was now
about to perpetrate.

They dined in the public room, in company with some professors of law and
divinity, who, to the great delight of the Devil, soon fell into a
violent dispute concerning the nun Clara.  The flame of that controversy
was still at its full height; party-spirit raged in all houses, and the
present disputants talked so loudly, and said so many ridiculous things,
that Faustus soon forgot his ill humour.  But when a doctor of theology
asserted that it was possible for Satan to have carried his wickedness so
far as to have brought the nun into certain circumstances by means of the
dream, the Devil burst into a bellowing laugh; and Faustus immediately
thought of a scheme by which he might revenge himself, in a signal
manner, upon the Archbishop, who had paid so little attention to his
discovery.  He hoped then to involve the thread of the theological and
political war at Mayence in such confusion that no human power would be
able to unravel it.  After dinner he asked the demon whether it would be
possible for him, under the figure of the Dominican, to pass that night
with the lovely Clara.  The Devil assured him that nothing was more easy;
and, if he chose, the abbess herself should usher him into the nun's
cell.  Faustus, who had always considered the abbess to be a strict,
pious, and conscientious woman, laughed in scorn at these last words of
the Devil.

_Devil_.  Thy wife, O Faustus, set up a shriek of despair when thou didst
tell her of thy intended departure; but when the glitter of gold and
dress burst upon her view, the sorrows of her heart vanished at once.  I
repeat, that the abbess herself shall introduce thee to the cell of the
nun, and I will employ no supernatural means.  Thou thyself shalt see how
the old gudgeon will swallow the hook.  Come, we will pay her a visit
under the pious figures of two nuns.  I know the manners and ways of the
nuns, ay, and of the monks too, of Germany, well enough to ape them.  I
will represent the Abbess of the Black Nuns, and thou shalt be her
friend, Sister Agatha.

At this moment Faustus's friend came, full of joy, to inform him of the
happy issue of the law-suit.  He was about to thank Faustus and the Devil
upon his knees; but Faustus said, "Spare your thanks, and take care of my
wife and family during my absence."  He then whispered into the ear of
the Devil, "It is time to think of the Judge."

The Judge wished after dinner to gratify his beloved wife by counting the
gold pieces in her presence.  He unlocked the coffer, and started back in
a tremor at the sight of its contents: the gold pieces were changed into
large rats, which sprang out, and fell furiously upon his face and hands.
The Judge, who had a great aversion to these animals, rushed out of the
room; but they pursued him, fastening on his heels.  He hurried from the
house, and ran through the streets; but still they were close behind him.
He fled into the fields; but they allowed him no rest, and at last forced
the terrified wretch to seek shelter in the stone tower where the tolls
are gathered, and which stands in the middle of the Rhine.  Here he
thought himself safe from farther pursuit; but rats and mice hot from
hell are not to be terrified by water: they swam through, fell upon him,
and ate him up alive.  His wife, in her terror and astonishment, told the
history of the transformation of the gold pieces by which her unfortunate
husband had allowed himself to be dazzled; and from that time there has
not been in the whole diocese of Mayence a single instance of a judge or
a man in office taking a bribe.  The Devil could not have foreseen this,
or he certainly would have let the scoundrel go unpunished.

Faustus and the Devil stood in their disguises before the gate of the
convent of White Nuns.  The portress ran as fast as she could in order to
inform the abbess of the unexpected visitors.  The abbess received them
with conventual greetings, to which the Devil answered in a similar tone.
Sweetmeats and wines were then brought in, and while partaking of them
the two abbesses talked together, of cloister affairs, and of the wicked
world; and the Devil, with a deep sigh, turned the discourse to Clara's
accident.  Clara, who, on account of her rank, was the pet-lamb of the
cloister, stood near the abbess, and laughed beneath her veil.  Faustus
observed this, and, looking at her, really thought he had never seen a
more charming rogue wear the sacred veil.  The Devil at length gave the
conversation a serious turn, and led the abbess to conclude that he had
something weighty to confide to her.

_Abbess_ (_to Clara_).  You may go, my lamb, to the nuns in the garden,
and divert yourself with them; I will send you out some sweetmeats, so
that you may celebrate the coming of our venerable sister.

Clara bounded away.  After a few words, which the Devil uttered in a
disturbed and thoughtful kind of tone, so that he might thereby arouse
the curiosity of the abbess, he came to the point.

_Devil_.  Ah, dear sister, how much do I pity you!  It is true, and that
ought in some degree to comfort you, that the whole city and the entire
district are convinced of your holiness, your piety, and the strictness
of your discipline.  In a word, you possess all the virtues requisite for
a bride of heaven.  But, alas, the world will be the world still; and the
Fiend often infuses evil thoughts into the minds of worldly men, so that
through them he may disturb those saints who are thorns in his side.  No,
no; the wicked Devil cannot bear that you should bring up your lambs in
untainted purity.  I pity you, as I said before, and still more the
little innocents who are at present confided to your care.  What will
become of them when they lose you?

_Abbess_.  Kind sister, be of good cheer; though I am old, I am yet,
thanks to Heaven, sound and hearty, and the little inconveniences which
attend a uniform course of devotion and penitence prolong life rather
than shorten it.  So, at least, the physician of the convent tells me
when I complain to him.

The Devil looked at her attentively.

"Have you, then, had no anticipation of what is hanging over your head?
no warning vision?  Has nothing occurred in the convent to make you look
forward to the future with anxiety?  It is customary for pious souls to
be informed by certain signs when any disaster menaces them."

_Abbess_.  You frighten me so, that I tremble in my whole body.  But let
me reflect;--yes, yes, I am very restless, and dream of raw heads and
bloody bones; and some days ago--ah, yes!--that certainly was a sign and
a warning--some few days ago I went with my lap-dog, which you see there,
to walk in the garden.  I was alone; the nuns were at some distance,
telling stories beneath the linden-trees.  All at once the gardener's
great mastiff sprung upon _Piety_, for that is the name of my pet.  I
shuddered from head to foot, and crossed myself again and again; but that
would avail nothing.  At last I struck at the hideous brute with my
staff,--yes, I struck with all my strength the filthy hound who would
thus profane the cloister; and I continued striking until the staff,
which his reverence the Archbishop delivered to me upon my consecration
as abbess, broke in two.  Was that a sign or a warning, think ye?

The Devil and Faustus pretended to be shocked.

_Devil_.  Ah, the very worst in the world.  All now is but too clear and
manifest.  Did not I tell you how it would turn out, Sister Agatha?

Faustus made a humble bow of assent.

_Abbess_.  For Heaven's sake, speak, or I shall run mad.

_Devil_.  Contain yourself, dear sister.  Help is to be found, and who
knows but I bring it with me?  Remember that it was the staff which the
Archbishop presented to you upon your being consecrated an abbess which
you broke; and now listen to me attentively.  You know my cousin the
prebend; well, he confided to me a very terrible affair.  He indeed made
me solemnly promise not to tell you; but I know it is best to commit a
little sin, if by its means we can prevent a great one and confound the
projects of Satan.

_Abbess_.  You are perfectly right; and the Fathers of the Church hold
that doctrine, as my confessor has often told me.

_Devil_.  Know, then, that the Archbishop has so far got the upper hand
of the Chapter, that he has brought them to consent to your being deposed
after the lapse of a few months, and his niece Clara being made abbess in
your stead.

"Jesu Maria!" cried the abbess, wrung her hands, and fell into a swoon.
The Devil made a sour face at her exclamation, and Faustus, laughing,
rubbed her wrinkled brows.  After she had recovered herself, she shed a
torrent of tears, and shrieked a thousand curses against the wickedness
of the world.

_Devil_.  Do not despair, dear sister.  For a distant evil there is
always a remedy.

_Abbess_.  And what do you advise me to do?  Wretch that I am!  O
Heavens! what will become of me,--what will become of the nuns?

_Devil_.  I have already said that it is best to commit a slight sin if,
by so doing, we prevent a great one, and you yourself have proved it by
the authority of holy Fathers; but, dear sister, courage and
understanding will be necessary, if you wish to obtain your purpose
without danger to your own soul, by loading another person with the
capital sin.

_Abbess_.  Ah, dear sister, and how is that to be contrived?

_Devil_.  I was once in our convent in almost a similar perplexity.  The
good Sister Agatha here is my witness; and as she saw every thing, and
assisted me, we may speak out before her.

Faustus bowed with humility.

_Devil_.  A nun who, by sinful wit, and yet more sinful beauty, had found
favour among the great and powerful, was, by their assistance, on the
point of rising above me.  Ah! I have felt how grievous are the thoughts
of being forced to obey, after one has for a long time exercised
boundless power.  Well, in the presence of Sister Agatha, I entered into
a consultation with my relation the prebend: he is very knowing in
affairs of conscience and crime, and understands to a hair's-breadth what
is damnable and what is not.  This wise man gave me a piece of advice
which helped me out of my trouble, and for which I shall always have
reason to bless him.  I admit that the expedient at first appeared to me
sinful; but he assured me, and proved to me out of the casuists, that a
little fasting and penance would do away with all that was culpable in
it.

_Abbess_.  But the advice--the advice!

_Devil_.  I am ashamed to tell it you aloud.

_Abbess_.  Then whisper it into my ear.  What the Abbess of the Black
Nuns could do without endangering her salvation, the Abbess of the White
Nuns may do also.

_Devil_ (_softly into her ear_).  He advised me to contrive so that this
dangerous nun should commit the sin of * * *

_Abbess_ (_crossing herself_).  Blessed Ursula!  Why, that is the work of
the Devil, and leads directly to hell.

_Devil_.  Ay, very true, but only the person who commits it; and I was
not advising you to do it.  Remember, dear sister, you are not to be
punished for all the sins which your nuns may choose to commit.

_Abbess_.  But, in Heaven's name, how did you manage this dangerous
affair without being discovered?

_Devil_.  Oh, my situation was much more difficult than yours, for you
are assisted by the report of the dream, which already fills the whole
city.  Suppose, now, you were to let a man, dressed like the Dominican,
slip into Clara's cell, and the signs of the sinful deed were afterwards
to appear, would not the whole world say that it was a trick of the arch
foe of mankind?  Let Satan have the credit of it, and do you remain
sitting in your chair, adorned with that dignity which Heaven has been
pleased to grant you.  I have given you this advice out of friendship,
and for your good; you are now at liberty to do as you please.  At all
events, I will send you some one to-night to personate the Dominican, and
he will only have to return if you are too scrupulous.

The abbess sat like one amazed, and in her confusion began to tell her
Rosary: "_Ave Maria_.  It is certainly allying oneself to the Devil.
Blessed Ursula, illumine my darkness."  She cast her eyes upon the image
of the saint.  "It would certainly be a great scandal to the convent.
_Ave Maria_.  But then it would be placed to Satan's account.  Perhaps,
though, I might be damned for it.  _Pater noster_.  And am I now to
become a servant in the cloister, and in my old days to be tormented by a
superior, after I have so long tormented the nuns?  This little baggage
has already afforded sufficient scandal to the whole town without this.
Alas, when I have no longer authority to box the nuns about, how will
this and that malignant creature revenge herself upon me!  _Ave Maria_.
Well, I have made up my mind, and, for the good of the cloister, I will
continue abbess the remainder of any days, cost what it will."

The Devil applauded her, and the plan was soon arranged.  Upon going away
the Devil said to Faustus:

"Now, what have I done else than ask the pride of this old beldame
whether it is better to risk eternal damnation, or to give up that
tyrannical power over the poor nuns, which the hand of Death will soon
deprive her of?"

Whatever pleasure Faustus derived from the certainty that his desires
would be gratified, he was nevertheless much displeased that the Devil
should always be in the right.  That same evening the abbess herself
introduced him, under the disguise of the Dominican, into Clara's cell
while the nuns were at vespers.  Clara herself soon appeared, and after
she had commended herself to St. Ursula, she laid herself down.  Her
imagination, which had once been directed to a certain object, often
repeated to her in dreams her former vision; and she lay in just such a
transport, when Faustus approached her, and embodied the apparition, upon
which Clara awoke, and still believed herself merely in a dream.  The
abbess in the mean time did penance in her cell, and made a vow to fast
every week for the good of her soul.  But the consequences of this night
were horrible to poor Clara.

                                * * * * *

The next morning Faustus took leave of his family.  Few tears were shed;
but his old father, in a mournful tone, gave him wholesome advice.

As Faustus, with the Devil, rode over the bridge which leads across the
Rhine, thinking of last night's adventure, and making comments upon the
abbess, he saw afar off a man in the water, who seemed upon the point of
drowning, and only feebly struggled against approaching death.  He
commanded Leviathan to save the man.  The Devil answered, with a
significant look:

"Think well of what thou requirest; he is a youth, and perhaps it will be
better for him and for thee that he ends his life here."

_Faustus_.  Thou fiend, only ready for mischief, wouldst thou have me
withstand the sacred feeling of nature?  Hasten and save him, I repeat.

_Devil_.  Canst thou not swim thyself?  No.  Well, the consequences be
thy reward; thou wilt repent of this.

He rushed into the stream, and rescued the youth.  Faustus consoled
himself with the idea of having, by this good act, atoned for the
preceding night of sin; and Leviathan laughed at the consolation.



CHAPTER III.


The Devil now led Faustus through a series of adventures which were to
serve as a prelude to the most afflicting vicissitudes.  What Faustus had
hitherto seen had embittered his heart; but the scenes which now opened
upon him by degrees so wounded his spirit, that his mind was unable
either to support or remedy them; and only one of the worldly great, or,
what is nearly synonymous, a worker and designer of human misery, could
have witnessed them unmoved.

The Devil and Faustus were riding in close conversation along the banks
of the Fulda, when they saw beneath an oak-tree a countrywoman sitting
with her children, appearing to be the lifeless image of agony and dumb
despair.  Faustus, whom sorrow attracted as much as joy, went hurriedly
up to her, and inquired the cause of her grief.  The woman gazed at him
for some time, and it was not until his sympathising look had in some
degree melted her frozen heart that she was able, amidst tears and
sobbings, to explain herself in the following words:

"In the whole world there are no beings so wretched as myself and these
poor children.  My husband was indebted to the Prince-Bishop for three
years' rent.  The first year he could not pay it, on account of the
failure of his crops; during the second the Bishop's wild-boars grubbed
up all his seed from the ground; and during the third his whole
hunting-train galloped over our fields and destroyed our harvest.  As my
husband had often been threatened by the steward with a distress, he
intended to have gone this morning to Frankfort, to sell a fat calf and
his last pair of oxen, and with the amount to have paid his rent.  But
just as he was setting out the Bishop's clerk-of-the-kitchen came, and
demanded the calf for his lordship's table.  My husband pleaded his
poverty, and told him how unjust it would be to take away his calf, which
would fetch a high price at Frankfort.  The clerk-of-the-kitchen
answered, that no peasant had a right to carry any thing out of his
master's domain.  The steward and his bailiffs then came, and instead of
taking my husband's part, he drove off the oxen; the clerk-of-the-kitchen
took the calf; the bailiffs turned me and my children out of house and
home; and while they were pillaging and carrying off our goods, my
husband went into the barn and out his throat in despair.  The poor
wretch lies under that sheet, and we sit here to watch the body, so that
it may not be devoured by the wild-beasts, for the priest has refused to
bury it."

She tore away the white sheet which had concealed the body, and fell to
the ground.  Faustus started at the horrible sight, while tears gushed
from his eyes, and he cried, "Man, man, is this thy lot?"  Then looking
up to heaven, "Oh! didst thou create this unfortunate man merely that a
servant of thy religion might drive him to despair and suicide?"  He cast
the cloth over the body, flung the woman some gold, and said, "I will go
to the Bishop and tell him your melancholy story.  I am certain that he
will bury your husband, give you back your goods, and punish the
villains."

This circumstance made so strong an impression upon Faustus, that he and
the Devil reached the Bishop's castle before he could collect himself.
They were received with great civility, and shown into a spacious hall,
where his reverence was at table.  The Prince-Bishop was a man in his
best years, but so enormously corpulent that fat seemed to have
overwhelmed his nerves, his heart, and his very soul.  He was only
animated while eating; all his sense lay in his palate, and he never knew
vexation, except when he was disappointed of a dish which he had ordered.
His table was so well furnished, that Faustus, whom the Devil had often
banqueted by means of his spirits, thought to himself that the Bishop
surpassed the master of a thousand arts in his dinners.  In the middle of
the table stood, amongst other dishes, a large calf's-head,--a favourite
morsel with the Bishop.  He was engaged, both body and soul, in the
feast, and had not yet spoken a single word, when suddenly Faustus
exclaimed:

"Gracious sir, do not take it ill of me if I spoil your appetite, but it
is impossible for me to look on that calf's-head without telling you of a
shocking affair which has this day occurred in the neighbourhood of your
palace.  I hope, from your humanity and Christian mildness, that you will
cause those aggrieved to be recompensed, and take care in future that
your officers do not again outrage humanity, as they have done in this
affair."

The Bishop raised his eyes in wonder, looked at Faustus, and emptied his
glass.

Faustus related the story with warmth and feeling; none of those present,
however, paid any attention to him, and the Bishop continued eating.
Faustus then said: "I think I am speaking to a Bishop, a shepherd of his
flock, and am standing among teachers and preachers of religion and
Christian charity?  My lord, am I right or not?"

The Bishop eyed him scornfully; then calling for the
clerk-of-the-kitchen, he said: "What hubbub is this about a peasant who
has been fool enough to cut his throat?"

The clerk-of-the-kitchen laughed, told the story as Faustus had done, and
added: "I took away his calf because it would grace your lordship's
table, and was too good for the Frankfort burghers, to whom he wished to
sell it.  The steward distrained his goods because he had always been a
bad tenant, and for three years had not paid his rent.  Thus, my lord,
does the case stand; and truly no peasant shall drive any thing good out
of your demesne with my consent."

_Bishop_.  Go; you are quite right.  (_To Faustus_)  What have you now to
say? you see that he did his duty in taking the calf; or do you think
that the Frankfort citizens ought to eat the fat calves of my land, and I
the lean?

Faustus was about to speak.

_Bishop_.  Listen! eat, drink, and be silent.  You are the first person
that has ever spoken of peasants and such rabble at my table.  Verily, if
your dress did not declare you to be a gentleman, I should be inclined to
think that you were sprung from beggars, since you speak so warmly in
their favour.  Learn that the peasant who does not pay his rent does just
as well in cutting his throat, as certain people would do in holding
their tongues instead of spoiling my appetite with useless speeches.
Clerk-of-the-kitchen, that is a noble calf's-head.

_Clerk-of-the-kitchen_.  It is the head of Hans Ruprecht's calf.

_Bishop_.  So, so!  Send it me here, and reach me the pepper.  I will cut
myself a slice.  And you, Mr. What's-your-name, may as well take a piece
with me.

The clerk-of-the-kitchen placed the pepper-castor before the Bishop.
Faustus whispered into the ear of the Devil; and at the moment the Bishop
ran his knife into the calf's-head, the Devil changed it to the head of
Hans Ruprecht, which, wild, horrible, and bloody, now stared the Bishop
in the face.  His reverence let fall his knife, and sank back in a
feinting fit; while the whole company sat in lifeless horror and
stupefaction.

_Faustus_.  My Lord Bishop, and ye most reverend gentlemen, learn from
this to practise Christian charity as well as to preach it.

He hurried away with the Devil.

The _sang-froid_ of the Bishop and his table-companions, and the brutal
manner in which he spoke of the fate of the unfortunate suicide, sowed
the first seeds of gloomy horror in the breast of Faustus.  He revolved
in his mind his former experience, as well as what he had seen since he
had roamed about with the Devil, and perceived, whichever way he turned,
nothing but hard-heartedness, deceit, tyranny, and a willingness to
commit crime for the sake of gold, preferment, or luxury.  He wished to
seek for the cause of all this in man himself; but his own unquiet and
doubtful spirit, and his imagination, which always avoided difficulties
within its reach, began already in dark dissatisfaction to make the
Creator of mankind, if not the author, yet, by his sufferance of all
these horrors, at least the accomplice.  These impious ideas only
required the aid of a few more horrible scenes to derange his
understanding entirely; and the Devil inwardly rejoiced in being able to
afford a future opportunity for that purpose.  Faustus hoped soon to cure
himself of this sadness at the court of the renowned prince, and his
companion willingly left him in this delusion.  About evening they
arrived at a city, at the entrance of which they perceived a crowd of
people assembled round a tower, in which culprits condemned to death were
accustomed to pass the last night of their lives.  Faustus, observing
that the people were looking up to the ironed windows with the deepest
sorrow, asked the cause of this assemblage.  Whereupon a hundred voices
gave him an answer.

"Dr. Robertus, our father, the friend of freedom, the protector of the
people, the avenger of the oppressed, sits imprisoned in yonder tower.
The cruel tyrannical Minister, once his friend, has now condemned him to
death; and to-morrow he is to be executed, because he dared to uphold our
privileges."

These words sunk deep into the soul of Faustus.  He conceived a high
opinion of a man who, at the risk of his own life, had dared to stand
forward as the avenger of his fellow-creatures.  As he himself had just
been a witness of the consequences of oppression, he commanded the Devil
to carry him to this doctor.  The Devil took him aside, and then flew up
with him into the tower, and entered the cell of the avenger of the
people.  Faustus saw before him a man whose daring and gloomy physiognomy
was truly disgusting.  But the romantic imagination of Faustus pictured,
at first sight, the form of a great man, from what he had heard and from
what he saw before him.  The doctor did not seem much surprised at their
sudden appearance.  Faustus approached him, and said:

"Doctor Robertus, I come to hear your story from your own mouth; not that
I have any doubt, for your appearance confirms all that has been told me
of you; I am now convinced that you fall a sacrifice to that tyranny
which oppresses the race of man, and which I abhor as much as you do.  I
come likewise to offer you my assistance, which, contrary to all
appearances, can extricate you from this dreadful situation."

The doctor looked coldly upon him, let his face sink into his hands, and
replied:

"Yes, I fall a victim to power and tyranny; and, what is most grievous to
me, through the means of a false friend, who sacrifices me more to his
fear and envy than to his despotic principles.  I know not who ye are,
and whether ye can save me; but I wish that men of your appearance should
know Dr. Robertus, who is to bleed to-morrow in the cause of freedom.
From my earliest youth the noble spirit of independence, which man is
bound to thank for every thing great that he is capable of, fired my
breast; from my early youth the numerous examples of tyranny and
oppression which I saw with my eyes, or read of in history, roused my
soul and inflamed me to fury.  Often did I shed tears because I felt
myself unable to avenge the sufferings of mankind.  To increase my
misery, I read in the history of the Greeks and Romans what advancement
man made in virtue when tyrants were put down, and he was left to follow
the bent of his own nature.  Think not that I am one of those fools whose
idea of freedom is that every one should do as he pleases.  Full well I
know that the capacities of men are different, and that their situations
in life must be different; but when I considered the laws which should
secure to each individual his life and property, I found nothing but a
wild chaos, which tyrannical power had artfully mixed up in order to make
herself the sole and arbitrary mistress of the happiness and the
existence of the subject.  After this discovery, the whole human race
appeared to me as a flock of sheep, which a band of robbers had conspired
to plunder and devour by means of laws enacted by themselves, and to
which they themselves are not amenable: for where is the law that fetters
the rulers of the earth?  Is it not madness that those very people who,
by their situations, are most liable to the abuse of their passions, are
subservient to no law, and acknowledge no tribunal which can call them to
account?  Misery is near, and promised vengeance is far off; and that
chimes-in but poorly with the feelings and nature of man."  Faustus
earnestly listened to all this, looked furious, and struck his forehead
with his hand.  The Devil was quite enraptured with the orator, who
continued:

"The wild indignation which I expressed at every new act of oppression
does honour to my heart, and therefore I care very little though my
enemies can reproach me for want of prudence; for what is termed prudence
by the world is nothing else than blind submission, servility, flattery,
and being unscrupulous how or in what manner a place is obtained; but an
independent being like myself seeks for happiness by purer means.  I had
the misfortune to be allied, by the bonds of friendship, to the present
Minister from the time we were at school together.  He sought
advancement, and he has the spirit which insures it; for, from his very
infancy, he has endeavoured to obtain power and riches by principles
entirely opposite to mine; and in proportion as I have attacked
tyrannical forms of government, he has defended them.  We have disputed
this delicate point privately and in public, and my honesty has always
enabled me to defeat him; but as it was natural that I should have the
oppressed part of mankind on my side, so was it yet more reasonable that
he should succeed in winning over all those who derive advantage from
enslaving their fellow-men.  As these are the very people who can open
the door of happiness and fortune to their confederates, so was he soon
distinguished and raised, step by step, to the rank of prime-minister of
the kingdom; whilst I, neglected, despised, and unknown, remained
stationary.  The proud despot exerted his utmost to bring me over to his
party by bribery and promise of place; but I saw that he only wished to
make me thereby more deeply feel his power, and that he felt nothing more
was wanting to complete his triumph than to have a man of my principles
acknowledge him as patron, and sanctify his arbitrary measures by
cooperating with him.  True, therefore, to myself, I the more eagerly
exposed and censured the crimes which he was daily committing.  You must
be aware that if he had been capable of feeling what was great, this
hostility would have inspired him with admiration for a man who took him
to task with so much danger to himself; but it operated in a different
manner.  The more I exposed him, the more his hatred against me
increased; and when I, a month ago, published a paper in which I depicted
him in his true colours, and the people thereupon assembled round his
house, threatened his life, and shouted my name with enthusiasm, the
wretch had the baseness to send the paper forthwith to the Prince, who
had me tried and condemned to death.  Thus the laws of tyrants condemn
me, but the rights of man acquit me.--I have now told you my history, and
you shall hear nothing more from me.  I die without a murmur, and merely
grieve that I cannot burst the chain which fetters my fellow-men.  If you
can assist me, good; but know that death from the hand of my foe is more
welcome to me than mercy.  Leave me now to myself; return to slavery,
while I wing my course to everlasting freedom."

Faustus was confounded at the magnanimity of the Doctor, and hurried away
to reproach the minister with his injustice, and put him to shame.  The
Devil, who saw deeper into matters, perceived that the Doctor was
animated with quite a different spirit than that of freedom.  The
minister gave them an immediate audience; when Faustus spoke to him with
much warmth and boldness concerning the situation and opinions of the
Doctor.  He represented to him how injurious it would be to his
reputation to sacrifice a man, whom he once called friend, at the shrine
of despotism.  He gave him to understand that every man would believe
that revenge and fear had actuated him to get rid of so sharp-sighted an
observer of his actions.  "If your proceedings be just," he continued,
"you have, then, nothing to fear from him; if, on the contrary, you are
such a man as he declares you to be, his execution will only strengthen
his assertion, and every honest man will call you a false friend and an
oppressor of your fellow-citizens."

_Minister_.  I do not know you, nor do I ask who you are.  The manner in
which I bear your reproaches and your epithets will best prove my opinion
of you.  Consider, now, whether you have a right to bestow them from mere
hearsay, being yourself unacquainted with the affairs of this country.  I
will conclude, however, that you speak from compassion, and therefore
will give you an answer.  I was, and am still, the friend of Dr.
Robertus; and I deplore the necessity which forces me to deliver up to
justice a man whose talents might have made him useful to his country,
had he not perverted them to her destruction.  I will not search for the
cause of this in his breast, but will leave it to his own conscience.
For a long time I have tolerated his dangerous infatuation; but since he
has inflamed the minds of the people for whose welfare I am answerable,
and has placed himself at the head of a rebellion, he must die, as my own
son must, were he guilty of the like offence.  The law has judged him,
and not I; he knew this law, and knew what penalties rebellion draws down
upon its sons.  I have nothing to say against the opinion of the people:
when they are no longer misled, I believe they will consider me as their
father.  If you please, you may stay among us; and whenever you can see
any thing really calculated for the people's good, be assured that I
shall always pay attention to it.

After these words, which he spoke in a firm and unaltered tone, he
retired, and left Faustus, who was unable at the moment to make any
reply.  Upon going away, the latter said to the Devil, "Which of these
two, now, shall I believe?"  The Devil shrugged his shoulders; for he
generally appeared to be ignorant when concealing the truth would be
profitable to himself and injurious to mankind.

_Faustus_.  But why should I ask thee?  I will obey the call of my own
heart.  A man who is so nearly allied to me by his way of thinking shall
not die.

If Faustus had been acquainted with some of our modern bawlers for
freedom, he would not have been so mistaken in the Doctor; but such a
being was a novelty at that period.

The next morning, when the execution was to take place, Faustus went into
the grand square, attended by the Devil, and told him in going along what
he was to do.  At the very moment the executioner was about to decapitate
the Doctor, who had kneeled down, looking very ghastly, the latter
disappeared.  The Devil carried him through the air beyond the frontiers;
and there, delivering him a large sum of money, he abandoned him joyfully
to his fate, for he saw pretty clearly how he would employ his gold and
liberty.  The people raised a wild shout of joy at the disappearance of
the Doctor, and believed that Providence had rescued their favourite.
Faustus also shouted, and rejoiced at the glorious action.

Faustus and the Devil now rode to the court of the Prince of ---. {134}
They soon reached the court of this prince, who was cried up through all
Germany as a wise and virtuous ruler, whose only happiness consisted in
the welfare of his subjects.  It is true that the subjects themselves did
not always join in this cry; but the prince is not yet born who can give
satisfaction to all men.

Faustus and the Devil, by means of their dress and equipage, soon found
admittance at court.  Faustus regarded the Prince with the eyes of a man
whose heart was already prepossessed in his favour; and to carry this
prepossession even to conviction, nothing more was necessary than the
noble exterior of the Prince himself.  He was, or appeared to be, frank
and open; endeavoured to please and to win all hearts without appearing
to do so; was familiar without laying aside his dignity, and possessed
that prudent coldness which inspires respect, though we scarcely know
why.  All this was blended with so much elegance, urbanity, and decorum,
that it would have been difficult for the most acute eye to have
distinguished the acquired, the artificial, and the assumed, from the
plain and natural.  Faustus, who had as yet seen few of those men of the
world whose natural characters are swallowed up by political prudence,
formed an ideal one out of the above-mentioned materials; and after he
had for some time visited the court, and believed that he had obtained a
thorough knowledge of the head personage, the following conversation took
place one evening between him and the Devil:

_Faustus_.  I have hitherto purposely said nothing to you of this Prince;
but now, having, as I flatter myself, caught his character, I venture to
affirm that report is no liar, and I hope to wring from thee an avowal
that he is the man we have been seeking.

_Devil_.  I guessed, from your beginning, how you would end.  I suppose
you verily believe that you have brought the Devil into a quandary; but
of this anon.  Your prince shall be for the present a thoroughly honest
fellow.  I will tell you nothing of the result of the observations I have
made upon him; for, from what I have learnt at the minister's, there is
something going forward which will soon give you ocular demonstration of
his worth; till then keep the idea you have formed of him in your bosom,
and tell me what is your opinion of Count C., his favourite.

_Faustus_.  Curse it: he is the only person here whom I cannot
comprehend.  He is the bosom friend of the Prince, and yet is as slippery
as an eel, which always escapes through your fingers; and as smooth as a
woman is towards her husband when she has resolved to deceive him.  But
perhaps he is obliged to conceal the emotions of his soul, lest some of
those spies who are always hanging round the favourites of princes should
take advantage of him.

_Devil_.  His soul!  Dost think then, Faustus, that a man who so
studiously endeavours to disguise himself has a breast that would bear
the light?  Never trust him in whom art and subtlety have so far overcome
animal nature, that even the signs of his instinct and his sensations are
extinguished.  When that which works and ferments within you shows itself
no more in your face, in your eyes, and in your actions, you are no
longer what nature formed you; but are become the most dangerous brutes
on the earth.

_Faustus_.  And is the Count such a being as you have described?

_Devil_.  The Count is a man who has travelled much and has made the tour
of the courts of Europe, has smoothed down the rugged man, and has
sacrificed the noble feelings of his heart at the cold shrine of reason;
in short, one of those calculating heads who laugh at your ideal virtue,
and act with men like the potters, who dash the work of their hands to
pieces if it does not please their fancy.  He is one of those who think
themselves justified, by their experience, to consider the entire race of
men as a pack of wolves who will devour all who put confidence in them.
Nothing delights him more than to carry on an intricate state-plot; and
he treats a maiden as he does a rose which he plucks from the
stalk,--inhales the sweetness, and then very coolly treads it under foot.

_Faustus_.  Malicious devil! and can the man thou hast depicted to me be
the bosom friend of the Prince of ---?

_Devil_.  Time will show what he is to him.  I tell thee there is
something going forward.  Didst thou, by the by, observe the minister
this evening?

_Faustus_.  He appeared sad and melancholy.

_Devil_.  He, now, is one of those whom you call honest men.  He is just,
noble-minded, and attentive to the duties of his situation; but, like all
of you, he has a foible to counterbalance his virtues; this is an
unbounded tenderness for the other sex: and as he, out of principle,
required the blessing of the priest to his pleasures, so did he, after
the death of his first wife, make a fool of himself by marrying the woman
whom you have seen.  Through a few hours' enjoyment he destroyed the
fabric of his fortune.  She took advantage of his doting fondness, and
wasted in luxury, dress, and play, her, his, and his children's property,
and involved him in debts to an immense amount.  It is true she found in
Baron H., whom you know, and who is sole master in the house, a powerful
coadjutor.  When they were completely aground, and their desires had
become more craving in proportion as the difficulty of gratifying them
increased, the lady readily agreed to a plan which her minion proposed to
her in private, and which was nothing else "than to sell the honour of
her stepdaughter, under an equivocal promise of marriage, at as high a
price as the favourite would buy it."  The minister had not the slightest
suspicion of all this; he only felt his lack of money, the weight of his
debts, the full mass of his folly, and trembled in momentary expectation
of the arrival of his son, whom the wife had driven from home in order
that she might dissipate his property.  The poor youth had in the
interval departed for the Turkish wars, and had been rewarded for his
interference with a wooden arm.  I do not say that the favourite might
not have had, at the commencement of this affair, serious views of
marrying the daughter, for he was well aware of the father's interest
with the Prince; but during these last few days the scene has quite
changed.  The Prince has proposed to him an alliance with one of the
richest heiresses in the land; and he has determined, by one secret
stroke, so entirely to overwhelm the minister and his whole house, that
no one shall dare to cry for revenge or to complain of him.  They will
all be silent, and the minister will be crushed beneath his foot, like
the worm, whose sufferings are unheard.

_Faustus_.  But will not the Prince hear of this deed, and punish it?

_Devil_.  Thine own eyes shall be witnesses of the issue of the affair.

_Faustus_.  I command thee, under pain of my displeasure, to play none of
thy tricks here.

_Devil_.  Those who by their crimes put the Devil himself to blush, have
very little need of his assistance.  We begin now, O Faustus, to remove
the covering from the hearts of men; and I own that I feel sincere joy in
finding that the Germans are capable of something grand.  You, indeed,
are merely the imitators of other nations, and lose thereby the glory of
originality; but in hell that is not esteemed essential, and good-will in
the cause of wickedness is all that is required.

Faustus passed his time gaily among the women of the court, corrupting
all those who were to be obtained by money or a fine face; whilst the
drama of the favourite was rapidly hastening to a conclusion.  He now
revealed his finely-spun design to Baron H.  The latter was to be the
instrument of it; and as the glitter of gold was no longer at hand to
sharpen his palled passion for the minister's wife, and as the tears of
the unfortunate daughter, the misery of the father, and the expected
arrival of the crippled son, began to bear heavily upon his tender
conscience, he determined at once to free himself of all these burdens.
His reward consisted in the Count's undertaking to persuade the Prince to
send the Baron on an important mission to the imperial court.  In
consideration of this, the Baron was to procure the wife of the minister
to purloin secretly, from the cabinet of her husband, a certain
parchment, considered to be one of the most important title-deeds of the
princely house; and which the favourite was well aware would shortly be
called for, on account of a certain law-suit with another illustrious
family.  The Count then hoped to make it appear that the minister, for a
sum of money, would have delivered it into the hands of the adversaries,
if the favourite's watchfulness had not detected his treachery.  The
spouse of the minister, who thought that an old man who could no longer
supply her with gold for her follies deserved no mercy, readily delivered
the paper into the hands of the Baron, for whom she had the most doting
fondness.

The minister was walking, in a melancholy manner, up and down his
apartment.  The sense of approaching shame, and the certainty of deceived
love, had removed from him even his daughter, who latterly had been his
only consolation.  She was weeping in her chamber, and breaking a heart
worthy of a better destiny.  The minister's meditations were interrupted
by his wife, who now came to reproach him, and thereby add to his misery.
Baron H. presently entered, and coolly demanded the commission, by virtue
of which he was to act at the imperial court.  As he brought with him the
Prince's order for the same, the minister instantly went into his cabinet
to fetch it.  In the mean time the lady, who now first heard of the
Baron's intended departure, began to rave at him in the agony of despair.
No sooner did the minister return with the Baron's commission than a
messenger brought him a note from the Prince, in which he was commanded
instantly to bring the title-deed into court in order that it might be
laid before the envoy of the adverse party.  The minister searched the
cabinet, emptied all his drawers of their contents, and the cold sweat of
death began to trickle down his face.  He questioned his secretaries and
clerks, his wife also, and his daughter; but to no purpose.  At length he
was obliged to resolve, fortified as he was by his innocence, to expose
himself to the dreadful storm.  He hastened to the Prince, who was
sitting alone with the Count, informed him of his misfortune, assured him
of his innocence, and submitted to his destiny.  The Count allowed the
Prince to give way to his first indignation at this unwelcome
intelligence, when, advancing very coolly, he took the title-deed out of
his own pocket, and delivered it to the Prince with a low bow.  He then
suffered himself to be closely questioned as to the means by which the
deed came into his possession; but not until the Prince had threatened
him with his displeasure did he confess, with the greatest apparent
reluctance, the process of the affair according to his concerted plan.
The minister was dumb; this evidence of his guilt so confused him, that
not even the consciousness of his innocence could dispel the darkness
which had come over him.  The Prince looked furiously upon him, and said:
"I ought long since to have expected that you would endeavour to pay the
debts of your waste and extravagance by betraying me."  This last
reproach in some degree restored the wretched man to his senses; he was
about to speak, but the Prince commanded him to be silent, to resign his
situation immediately, go home, and not leave his house till sentence
should have been pronounced upon him.

The minister accordingly went home, while big tears rolled down his
cheeks.  Despair forced from the daughter the secret of her shame, and
from the wife the avowal of her crime.  The strength of his spirit gave
way, his senses became confused, and that most frightful of all
visitations, insanity, drew a gloomy veil over the remembrance of the
past, and, by the ruin of his mind, healed his heart of the wounds which
his nearest and dearest had inflicted upon it.

It was at this moment that the Devil led Faustus into the chamber of the
minister, having previously informed him of every particular of the
affair.  All the fibres of feeling were not yet entirely destroyed, and
some few drops of paternal sensibility were yet falling from the eyes of
the good old man upon the miserable daughter who was clasping his knees.
He smiled once more, played with her dishevelled locks, and smiled yet
again.  Suddenly his son rushed in, and was about to precipitate himself
into his embrace.  The father gave him a ghastly look; a wild shriek of
madness, which thrilled through the nerves of every one present, burst
from his heaving breast; and the poor sufferer became for ever an object
of horror and painful compassion.

Faustus raged, and uttered the most frightful curses.  He instantly
determined to inform the Prince of the whole proceeding, and to unmask
the traitors.  The Devil smiled, and advised him to go softly to work if
he wished thoroughly to know this Prince whom he boasted of as an
impersonation of all human virtues.  Faustus hastened to court; and
certain, as he imagined, of being able to cause the ruin of the favourite
by this discovery, he coolly communicated every thing to the Prince.
When he came to the motive which urged the Count to this horrible action,
namely, his wish to free himself from his engagements with the daughter
of the minister, the countenance of the Prince brightened; he sent for
the Count, and embracing him on his entrance, said:

"Happy is the Prince who finds a friend who, out of obedience and the
fear of displeasing him, dares commit an action which the common rules of
morality condemn.  The minister has always acted like a fool.  I am glad
that we have thus got rid of him.  Thou wilt fill his situation much
better."

Faustus stood for a moment petrified with horror.  Noble warmth soon,
however, began to fire his breast.  He depicted in frightful colours the
present situation of the minister.  He then burst into fury and
reproaches, and, without the least reserve or fear, spoke like an avenger
of humanity when unmasking a cold-blooded, hypocritical tyrant.  He was
turned out of the palace as a madman.  He returned home, and the Devil
received him with a triumphant air.  Faustus said nothing, but gnashed
his teeth, and, in his venomous wrath, rejoiced that he was entirely
separated from the race of man.

About midnight the Count caused the Devil and Faustus to be arrested, and
cast into a frightful dungeon.  Faustus commanded the fiend to submit
quietly, because he wished to see how far these hypocrites would carry
their wickedness.  When in prison, the dreadful scene of the day flitted
before his mind's eye in colours of tenfold horror; and wild thoughts
against Him who rules the destiny of man arose from the contemplation of
it.  His soul became inflamed; and at length he exclaimed, with scornful
laughter:

"Where is here the finger of the Godhead, and where is that Providence
which presides over the path of the righteous?  I see the just man
insane, and the wretch who drove him to madness rewarded; I disclosed to
the tyrant, who affects virtue, the wickedness of his favourite, and he
found him only so much the more worthy of his friendship and favour.  If
this be the order and harmony of the moral world, then there is harmony
and order in the brain of the poor lunatic, who is suffered to fall
unprotected and unrevenged."

He continued, while the Devil listened and laughed: "But allowing that
man is obliged, by necessity, to do every thing he does, then must his
deeds and his actions be ascribed to the Supreme Being, and they thereby
cease to be punishable.  If nothing but what is good and perfect can flow
from a Perfect Being, then are our deeds, horrible as they seem to us,
good and perfect.  If they are wicked, and in reality what they seem to
us, then ought that Being to be looked up to with horror and aversion.
Come, fiend, resolve my doubts, and tell me what causes the moral misery
of man."

_Devil_.  A truce to your doubts! no one clothed in flesh is permitted to
untie that knot, and _therefore_ _a thousand fools will hang_, _drown_,
_and destroy themselves_.  Do not, O Faustus, forget the end which we
proposed to ourselves at our first interview.  I promised to show thee
men in their nakedness, in order to cure thee of the prejudices thou
hadst imbibed from thy books, so that they might not disturb thee in the
enjoyment of life.  But when thou hast rid thyself of all these human
frailties, and hast discovered that the pretended guidance of the Eternal
One whom thou hast renounced on my account, and before whose sight thou
mayst commit, undeterred, the most horrible atrocities, is only a
delusion, perhaps thy soul will then have sufficient strength to
understand these horrible mysteries; and, if so, I will reveal them to
thee.

_Faustus_.  Then, by the mysteries of evil which surround men from their
birth to their grave, I shall yet be the greatest of my race; for, in
summoning thee, I shall have threaded the labyrinth in which the rest
must grope about to all eternity.

_Devil_.  It is well that the rest of men do not possess the magic art
which has enabled thee to render me thy subject, else would hell soon be
emptied; and thou wouldst see more devils walking upon the earth than
there are saints in the Calendar.  Heigh ho!  I know what a troublesome
life a devil has who is forced to put in execution all the designs of an
honest heart and a sound head: what, then, would become of us, if every
rascal and fool could call us out of hell!

This observation of the Devil's was on the point of putting Faustus into
a better humour; but his attention was almost immediately directed to
another subject.  Six armed men, with dark lanterns, followed by two
executioners with empty sacks, now entered the dungeon.  Faustus asked
them what they wanted; and the leader answered, with great politeness:
"We are merely come, sir, to request you and your honourable companion to
creep into these sacks; for we are ordered to tie you up in them, and
then fling you into the neighbouring stream."  The Devil laughed aloud,
and exclaimed: "See, Faustus, the Prince of --- wishes to cool in you
that enthusiasm for virtue which you displayed so warmly before him
to-day."  Faustus looked furiously, and gave a sign: a fiendish roar
instantly filled the arched vaults; the soldiers and executioners sunk
trembling to the ground, and out flew the prisoners on the wings of the
mighty wind.

Revenge now inflamed the breast of Faustus, and arrayed itself in the
brilliant hues of a great and noble call.  The idea of avenging mankind
on its oppressors rushed through his brain, and he determined to employ
the power of the Devil in clearing the earth of hypocrites and villains.
He therefore exclaimed:

"Fly this moment to the palace, and strangle the wretch who makes a game
of virtue.  Annihilate him who rewards the traitor, and knowingly treads
upon the righteous man.  Avenge mankind on him, in my name."

_Devil_.  Faustus, thou art forestalling the vengeance of the Avenger.

_Faustus_.  His vengeance sleeps, and the righteous man suffers; I will
have him destroyed who wears only the mask of virtue.

_Devil_.  Bid me, then, breathe pestilence and death over the whole
earth, so that the whole race of man may perish.  I tell thee, Faustus,
thou art giving thyself useless trouble, and sending wretches down to
hell in vain; for things will still go on as they did, or perhaps worse.

_Faustus_.  Crafty fiend, thou wouldst willingly save him in order that
he might commit more crimes.  Princes like him do indeed deserve thy
protection, for they render virtue contemptible by rewarding villany.
Die he shall, and, loaded with his last deed, sink trembling into
damnation.

_Devil_.  Know, thou fool, that the Devil rejoices over the death of a
sinner; and what I said was merely to secure myself from thy future
reproaches, and that thou mightest have no excuse remaining.  The
consequences of this deed be thine.

_Faustus_.  Yes, be they mine.  I will lay them in the scale against my
sins.  Hasten, and be firm.  Be thou the arrow of my vengeance.  Seize
the favourite and hurl him among the sands of burning Libya, so that he
may perish by inches.

_Devil_.  Only private revenge, and spite in finding thyself deceived,
drive thee to this.

_Faustus_.  Babbling fiend!  It is a solitary remnant of what you call my
youthful prejudices which inspires me with angry thoughts at the sight of
any atrocious act.  If I could have seen and tolerated the wickedness of
men, should I have wanted thee?  Hasten and obey.

The Devil suffocated the Prince on his magnificent couch, then seized the
trembling favourite and hurled him among the burning sands of Libya.  He
then returned to Faustus, and cried, "The deed is done!"  They once more
mounted the rapid winds, and sailed out of the country.

Faustus sat, melancholy, upon his horse; for, after they had passed the
frontiers, the Devil had changed their method of travelling.  The history
of the minister still gnawed his heart, and he was stung to the quick at
being obliged to acknowledge that the Devil had as yet been right in
respect to men; and the bitterness of his spirit increased in proportion
as they displayed themselves to him in their true colours.  Yet the idea
of having avenged the unfortunate minister upon the hypocrites cheered
him in the midst of his gloomy sorrows.  Pride by degrees so inflated his
heart, that he almost began to consider his alliance with the Devil as
the act of a man who yields up his soul for the good of his race, and
thereby surpasses all the heroes of antiquity, who merely sacrificed
their temporal existence; nay more, for as they sacrificed themselves for
the sake of glory, or for a recompense,--which he, on account of his
engagement, could entertain no hopes of,--so at last he imagined that
they were not worthy to stand for a moment in comparison with him.  Thus,
place men in whatever situation you will, they soon begin to feel happy,
provided their self-love has an opportunity of working; for self-love can
even gild the yawning gulf of hell, as in the case of Faustus.  He
forgot, in his pride, the motives of his alliance with the Devil, and his
thirst for pleasure and enjoyment; and while he sat upon his horse, his
imagination dubbed him the knight-errant of virtue and the champion of
innocence.  The Devil rode by his side without once disturbing his
meditations; for he only saw in each of these would-be noble feelings the
sources of future torment and despair.  His hatred of Faustus, however,
increased in proportion as the ideal prospects of the latter brightened
and expanded; he enjoyed, in anticipation, the hour when all these airy
visions would melt and disappear, and all these painted images of fancy
would deck themselves in the livery of hell, and tear the rash one's
heart as the heart of mortal had never yet been torn.  After a long
silence, Faustus suddenly exclaimed: "Tell me how it fares with the false
favourite."

_Devil_.  He pants upon the scorched sands, and stretches his parched
tongue from out his burning jaws, that the air and dew may refresh and
moisten it; but no cooling wind blows there, and for a millennium there
will fall no refreshing drop from heaven.  His blood boils like molten
metal in his veins, and the rays of the sun fall perpendicularly upon his
bare head.  Already is a curse against the Almighty conceived in his
inflamed brain, but his tongue is unable to stammer it forth.  He turns
up the hot sand like a mole, in order that he may suck the damp earth;
but thus he only digs his own grave.  Is thy revenge satisfied?

_Faustus_.  Revenge!  Why dost thou call the exercise of justice revenge?
Here am I shedding cold drops of sweat through my skin at what thou hast
been telling me; but I saw him laugh when I described to him and his
patron the sufferings of the noble father and the ruined daughter.

_Devil_.  Time, which slowly draws up the curtain, will at length
disclose every thing.  If the villanies of a petty despot and his
catamite horrify thee, what wilt thou think when thou seest men who have
a thousand times more power, and consequently will, to commit evil?  We
have, as yet, only removed the first skin of the monster: what will
become of thee when we tear open his breast?  Soon would He, to whom
vengeance properly belongs, empty the magazine of his thunder, were he to
destroy all those who, according to thy opinion, do not deserve to live.

Faustus was about to reply, when he saw afar off a village in a blaze.
As every thing uncommon excited his curiosity, he spurred forward his
horse, and the Devil followed at his heels.  He was soon met by a
confused rout of knights and attendants, who had been vanquished by
another party, which, however, did not pursue them.  When they came
nearer to the village, they found the plain strewed with the bodies of
men and horses.  They saw among the dead a miserable wretch, who, with
both his hands, was endeavouring to force back his entrails, which were
hanging out of his mangled belly.  He howled and cursed frightfully
during this horrid operation.  Faustus asked him the cause of all this
bloodshed.  The fellow screamed, "Get to the Devil, Mr. Curiosity; if you
saw your inside outmost, as I see mine, you would have no wish to answer
questions.  If you want to know why they have served me thus, inquire of
that noble gentleman, my master, who lies there dead, and whom I have to
thank for this treatment."

They left him, and approached a knight who was wounded in the shoulder,
and Faustus put the same question to him.  The knight answered: "A boor
belonging to yon burning village killed, some time ago, a stag, the
property of the mighty Wildgrave.  Thereupon the Wildgrave demanded the
culprit of my master, in order that he might be tied upon the back of a
stag and run to death, according to the German custom.  My master refused
to give up the boor; but in order to punish him, seized every thing he
possessed, and confiscated it to his own use.  The Wildgrave then sent a
letter of defiance to my lord, in the name of Heaven, and with the
permission of the emperor.  We were worsted in the battle, and the
Wildgrave has set fire to the village, which he has surrounded with his
horsemen, so that the inhabitants cannot escape; for he intends to fulfil
the oath which he swore, viz. to roast all the peasants, like Michaelmas
geese, for his hounds and wild-boars."

_Faustus_ (_furiously_).  Where is his castle?

_Knight_.  On yonder eminence; it is the strongest and most magnificent
castle in the whole country.

Faustus rode to the top of a hill, and looked down upon the burning
village, which lay beneath him in the valley.  Mothers with children in
their arms, old men, youths, and maidens rushed out, cast themselves at
the feet of the horsemen, and begged for mercy.  The Wildgrave shouted
till the valley reechoed, "Drive the rabble back; they shall perish in
the flames!"  The peasants screamed out, again and again: "We are
innocent! we are innocent!  He who offended you has escaped.  What have
we and our children done?  Ah, spare but them!"  The horsemen whipped
them up from the ground, and drove them into the fire.  The poor mothers
flung down their babes, in the hope that they would pity them; but the
hoofs of the horses trampled them to death.

Faustus cried deliriously: "Fly, Devil, and return not till thou hast
consumed the tyrant's castle, and all that is therein.  When he returns
home, let him find retribution."

The Devil laughed, shook his head, and flew away; whilst Faustus flung
himself down beneath a tree, and gazed impatiently upon the castle.  When
he beheld it in flames, the madman imagined that he had restored all
things to their right order, and received the Devil on his return with
the utmost joy.  The latter came back in triumph, and boasted of the ruin
he had caused; and, pointing to the Wildgrave and his myrmidon, who were
scampering towards the castle, he exclaimed: "The vapours of the hellish
pool will not, one day, strike him with such horror, O Faustus, as this
thy deed: his young and beloved wife was a few days ago delivered of her
firstborn."

_Faustus_.  Oh, save her and the new-born babe!

_Devil_.  It is too late.  The mother pressed the boy in her arms, and he
was burnt to ashes upon her bosom.

This episode made Faustus shudder, and he exclaimed, "How ready is the
Devil to destroy!"

_Devil_.  Not so ready as daring men are to decide and punish.  Had ye
but our might, ye would long ago have shattered the vast globe, and
reduced it to a chaos.  Are you not a proof of this yourself, since you
so madly abuse the power which you have over me?  Go to; go to.  The man
who does not bridle himself resembles the wheel which rolls down the
steep: who can stop its course?  It springs from rock to rock till it is
shivered.  Faustus, I would willingly have permitted the babe to grow up
and commit sin; for I am now deprived both of him and his mother.  Yes,
Faustus; she endeavoured to preserve him from the scorching flames with
her arms, the flesh of which was already frightfully burnt.

_Faustus_.  Thou drivest it home to my very heart.  (_Hiding his face in
his mantle_, _already wet with his tears_.)

The desire of avenging the virtuous and the innocent upon the wicked now
began to cool in the heart of Faustus.  He however comforted his spirit,
tormented by the last spectacle, with the thought of the mother and the
suckling being preserved from hell.  Besides this, his hot blood, his
eagerness for pleasure, his desire for change, and finally his doubts,
did not permit any sensation to make a lasting impression upon his heart.
As he was attracted by every new object, his feelings, therefore, burnt
like sky-rockets, which for a moment illumine the darkness of the night,
and then suddenly disappear.  The rich meal and the delicious wines which
he enjoyed in the next city where they arrived soon chased away his
melancholy fancies; and as the grand fair was being held there at that
time, Faustus and the Devil, after they had dined, went into the
market-place to see the crowd.

They now found themselves in a strange city.  There lived in one of the
convents a young monk, who had, by means of a heated imagination,
succeeded in so powerfully convincing himself of the force of religious
faith, that he believed he should be able to remove mountains, and to
prove himself a new apostle in deeds and miracles, if once his soul
received the true inspiration, and the Holy Spirit worked its way through
him.  Besides this, he imbibed all the follies and quackeries which
others had rejected,--a circumstance in which visionaries entirely differ
from philosophers.  The young monk, like every theorist who is inspired
with the importance of his subject, was a fiery orator; he thereby soon
won over the minds of the simple, especially of the women, who were
easily caught by any warm and impassioned appeal.  His imagination,
however, quickly formed for him another magic wand; for as he, on account
of his alliance with the highest of all beings, had a lofty opinion of
man, he formed the design of physiognomically dissecting the masterpiece
of creation, this favourite of heaven, and of allotting to him his
interior qualities by means of his exterior appearance.  Men of his
character so frequently deceive themselves, that it is impossible to say
whether some remaining spark of understanding had whispered to him that
this new delusion would give a fresh polish to the old one; and that more
pious souls would come to him than ever, in order to be told so many
wondrous things about their faces.  As he had only seen the four walls of
his cell, his penitents, and people of his own cast, and as he was as
ignorant in regard to mankind, the world, and true science, as men of
sanguine imaginations usually are,--it may be concluded that fancy alone
excited him to this scheme.  His words and his writings operated
prodigiously upon the minds of all those who would much rather be
confused than think clearly.  This is the case with the greater part of
mankind; and, as the hours of life glide away very pleasantly when
self-love is tickled, it was impossible that he should be without
disciples, for he flattered every body.  Our monk did not confine his
researches to man alone; for he descended to the more ignoble beasts of
the earth, allotted to them their qualities by examining their faces and
the structure of their bodies, and imagined that he had made a wonderful
discovery when he proved--from the mighty claws, the teeth, and the
aspect of the lion, and from the tender, light fabric of the hare--why
the lion was not a hare, and the hare a lion.  He was strangely surprised
that he had succeeded in pointing out so clearly the appropriate and
unalterable signs of brute nature, and to be able to apply them to
man,--although society has so much accustomed the latter to mask his
features, that they are rarely to be seen in their primitive state.  Not
satisfied with these triumphs, our monk descended even into the kingdoms
of the dead--tore skulls from the graves, and the bones of animals from
the muck-heaps; and showed his visitors why the dead were dead, and, from
their bones, how it was impossible that they should be otherwise than
dead.  In a word, he proved, clearly and unanswerably, that death never
yet came without a cause.

The Devil was well aware of the general infatuation, and perceived that,
while he and Faustus sat at dinner in the public room, some of the
company, and even the innkeeper himself, were surveying them with the
utmost attention; and were communicating to each other, in whispers, the
result of their observations, and showing the profiles which they had
secretly taken.  The fame of the wonderful monk had long since reached
the ears of Faustus; but he had hitherto paid so little attention to it,
that he now hardly knew what to make of these signs and whisperings.
When they arrived in the market-place, they were surprised by a new and
extraordinary spectacle.  This resort was the true school for
physiognomists.  Every one there could single out his man, lay his visage
upon the balance, and weigh out the powers of his mind.  Some stood
gazing at horses, asses, goats, swine, dogs, and sheep.  Others held
between their fingers spiders, butterflies, grasshoppers, and other
insects, and endeavoured to ascertain what their instinct might be from
an attentive survey of their exterior.  Some were employed in judging,
from the weight of jaw-bones or the sharpness of teeth, to what animals
they belonged.  But when Faustus and the Devil advanced among them, each
man desisted from his occupation, and began to cry out, "What a nose!
what eyes! what a searching glance! what a soft and beautiful curve of
the chin! what strength! what intuition! what penetration! what a
cleanly-made figure! what a vigorous and majestic gait! what strength of
limb! how uniform and harmonious is his whole frame!"  "I would give I
know not what for the autographs of the gentlemen," said a weaver, "in
order that I might judge, by their handwriting, of the quickness of their
thoughts."  The Devil happening to knit his brows from impatience of this
folly, one of the physiognomists instantly said, "The internal force of
the lion, which the gentleman possesses, has been aroused by some
external provocation, or some trifling thought."

Faustus was laughing at all this, when suddenly a beautiful female looked
down upon him from a window, and cried, in sweet amazement: "Holy
Catherine! what a noble head! what soft and angelic pensiveness in the
eyes! what a sweet and lovely physiognomy!"  These melodious words sunk
into the heart of Faustus.  He looked up to the window: her eyes met his
for a moment ere she drew herself back.  Faustus whispered to the Devil:
"I will not quit this town till I have possessed that maiden: what
voluptuousness beams in her eyes!"  They had scarcely entered a side
street, when one of the physiognomists came up and asked them very
civilly for "the physiognomy of their writing," assuring them that no
stranger had hitherto refused him this favour, and he hoped and trusted
that they would not.  He thereupon pulled out his album, and offered it
to Faustus, at the same time producing pen and ink.

_Faustus_.  Not so fast, my friend; one good turn deserves another.  Tell
me, first, who the maiden is that I this moment saw at the window of
yonder house, and whose countenance is so celestial.

_Physiognomist_.  Ah! she is an angel in every sense of the word.  Our
illustrious master has often assured us, that her eyes are the very
mirrors of chastity, her lovely mouth only formed to express the
inspiration of a heart filled with heavenly ideas; that her brow is the
polished shield of virtue, against which all temptations, all earthly
sin, will be shivered; that her nose snuffs the odours of the fields of
bliss; and that she is the most perfect cast of ideal beauty ever yet
permitted to appear in the world.

_Faustus_.  Truly, you have depicted her to me with more than earthly
colours; and now tell me her situation in life, and her name.

_Physiognomist_.  She is the daughter of a physician; but her father and
mother being lately dead, she lives by herself on her own property.  Her
name is Angelica.

They then wrote some nonsensical lines in his album, and the
physiognomist departed, delighted with his treasure.

_Faustus_.  Now tell me, Devil, how this child of grace is to be come at.
I am just inclined to see this monk's ideal beauty.

_Devil_.  By the high road to the human heart you will certainly meet
her; for sooner or later all must fall in with it, however far their
fancies may have caused them to stray from it.

_Faustus_.  What a delightful enjoyment it would be to fill so exalted an
imagination as hers with images of pleasure!

_Devil_.  The monk has already had the start of you, and has so sharpened
her feelings, and filled her little soul with so much vanity and
self-conceit, and made her piety so carnal, that you have nothing else to
do than give one audible tap at the gate of her heart, in order to be
admitted.  Let us now see to what lengths such delusions will lead a
young woman.

_Faustus_.  And let it be done quickly.

The Devil was perfectly willing to steal so pure a soul from heaven, and
thereby to consummate more speedily the measure of Faustus's sins.  He
suddenly stood in the shape of an old man with a peep-show, and, giving
Faustus the wink, he hurried away into the market-place.  He raised his
voice, and invited the people to come and see his peep-show.  The
populace flocked around him,--footmen and chambermaids, wives and widows,
boys and graybeards.  The Devil showed them all kinds of scenes, which he
accompanied with pious explanations and moral sayings.  Each person
stepped back delighted from the peep-show, and charmed the bystanders
with the recital of the wonders he had witnessed.  The beautiful Angelica
now looked out of her window; and, hearing the Devil descant in so pious
a tone, she felt an irresistible desire to see the wonders of his box,
and to bestow alms upon the devout old showman.  The Devil was sent for.
Even he was struck by her wondrous beauty, her gentle manners, and her
ingenuousness; but he became only so much the more desirous to confuse
her senses and entrap her.  She placed her enthusiastic eye to the window
of the box.  The Devil preluded with a few proverbs and wise saws, and
unfolded to her view scenes of love, in which he led her fancy so
adroitly from the spiritual to the carnal, that she was scarcely aware of
the gradation.  If she were about to turn away her eyes with shame, the
offensive object changed itself at once into a sublime image, which again
attracted her attention.  Her cheeks glowed, and she believed herself
gazing upon an unknown and enchanted world.  The artful Devil caused the
figure of Faustus to appear in all these scenes.  She saw him pursuing a
shadow which resembled her own, and undertaking for its sake the greatest
actions, and exposing himself to dangers of every description.  When the
Devil had completely chained her attention, and perceived that she was
highly curious to know wherefore the figure of Faustus was thus
associated with her own, he changed the scene, and represented the
parties in situations not to be misconstrued.  Lightning does not so
quickly glance through the darkness as did these scenes flit before the
eyes of the innocent maiden; a moment is an age in comparison, and the
poison was glowing in her breast before she was able to retreat.  She
started back, and, with her hands before her eyes, rushed into her
chamber, and sunk senseless into the arms of Faustus.  When she became
aware of her fall, she hid her face and repulsed the miscreant.  He laid
costly jewels at her feet; but she spurned them, and cried, "Tremble,
thou wretch! the hand of the Avenger will one day fall heavily upon thee
for this crime."

The insensate Faustus rejoiced at his victory; and went, without the
least feeling of repentance, to the Devil, who laughed at the affair, and
yet more fiendishly when he thought of its terrific consequences.

Faustus found himself here in his element.  He flew from conquest to
conquest, and made very little use of the power of the Devil, but a great
deal of his gold, which has some influence even over devout minds.
Angelica became invisible, and all the endeavours of Faustus to see her
once more were of no avail; but he soon forgot her in the tumult of his
pleasures.  Reading by chance some of the manuscript publications of the
monk, he was irritated by the self-conceit and ignorance of the author.
He proposed to the Devil to play him a trick, and with that intention
they both went to the convent.  As they were exceedingly well dressed,
and appeared to be persons of distinction, they were received by the
young monk in the most cordial and friendly manner.  His eyes had
scarcely met those of the Devil when he became so agitated by his
physiognomy, that, forgetting all the forms of politeness, he shook him
violently by the hand; and going to some distance, he looked at him first
full in the face, and then in the profile.  He then cried out:

"Ha! who art thou, most mighty one?  Yes; you can do what you like; and
what you wish you can also do: your physiognomy tells me this; therefore
it is not necessary for me to know you.  Never have I been more perfectly
convinced of the truth of my science than at this moment.  Who can behold
such a human visage without interest, without admiration?  Who cannot
perceive in that nose, original greatness; in that eye, penetration,
strength, and expression?"

He felt his forehead, and then continued:

"Permit me, with my measure, to ascertain the height of your brow?  Yes;
I see unshaken courage in that forehead, as clearly as I do steadfast
friendship, fidelity, love of God and man, in those lips.  What a
nobleness in the whole!  Thy face is the physiognomy of an extraordinary
man, who thinks deeply, who holds fast to whatever he undertakes, works,
flies, triumphs, finds few men in whom he will confide, but many who will
rely on him.

"Ah! if a common mortal had such a brow, such a mouth, such a nose, or
even such hair, what would become of physiognomy?

"Perhaps there is not a man existing whom thy countenance would not by
turns attract and repel.  What infantine simplicity!  What heroic
grandeur!  Few mortals can be so well known and so little known as
yourself.

"Eagle, lion, destroyer, reformer of mankind, move on, move on, and
reclaim men from their blindness; share with them the intellectual
strength which nature has given thee; and announce thyself to all as I
have just announced thee to thyself."

Faustus craunched his teeth while the monk was saying all these noble
things about the countenance of the Devil, who turning coolly to the
physiognomist, said,

"And what is thy opinion of that gentleman?  Tell me what he is."

_Monk_.  Great, bold, mighty, powerful, soft, and mild; but thou, his
companion, art greater, bolder, mightier, more powerful, more soft, more
mild.

Then looking at Faustus, he exclaimed:

"Mighty pupil of a mightier man, if thy spirit and thy heart could
entirely catch his greatness, thou wouldst still be merely reflecting the
rays of his glory.  But seat thyself, and let me take thy shadow."

Faustus, more and more enraged to see how infinitely the monk rated him
below the Devil, now burst forth:

"Shadows! yes, indeed, shadows only hast thou seen.  How darest thou thus
judge and measure the human race?  Hast thou seen men?  Where, and how?
Thou hast merely seen their shadows, which thou adornest with the tinsel
of thy crazed imagination, and givest them out as the true forms.  Tell
me what kind of human beings thou hast seen.  Were they not sectaries,
fanatics, visionaries, the very offscourings of human nature?  Were they
not vain devotees, young wives who have cold husbands, and widows who
have sleepless nights?  Were they not authors eager to have every mark
and pimple on their insignificant features turned into a sign and
prognostication of genius?  Were they not grandees, whose brilliant
stations rendered their physiognomies imposing to thine eye?  Thou seest
that I know thy customers, and have read thy book."

_Devil_.  Bravo, Faustus!  Let me now put in a word, and tell his
reverence a few mortifying truths.  Brother monk, thou hast formed in thy
solitary cell a phantom of perfection, and wouldst fain thrust that into
people's heads, which, when there, poisons the brain, as the gangrene
corrupts all the flesh around it.  There were men long ago who ventured
to judge of the innermost of their fellow-creatures from the outside; but
there was some difference between them and thee.  They had travelled over
a considerable part of the earth; experience had made them gray; they had
lived and conversed with men, visited all the lurking holes of vice and
iniquity, roved from the palace to the cot, crept into the caves of
savages, and thus knew what belonged to a well-organised man, and what he
could do with his faculties.  But shalt thou--swollen with prejudices,
pent up in a convent like a toad in the trunk of an oak--pretend to have
a clear idea of that which even they barely understood?

The monk stood between the two speakers as between two volcanoes in
eruption; he crossed his hands humbly upon his breast, and cried, "Have
mercy!"

The Devil continued:

"Among the many impudent follies which I observed in thy book was an
attempt to draw the Devil's portrait.  It is now high time for him to
appear to thee, in order that thou mayst correct the likeness.  Look at
me; and for once thou shalt be able to say thou hast seen an object in
its proper form."

The Devil then appeared to him in the most frightful of infernal figures;
but he rolled a thick mist before the eyes of Faustus, in order that he
might not blast his sight.  The monk fell to the earth; and the Devil,
resuming all his former comeliness, exclaimed:

"Now thou mayst paint the Devil in his proper colours, provided thou hast
strength.  Thou wouldst often be thus overcome, if thou didst in reality
see the innermost of those whom thou makest angels."

_Faustus_.  Persist in thy folly; communicate it to others; and by thy
extravagances render religion repulsive to reasonable people.  Thou canst
not farther more efficaciously the interests of the enemy.  Farewell!

The monk had lost his senses through terror; but he still continued
writing notwithstanding his madness; and his readers never once perceived
his derangement, so much did his new books resemble his old ones.

Faustus was delighted with this adventure; but becoming weary of the
town, he quitted it the next morning with the Devil, and took the road to
France.



CHAPTER IV.


When Faustus and the Devil entered upon the fertile soil of France, it
was groaning beneath the oppression of that cruel and cowardly tyrant
Louis the Eleventh, who was the first that ever styled himself "the most
Christian king."  The Devil had determined not to give Faustus the
slightest information beforehand concerning this prince.  He had resolved
to drive him to despair, and then overwhelm him with the most frightful
blow a mortal can receive who has rebelliously transgressed the bounds
which a powerful hand has drawn around him.

The Devil had learnt from one of his spies that the most Christian king
was meditating a masterpiece of state policy; or, in other words, was on
the point of getting rid of his brother, the Duke de Berry, in order that
a province which had been granted to him might revert to the crown.  The
malicious fiend resolved to make Faustus a spectator of this horrid
scene.  They rode through a wood of oaks contiguous to a castle, and saw
among the trees a Benedictine monk, who seemed to be telling his rosary.
The Devil rejoiced inwardly at this sight; for he read upon the
countenance of the monk that he was imploring the Mother of God to assist
him in the great enterprise which his abbot had intrusted him with, and
likewise to save him from all danger.  This monk was Faber Vesois,
confessor of the king's brother.  The Devil did not disturb him in his
pious meditations, but went on to the castle with Faustus.  They were
received with all the respect generally shown to persons of distinction
who come to visit a prince.  The duke passed his days here in the company
of his beloved Monserau, thinking of no harm, and expecting no
misfortune.  His agreeable manners soon gained him the good-will of
Faustus, who was delighted to see a scion of royalty think and act like a
man; for he had been accustomed to see among the German princes nothing
but pride, coldness, and that foolish ceremony which is only intended to
make visitors appear contemptible in their own eyes.  Some days were very
pleasantly spent in hunting and other amusements, and the prince gained
more and more upon the heart of Faustus.  The only thing that displeased
him in the prince was the weakness he displayed in regard to his
confessor, the Benedictine.  He loaded him with so much tenderness, and
submitted with so much complaisance to his will, and the monk always
looked so studiously devout, that Faustus could not conceive how a man so
frank himself could prize such a hypocrite.  The Devil, however, soon let
him into the secret by informing him of the duke's connexion with
Monserau.  His love for this fair lady was equalled by his fear of hell;
and, Madame de Monserau having a husband still living, he was not
altogether easy in respect to his amours with her.  As he neither wished
to renounce her nor expose himself to eternal punishment, he greedily
caught at the baits which the monks hang out in order to make themselves
masters of the minds of men; and when the dread of hell tormented him too
much, he allayed his fears by receiving absolution for his sins; while he
thought it impossible for him to be too grateful to a man who encouraged
him to enjoy the present, and tranquillised him in respect to the future.
"Thou seest, O Faustus," said the Devil, "what men have made of religion.
Its abuse has often been associated with crimes and horrors, but is
nevertheless used by the wicked to cajole and appease their rebellious
consciences."

The conduct of the prince in this respect did him little honour in the
opinion of Faustus, who had long ago parted with his own conscience, and
this last remark of the Devil's operated strongly upon his mind; however,
he permitted things to go on in their own way, and chiefly thought of
passing his time pleasantly.

They were one evening at table in excellent humour; the Devil was
diverting the company with his pleasant stories, and Faustus was employed
in saying soft things to a pretty French widow, who listened to him very
complaisantly; when all of a sudden, Death, in his most frightful shape,
came to disturb the festival.  The Benedictine caused a basket of
extraordinarily large peaches, which he had just received as a present,
to be brought in at dessert; and, selecting one of the finest, he offered
it to the prince with a smiling and benignant air.  The prince divided it
with his beloved, and both ate of the peach without the slightest
suspicion.  They then rose from table; the monk gave his benediction to
all, and hurried away.  The Devil was about to commence a new story, when
Madame de Monserau uttered a loud shriek.  Her lovely features were
distorted, her lips became blue, and the paleness of death covered her
countenance.  The prince rushed to her assistance; but the terrible
poison began likewise to operate upon him; he fell at her feet, and
cried, "Listen, O Heaven: my brother, my cruel brother, has assassinated
me by the hand of that monster.  He who caused his father to die of
hunger in order to avoid being poisoned, has now bribed the minister of
religion to poison me."

Faustus ran out of the room to seize the confessor, but he had fled; a
troop of horse were waiting for him in the forest, and accompanied him in
his flight.  Faustus returned; but Death had seized his victims, and they
had ceased to struggle with him.  Faustus and the fiend instantly quitted
the place.

_Devil_.  Well, Faustus, what think you of the deed committed by the
Benedictine in the name of the most Christian king?

_Faustus_.  I am almost inclined to believe that our bodies are animated
by fiendish spirits, and that we are only their instruments.

_Devil_.  What a debasing employment for an immortal spirit to have to
animate such an ill-contrived machine!  Although I am a haughty demon,
yet, believe me, I would rather animate a swine that wallows in the mire
than one of ye, who roll in all manner of vice, and yet have the
confidence to call yourselves images of the Most High.

Faustus was silent; for the adventures he was every day compelled to
witness forced him, against his inclination, to believe in the moral
worthlessness of man.  They travelled forward, and found every where
hideous monuments of the cruelty of Louis the Eleventh.  Faustus
frequently made use of the Devil's gold and treasure to stop the bleeding
wounds which the hand of the tyrant had inflicted.

At length they arrived at Paris.  Upon entering the city they found every
thing in commotion.  The people were rushing in crowds down one
particular street; they followed the populace, and arrived in front of a
scaffold covered with black cloth, and which communicated, by means of a
door, with an adjoining building.  Faustus asked what was the cause of
all this; and he was told "that the rich Duke of Nemours was just going
to be executed."  "And for what?"  "The king has commanded it: there is a
report, indeed, that he had hostile designs against the royal house, and
that he intended to murder the dauphin; but as he has only been tried in
his dungeon by judges named by the king, we know nothing for certain."

"Say, rather," exclaimed another of the bystanders, "that it is his
property which costs him his life; for our sovereign, in order to make us
a great and celebrated nation, cuts off the heads of all our wealthy men,
and would serve us in the same manner if we were to find fault with his
proceedings."

The Devil left the horses at the nearest inn, and then led Faustus
through the crowd.  They saw the duke, accompanied by his children, enter
a chamber hung round with black, where a monk waited to receive his last
confession.  The father had his eyes fixed upon his sons, and could not
look to heaven.  After he had confessed himself, he laid his trembling
hands upon the heads of the children, who were sobbing, and said, "May
the blessing of an unhappy father, who falls a victim to tyranny and
avarice, be your safeguard through life; but, alas, ye are the heirs of
misfortune.  Your rights and pretensions will infallibly doom you to long
sufferings; ye are born for misery, and I shall die in this conviction."
He wished to say something more; but the guards silenced him, and hurried
him out upon the scaffold.

The tyrannical king had given orders that the duke's children should be
placed under the scaffold, so that the blood of their father might drop
through the boards upon their white robes.  The cries which the wretched
parent uttered at the moment his darlings were torn from him struck
terror to the hearts of all around.  Tristan alone, who was the
executioner, and the king's most intimate friend, looked on with perfect
coolness, and felt the sharpness of the axe.  Faustus imagined that the
groans of the unhappy parent would excite Heaven to avenge outraged
humanity.  He lifted his tearful eyes towards the bright blue sky, which
seemed to smile upon the horrid scene.  For a moment he felt himself
strongly tempted to command the Devil to rescue the duke from the hands
of the executioner; but his troubled and agitated mind was incapable of
coming to any resolution.  The duke fell upon his knees; he heard the
shrieks and lamentations of his children who were beneath the scaffold;
his own infamous death no longer occupied his mind; he felt for the last
time, and felt only for these unfortunates; big tears hung in his eyes,
his lips trembled; the executioner gave the fatal blow, and the boiling
blood of the father trickled down upon the trembling children.  Bathed
with paternal gore, they were then led upon the scaffold.  They were
shown the livid headless trunk, were made to kiss it, and then
re-conducted to their prison, where they were chained up against the damp
wall, so that whenever they took repose the whole weight of their bodies
rested on the galling fetters.  To increase their misery, their teeth
were torn out from time to time.

Faustus, overwhelmed by the frightful scene he had witnessed, returned
shuddering to the inn, and commanded the Devil to annihilate the tyrant
who thus made a sport of human suffering.

_Devil_.  I will not annihilate him, for that would be against the
interest of hell; and why should the Devil put a stop to his cruelties
when by some they are viewed with patience?  If I were to further the
projects of thy blind rage, who would escape thy vengeance?

_Faustus_.  Should I not be performing a noble part, if, like unto
another Hercules, I were to roam the world, and purge its thrones of such
monsters?

_Devil_.  Short-sighted man, does not your own corrupt nature prove that
you must have these kings?  And would not new monsters arise out of their
ashes?  There would then be no end of murder; the people would be
divided, and thousands would fall the victims of civil war.  You see here
millions of bipeds like yourself, who suffer a man like themselves to
despoil them of their property, to flay them alive, and to murder them at
his pleasure.  Did not they witness the execution of this duke, who died
innocent as any lamb?  Did they not gaze with pleasure, mingled with
agony and grief, upon the tragic spectacle?  Does not that prove they
deserve their lot, and are unworthy of a better?  Could they not crush
the tyrant at a blow?  If they have the power of relieving themselves in
their own hands, wherefore should we pity their sufferings?

Here the disputation ceased.

Faustus shortly afterwards became acquainted with a gentleman of sense
and education, who had an excellent character for probity.  Faustus and
the Devil pleased him so much, that he invited them to come and pass some
days with him on his estate at a short distance from Paris, where he
lived with his family, which consisted of his wife and his daughter, who
was about sixteen years old, and lovely as an angel.  At the sight of
this divine object Faustus was like one enchanted, and felt, for the
first time, the sweet torments of delicate love.  He confided his
sufferings to the Devil, who instantly offered to assist him, and laughed
at the pretended delicacy of his sentiments.  Faustus owned that it was
repugnant to his feelings to violate the laws of hospitality.  The Devil
replied: "Well, Faustus, if you wish to have the gentleman's consent, I
will engage to procure it.  For what do you take him?"

_Faustus_.  For an honest man.

_Devil_.  It is a great pity, O Faustus, that you are so liable to
deception.  And so you really believe him to be an honest man!  I admit
that all Paris is of the same opinion.  What do you think he loves best
in the world?

_Faustus_.  His daughter.

_Devil_.  I know something which he loves more.

_Faustus_.  And what is that?

_Devil_.  Gold; and you ought to have seen that long ago.  But since I
have been obliged to open to thee the treasures of the earth, and thou
hast had them at thy disposal, thou hast resembled the torrent which
inundates the fields, caring very little where its waters flow, or where
they are received.  How much hast thou lost at play with this gentleman?

_Faustus_.  Let them reckon who care more for the dross than I.

_Devil_.  He who tricked you can tell to a ducat.

_Faustus_.  Tricked!

_Devil_.  Yes, tricked you.  He saw how little you cared for money, and
has made a noble harvest out of you.  Think not that the table of this
miser would be so well provided, and that he would be so prodigal of the
richest wines, and that thou wouldst see so many guests around him,
provided thy gold did not work these miracles.  At every moment he
trembles lest we should leave his house.  I see by thy astonishment that
thou hast been a spendthrift all thy life, and that thou hast never felt
this thirst for gold, which can extinguish all the desires of the heart,
and even the most pressing wants of nature.  Follow me, but tread softly.

They descended a staircase, went through several subterranean passages,
and came at last to an iron door.  The Devil then said to Faustus: "Look
through the key-hole."  Faustus perceived in a vault, illumined by the
feeble light of a lamp, the gentleman seated by the side of a strong-box,
in which were many sacks of money, which he was looking at with
tenderness.  He then flung the money he had won from Faustus into another
box, and wept because he saw there was not sufficient to fill it.  The
Devil said softly to Faustus: "For the sum which is wanting to fill that
box, he will sell thee his daughter."

Faustus was incredulous.  The Devil waxed wroth, and said impatiently:

"I will show thee that gold has such irresistible power over the minds of
men, that even at this moment some fathers and mothers belonging to the
village are in the neighbouring wood selling for money their babes and
sucklings to the emissaries of the king, although they are well aware
that the poor little things are destined to be slaughtered, in order that
the king may drink their blood, with the foolish hope of renovating and
refreshing the corrupt tide which flows in his own veins.

_Faustus_ (_with a shudder_).  Then the world is worse than hell, and I
shall quit it without regret.  But I will be convinced with my own eyes
before I credit any thing so horrible.

They now went into the wood, and concealed themselves among the bushes,
where they perceived the emissaries of the king in conference with some
men and women, and the priest of the parish.  Four little children were
stretched upon the grass, one of them crying pitiably.  The mother lifted
it up and gave it pap, in order to quiet it; whilst the others crept upon
the ground, and played with the flowers.  The emissaries counted money
into the hands of the husbands; the priest had his share, and the
children were delivered up.  The echoes of the wood repeated for a long
time the cries of the little wretches as they were carried away.  The
mothers groaned; but the men said to them, "Here is gold; let us go to
the public-house and buy wine, and drink to a fresh offspring.  It is
better that the king should eat the brats now they are young than flay
them when they are old, or tie them up in a sack and fling them into the
Seine.  It would have been much better for us if we had been devoured as
soon as we were born."

The priest comforted them, and said:

"They had done a meritorious act, and one which was pleasing to the
Mother of God, to whom the king was entirely devoted."  He added, "that
subjects were born for the king; and that, as he reigned upon earth as
Heaven's vicegerent, he had a right to dispose of them according to his
pleasure, and that they were bound to revere the slightest of his fancies
as a sacred law."

The peasants then went to the public-house, where they spent half the
blood-money in drink, and kept the rest to pay the king's taxes.

The Devil now looked at Faustus with an air of mockery, and said, "Hast
thou still doubts whether the gentleman will sell thee his daughter?
Thou at least wilt not eat her."

_Faustus_.  I swear by the black hell which at this moment appears to me
a paradise when compared with the earth, that I will henceforward give
boundless scope to all my passions, and, by ravaging and destroying,
believe that I am acting consistently to such a monster as man.  Fly, and
purchase me his daughter: she is doomed to destruction, as is every thing
that breathes.

This was exactly the disposition in which the Devil had long been
desirous to see Faustus, in order that he might precipitate him to the
end of his career, and thereby ease himself of a grievous burden, and
cease to be the slave of a thing so contemptible as man was in his eyes.
That very evening he began to sound the father; and the next morning,
whilst they walked together, he made proposals to him, and showed him
gold and jewels, which the miser gazed at with rapture; but which,
however, he would not take until he had made a parade of his virtue.  At
every objection the old hypocrite started, the Devil augmented the sum;
and at last he bade so high that the miser accepted it, after much
ceremony, laughing secretly at the madman who flung away his gold so
foolishly.  The contract was made, and the father led Faustus to his
daughter; and as he could prove that her parent was a consenting party,
she fell a willing victim.

The father in the mean time went with his gold and a lamp to the vault
where he kept his treasure, and which was known to none of his family.
He was overjoyed in having obtained sufficient to fill his second
strong-box.  From fear of being followed, he closed the door hastily
behind him, forgetting that it went with a spring-lock, and that he had
left the key on the outside.  The lamp was extinguished by the wind of
the door, and he found himself suddenly involved in profound darkness.
The air of the vault was thick and damp, and he soon felt a difficulty in
his respiration.  He now first perceived that he had not the key with
him, and death-like anguish shot coldly through his heart.  He had still
strength and instinct sufficient to find his box; he laid the gold in it,
and staggered back to the door, where he considered whether he should cry
out or not.  He was cruelly agitated by the alternative of discovering
his secret, or of making this vault his tomb.  But his cries would have
been to no purpose; for the cavern had no connexion with the inhabited
part of the house, and he had always so well chosen his time, that no one
had ever yet seen him when he crept to the worship of his idol.  After
having for a long time struggled with himself, without coming to any
resolution, the terrible images which assailed his imagination, joined to
the thickness of the air, totally disordered his brain.  He sunk to the
earth, and rolling himself to the spot where his box stood, he hugged it
in his arms, and became raving mad.  He struggled with despair and death
at the moment of the ruin of his daughter, whose innocence he had
bartered for gold.  Some days after, when all the corners of the house
had been closely searched, chance led a servant to the cavern; it was
opened, and the unfortunate wretch was found lying, a blue and ghastly
corpse, upon his dear-bought treasure.  The Devil informed Faustus upon
their return to Paris of the issue of this affair, and Faustus believed
that, on this occasion, Providence had justified itself.

The fiend having learnt that the Parliament were about to decide upon a
case unexampled and disgraceful to humanity, he thought it advisable that
Faustus should hear it.  The fact was this: a surgeon, returning late one
night to Paris with his faithful servant, heard, not far from the
highway, the groans and lamentations of a man.  His heart led him to the
spot, where he found a murderer broken alive upon the wheel, who conjured
him, in the name of God, to put an end to his existence.  The surgeon
shuddered with horror and fright; but recovering himself, he thought
whether it would not be possible for him to reset the bones of this
wretch, and preserve his life.  He spoke a few words to his servant, took
the murderer from the wheel, and laid him gently in the chaise.  He then
carried him to his house, where he undertook his cure, which he at last
accomplished.  He had been informed that the Parliament had offered a
reward of one hundred louis-d'ors to any one who would discover the
person who had taken the assassin from the wheel.  He told the murderer
of this when he sent him away, and, giving him money, he advised him not
to stay in Paris.  The very first thing which this monster did was to go
to the Parliament and betray his benefactor, for the sake of the hundred
louis-d'ors.  The cheeks of the judges, which so seldom change colour,
became pallid at this denunciation; for he informed them with the
greatest effrontery that he was the very assassin, who, having been
broken alive upon the place where he had committed the murder, had been
saved by the compassion of the surgeon.  The latter was sent for; and the
Devil conducted Faustus into the hall of judgment exactly at the moment
he appeared.  The attorney-general informed the surgeon of what he was
accused; but the surgeon, being certain of his servant's fidelity,
stoutly denied the charge.  He was advised to confess, because a most
convincing witness could be brought against him.  He bade them produce
him.  A side-door opened, and the murderer stepped coolly into the court,
and, looking the surgeon full in the face, undauntedly repeated his
accusation, without forgetting a single circumstance.  The surgeon
shrieked, "O monster! what can have urged thee to this horrible
ingratitude?"

_Murderer_.  The hundred louis-d'ors, which you told me of when you sent
me away.  Did you think that I was satisfied with merely recovering the
use of my limbs?  I was broken alive on the wheel for a murder which I
committed for ten crowns, and I was not fool enough to lose gaining a
hundred louis without running any risk.

_Surgeon_.  Thou wretch! thy cries and groans touched my heart.  I took
thee down from the wheel, comforted thee, and bound up thy wounds.  I fed
thee with mine own hand, till thou couldst use thy shattered joints.  I
gave thee money, which thou canst not yet have spent.  I discovered to
thee, from regard to thy own safety, the reward which had been offered by
the Parliament; and I swear to thee, by Heaven above, that if thou hadst
told me of thy devilish intention, I would have sold my last rag, and
have furnished thee with the sum, in order that so horrible a piece of
ingratitude might remain for ever unknown to the world.  Gentlemen, judge
between me and him; I confess myself guilty.

_President_.  You have grievously offended justice by endeavouring to
preserve the life of him whom the law, for the common safety, had
condemned to die; but for this once strict justice shall be silent, and
humanity only shall sit in judgment.  The hundred louis-d'ors shall be
yours, and the murderer shall be again broken upon the wheel.

Faustus, who during the whole of this strange trial had been snorting
like a madman, gave now such a thundering huzza, that the whole gallery
echoed.  The Devil, who observed that the last impression was about to
destroy the first, soon led him to another scene.

Some surgeons, doctors of medicine, and naturalists had formed a secret
society, for the purpose of inquiring into the mechanism of the human
body, and the effect of the soul upon matter.  In order to satisfy their
curiosity, they inveigled, under all sorts of pretences, poor men and
women into a house at some distance from the city, the upper part of
which was constructed in such a manner that it was impossible to discover
from without what was going forward within.  Having tied their victims
with strong cords down upon a long table, and having placed a gag in
their mouths, they then removed their skin and their flesh, and laid bare
their muscles, their nerves, their hearts, and their brains.  In order to
come at what they sought, they fed the wretches with strengthening
broths, and caused them to die slowly under the slashing of their knives
and lancets.  The Devil knew that they intended this night to assemble,
and said to Faustus, "Thou hast seen a surgeon, who, for the sake of
humanity, or for love of his art, cured an assassin whom justice had
broken on the wheel; I will now show thee physicians, who, in pursuit of
secrets which they will not discover, skin their fellow-creatures alive.
Thou appearest incredulous!  Follow me, and I will convince thee.  We
will represent two doctors."

He led him to a solitary house.  They entered the laboratory, which the
rays of the sun never penetrated.  Here they saw the surgeons dissecting
a miserable being, whose flesh quivered beneath their fratricidal hands,
and whose bosom heaved with the most painful agony.  They were so engaged
with their object, that they never once perceived the Devil and Faustus.
The latter, feeling his nerves thrill with horror, rushed out, struck his
forehead with his hand, and commanded the fiend to tear down the house
upon their heads, and bury them and their deed beneath its ruins.

_Devil_.  Why this rage, O Faustus?  Dost thou not perceive that thou art
acting, in respect to the moral world, in the same manner as they act in
regard to the physical world?  They mangle the flesh of the living; and
thou, by my destructive hand, exercisest thy fury upon the whole
creation.

_Faustus_.  Outcast fiend! dost thou think my heart is made of stone?
Dost thou think that I can see unmoved the torments of yon poor flayed
and butchered wretch?  But if I can neither dry his tears nor cure his
wounds, I can avenge him, and put him out of pain.  Away! away! do as I
have bid thee, or dread my wrath!

The Devil obeyed with pleasure.  He shook the house to its foundation,
and down it toppled with a hideous noise, and overwhelmed the wicked
doctors.  Faustus hurried to Paris, without attending to the look of wild
exultation which the Devil cast upon him.

Faustus, having heard much talk of the prisons which the most Christian
king had caused to be built for the purpose of receiving those whom he
dreaded, had a strong desire to see the interior of them.  The Devil
willingly undertook to satisfy his curiosity; and although the guards
were forbidden, under pain of death, to permit any strangers to enter
these habitations of horror, yet the golden arguments which the Devil
used procured him and his companion a ready admittance.  They saw there
cages of iron, in which it was impossible for a man to stand upright, or
sit down, or place himself in any easy posture.  The wretches who were
compelled to tenant these iron dwellings had their limbs galled by heavy
chains.  The keeper said, confidentially, that when the king was in good
health, he frequently walked in the gallery, in order to enjoy the song
of his nightingales; for thus did he call these wretched victims.
Faustus asked some of the unfortunates the cause of their captivity; and
he heard stories which pierced him to the heart.  At last, coming to a
cage wherein was a venerable-looking old man, he put the same question to
him, and the prisoner answered, in a plaintive tone:

"Whoever you are, let my sad story serve you as a warning never to assist
a tyrant in his cruelties.  You behold in me the Bishop of Verdun, who
first gave to the king the idea of these horrible cages, and was the very
first to be shut up in one of them after they were completed.  Here have
I, for fourteen years, done penance for my sins, praying daily to God to
end my torments by death."

_Faustus_.  Ha, ha!  Your excellence, then, like another Perillus, has
found a Phalaris.  Do you know that story?  You shake your head.  Well, I
will tell it you.

"This Perillus, who was neither a bishop nor a Christian, constructed a
brazen bull, which he showed to the tyrant Phalaris as a masterpiece of
invention, and assured him that it was constructed in such a manner,
that, if his majesty would shut up a man in it, and then heat it red-hot
by a fire laid beneath it, the shrieks of the tormented man would exactly
resemble the bellowings of a bull, which would doubtless afford his
majesty great pleasure.  'My dear Perillus,' said the tyrant, 'I am much
indebted to you; but it is right that the artist should prove his own
work.'  He then made Perillus creep into the beast's belly; and when the
fire was laid beneath it, he did in reality bellow like a bull.  Thus did
Phalaris, a thousand years ago, play very much the same part with
Perillus which the most Christian king has been playing with you, most
reverend Bishop of Verdun."

_Bishop_.  I wish I had heard this story twenty years ago; I should then
have taken warning from it.

_Faustus_.  You see that history may sometimes be useful, even to a
bishop.  I weep for the fate of your companions in misery; but I laugh at
yours.

Faustus wished now to see this king, whose horrible deeds had so heated
his imagination, that he could hardly represent him to himself under a
human figure.  The Devil told him that it would be impossible for them in
their present forms to enter the Castle of Plessis du Parc, where
cowardice and fear kept the tyrant a prisoner.  He added, that no one,
with the exception of some necessary domestics, the physician, the
confessor, and one or two astrologers, could enter without a particular
order.

_Faustus_.  Then let us assume other figures and dresses.

_Devil_.  Good; I will instantly remove two of his guards, and we will do
their duty.  This is an excellent time to see the tyrant.  The fear of
death is already avenging upon his cowardly spirit the thousands whom he
has slaughtered.  Day and night he only thinks of putting off the moment
which is to terminate his existence, and death seems to him more hideous
every second.  I will make you a witness of his torments.

The Devil instantly put his project into execution, and they found
themselves standing sentinels in the interior of the castle, where
reigned the mournful silence of the tomb.  Thither had he, before whom
millions trembled, banished himself, in order to escape from the
vengeance of the relations of the murdered.  Although he could thus fly
from the sight of his subjects, he could not escape the cutting remorse
of his own heart, nor the pains of his emaciated body.  In vain did he
implore Heaven to grant him health and repose; in vain did he attempt to
bribe it by presents to saints, to priests, and to churches; in vain did
he cover himself with relics from all parts of the world: that frightful
sentence, _thou shall die_, seemed always ringing in his ears.  He
scarcely ventured to move out of his chamber, lest he should find an
assassin in one of those whom he might meet.  If anguish drove him into
the free air, he went armed with lance and dagger, just as if he had
strength to use either.  Four hundred guards watched day and night around
the stronghold of the half-dead monster; three times every hour did their
hoarse calls, echoing from post to post, break the solemn stillness, and
remind the tyrant of the flight of time.  All around his castle gibbets
were erected; and the hangman, Tristan, his only true friend, went about
the country every day, and returned at night with fresh victims, in
order, by their execution, to diminish the fears of the tyrant, who from
time to time would walk in an apartment which was only separated from the
torture-room by a thin partition.  There he listened to the groans and
shrieks of the wretches on the rack, and found in the sufferings of
others a slight alleviation of his own.  Wearing on his hat a leaden
image of the Virgin,--his pretended protectress,--he drank the blood of
murdered sucklings, and allowed himself to be tormented by his physician,
whom he requited with ten thousand crowns a month.

This was the wretch whom Faustus saw; and his heart rejoiced when he
contemplated the paleness of his cheeks, and the farrows which anguish
and despair had made in his brow.  He was on the point of leaving this
abode of monotonous horror, when the Devil whispered him to remain until
the next day, and he would see a singular spectacle.  The king had heard
that a hermit lived in Calabria, who was honoured as a saint through all
Sicily.  This fool had, from his fourteenth to his fortieth year, dwelt
upon a naked rock, where, exposed to the rains and tempests of heaven, he
martyred his body by stripes and fasting, and refused his mind all
cultivation.  But, the rays of sanctity concealing his stupidity, he soon
saw the prince and the peasant at his feet.  Louis had requested the King
of Sicily to send him this creature, because he hoped to be cured by him.
The hermit was now on the road; and as he brought with him the holy oil
of Rheims, to anoint the tyrant's body, the latter imagined that all his
disorders would soon vanish, and he should become young again.  The happy
day arrived: the Calabrian boor approached the castle; the king received
him at the gate, fell at his feet, and asked him for life and health.
The Calabrian played his part in so ridiculous a manner, that Faustus
could not avoid laughing aloud at the farce.  Tristan and his myrmidons
were advancing to seize him, and he would doubtlessly have paid for
laughing with his life, had not the Devil rescued him from their claws,
and flown away with him.  When they arrived at Paris, Faustus said:

"Is it by this contemptible, superstitious, tottering object, that the
bold sons of France allow themselves to be enslaved?  He is a mere
skeleton in purple, who can scarcely cough out of his asthmatic throat
the desire to live; yet they tremble before him, as if he were a giant,
whose terrible arms could encircle the whole earth.  When the lion,
enfeebled by age, lies languishing in his den, the most insignificant
beasts of the forests are not afraid of him, but approach and mock the
fallen tyrant."

_Devil_.  It is this which chiefly distinguishes the king of men from the
king of beasts.  The latter is only formidable as long as he can use his
own strength; but the former, who binds the strength of his slaves to his
will, is as powerful when lying on the bed of sickness, as when, in the
vigour of health, he is at the head of his armies.  Are you not now
convinced that men are only guided by folly, which dooms them to be
slaves?  Break their chains to-day, and they would forge themselves
others to-morrow.  Do what you can, they will always go on in the same
eternal circle, and are condemned for ever to seize the shadow for the
reality.

The Devil, having shown Faustus all that was remarkable in and about the
capital of France, took him to Calais; and, crossing the Channel, they
arrived in London at the very moment that hideous abortion, the Duke of
Gloucester, made himself Protector of the kingdom, and was endeavouring
to take away the crown from the children of his brother, the late king.
He had removed the father by means of poison, and had already persuaded
the queen (who, upon the first discovery of his projects, had fled for
refuge, with her children, to Westminster Sanctuary) to deliver up to him
the youthful heir of the throne, together with his brother York.  Faustus
was present when Doctor Shaw, by the command of the Protector, informed
the astonished people from the pulpit, that the yet living mother of the
duke and the deceased king had admitted various lovers; that the late
king was the offspring of such adultery; and that no one of the royal
line, except the Protector, could boast of a legitimate birth.  He saw
those noblemen executed who would not accede to the execrable plot; and
the Devil conducted him into the Tower at the very moment when Tyrrell
and his assistant murdered the lawful king and his brother, and buried
them beneath the threshold of the dungeon.  He was a witness of the base
submission of the Parliament, and of the coronation of the frightful
tyrant.  He witnessed the negotiation of the queen to support the
murderer of her sons in his usurped throne, by giving him the hand of her
eldest daughter, in order that she herself might still retain a shadow of
sovereignty; although at the same time she had entered into a secret
alliance with the Earl of Richmond, who was destined to be her avenger.
Faustus felt himself so enraged, that not all the charms of the blooming
Englishwomen could keep him any longer in this cursed isle, which he
quitted with hatred and disgust; for neither in Germany nor in France had
he seen crimes committed with so much coolness and impunity.  When they
were on the point of embarking, the Devil said to him:

"These people will groan for a time beneath the yoke of despotism; they
will then sacrifice one of their kings upon the scaffold of freedom, in
order that they may sell themselves to his successors for gold and
titles.  In hell there is very little respect paid to these gloomy
islanders, who would suck the marrow from all the carcasses in the
universe, if they thought to find gold in the bones.  They boast of their
morality, and despise all other nations; yet if you were to place what
you call virtue in one scale, and vice, with twopence, in the other, they
would forget their morality, and pocket the money.  They talk of their
honour and integrity, but never enter into a treaty but with a firm
resolution of breaking it as soon as a farthing is to be gained by so
doing.  After death, they inhabit the most pestilential marsh of the
kingdom of darkness, and their souls are scourged without mercy.  None of
the other damned will have any communication with them.  If the
inhabitants of the Continent could do without sugar and coffee, the sons
of proud England would soon return to the state in which they were when
Julius Caesar, Canute of Denmark, or William the Conqueror, did them the
honour to invade their island."

_Faustus_.  For a devil, thou knowest history passably well.

Hereupon he led him to Milan, where they saw the Duke Galeas Sforza
murdered on St. Stephen's day in the cathedral; Faustus having previously
heard the assassins loudly beseeching St. Stephen and St. Ambrose to
inspire them with the courage necessary for so noble a deed.

In Florence, the seat of the Muses, they saw the nephew of the great
Cosmo, the father of his country, murdered in the church of Santa
Reparata, at the altar, just at the moment when the priest raised the
host in his hands; for the Archbishop of Florence, Salviati, had informed
the murderers that this was to be the signal.  He had been bribed to
assist in this enterprise by the Pope, who was determined to annihilate
the Medicis, in order to rule sole sovereign in Italy.

In the north of Europe they saw wild barbarians and drunken ruffians
murdering and pillaging like the more civilised Europeans.  In Spain they
found upon the throne deceit and hypocrisy wearing the mask of religion.
They saw, at an _auto-da-fe_, men and women immolated in the flames to
the mild Deity of the Christians; and they heard the grand inquisitor,
Torquemada, boast to Ferdinand and Isabella that, since the establishment
of the holy tribunal, it had tried eighty thousand suspected persons, and
had burnt six thousand convicted heretics.  When Faustus first saw the
ladies and cavaliers assembled in the grand square, dressed in their
richest habits, he imagined that he had come just in time for some joyous
festival; but when he heard the condemned wretches howling and lamenting
in the midst of a mob of monks who were at their devotions, he was
convinced that religion, when misused, makes man the most execrable
monster on the earth.  He, however, began to imagine that all these
horrors were the necessary consequences of man's nature, who is an animal
that must either tear his fellow-creatures to pieces, or be torn to
pieces by them.

The Devil, perceiving that Faustus was amazed and confounded by these
scenes, said to him:

"Thou seest how the courts of Europe resemble each other in wickedness
and crime.  Let us now go to Rome, and see whether the ecclesiastical
government goes on better."

The malicious Leviathan flattered himself that Alexander the Sixth, who
wore at that time the triple crown, and held in his hands the keys of
heaven and of hell, would give the finishing blow to the harassed spirit
of Faustus, and would enable him to return below with his victim.  For a
long time he had been weary of staying on the earth; for although he had
in the course of many thousand years so often traversed it, he still saw
merely the same beings and the same actions.  From this we may learn that
there is something so annoying in uniformity, that even the wild horrors
of Satan's hall are to be preferred to it.

On the way to Rome they passed by two hostile armies encamped face to
face.  The one was commanded by Malatesta of Rimini, the other by a papal
general.  The crafty Alexander was now endeavouring, either by poisoning,
secret assassination, or open war, to deprive all the Italian noblemen of
their property, in order that he might convert their castles and domains
into principalities for his illegitimates.  He began with the weakest,
and had despatched this little army to eject Malatesta from his fief of
Rimini.  Faustus and the Devil, riding along the road, perceived upon an
eminence contiguous to the papal camp two men, magnificently dressed,
engaged in a furious combat.  Moved by curiosity, Faustus advanced to the
spot; the fiend followed him; and they perceived, by the rage of the
antagonists, that nothing less than the death of one of them would end
the struggle.  But what appeared to Faustus most extraordinary was a
milk-white goat, adorned with ribbons of various colours, which a page
seemed to hold as the prize of victory, as he stood, with the utmost
coolness, near the two raging warriors.  Many cavaliers had assembled
upon the height, and awaited the issue of the affair.  Faustus approached
one of them, and asked, with his German simplicity, whether the gentlemen
were fighting for that handsome goat.  He had observed that the two
champions, whenever they paused to take breath, looked at the goat with
much tenderness, and each seemed, according to knightly custom, to
entreat it to assist him in his danger.  The Italian, turning to Faustus,
coolly answered, "Yes, certainly; and I hope our general will punish with
death the audacious knight who dared to remove from his tent the
handsomest goat in the world, at the time he was gone to reconnoitre the
enemy's camp."  Faustus stepped back, shook his head, and scarcely knew
whether he was dreaming or awake.  The Devil let him remain for some time
in this perplexity; he then took him aside, and whispered certain things
in his ear, which made Faustus blush, and which will not bear repetition.
The duel in the mean time went on as hotly as ever, until the sword of
the papal general found an opening in the knight's mail, and laid him
wallowing in blood upon the ground.  He yielded up his soul amidst curses
and imprecations, and took, with his last look, a tender farewell of the
pretty animal.  The general was congratulated by the surrounders, and the
page delivered him the goat.  He called it "his dearest, his
best-beloved," and loaded it with the most tender caresses.

Faustus departed from the place of combat, and was hesitating between a
desire to laugh and a feeling of disgust, when the Devil said to him:

"This duel has made thee acquainted with the papal general; but he who
commands the hostile army does not deserve thy attention less.  The one
has risked his life for love of a white goat; and the other has already
poisoned and strangled with his own hand, in order that he might get
possession of their property, two of his wives, sprung from the best
families in Italy.  He is now on the point of marrying a third; and she
will, in all probability, experience the same fate.  Both of these
personages are otherwise very religious men,--attend processions, make
vows to Heaven, and implore it for assistance.  For which side do you
think it will now declare?"

Faustus gave the Devil a wild look, and left the malicious question
unanswered; but the Devil, who wished to punish him for having formerly
boasted of the moral worth of man, failed not to make some bitter jokes
upon the amours of the papal general and the conjugal tenderness of
Malatesta of Rimini.

The sight of Rome and its majestic ruins, over which the mighty spirit of
the old Romans seemed yet to hover, filled Faustus with wonder; and, as
he was well acquainted with the history of those lords of the ancient
world, the remembrance of their heroic actions elevated his soul to a
pitch of enthusiasm.  But the modern inhabitants of this celebrated city
soon inspired him with very different sentiments.  By the Devil's advice,
they announced themselves as German noblemen, whom curiosity to see the
magnificence of Rome had brought there.  But their retinue, their pomp,
and their demeanour, caused a suspicion to be entertained that they were
of more consequence than they pretended to be.  Friars and matrons,
quacks and harlequins, flocked to them, as soon as the noise of their
arrival had echoed through all the haunts of those who get their
livelihood by administering to the crimes and the weaknesses of men.
They offered them their several female relations, and depicted their
charms and various attractions with such fiery eloquence, that Faustus,
besieged on every side, knew not which to prefer.  As these wretches
uttered religious maxims in the same breath with the most stimulant
descriptions of voluptuousness, Faustus imagined himself authorised in
believing that they merely made use of religion to appease the cravings
of passion, revolted by their shameful deeds and wickedness.

The next day after their arrival, Faustus and the Devil were invited to
dinner by the Cardinal Caesar Borgia, one of the many illegitimates of
the Pope.  He received them in the most splendid manner, and promised to
introduce them to his holiness.  They went on horseback, attended by a
retinue of servants, to the Vatican, and Faustus and the Devil kissed the
toe of the Pope: the German performed this act of devotion with all the
fervour of a good Christian Catholic; but the Devil muttered to himself,
"If Alexander knew who I am, I should, most probably, see him at my own
feet."  After the usual ceremonies were over, the Pope invited them into
his private apartments, where he spoke to them very freely, and made them
acquainted with his other illegitimates, the famous Lucretia; Francisco
Borgia, Duke of Candia, &c.

The Pope found the society of the handsome and well-made Leviathan so
much to his liking, that, from the first interview, he showed him
particular favour, which grew at length, as we shall see, to the closest
intimacy.  Faustus attached himself to Cardinal Borgia, who gave him such
a glowing description of the pleasures and temptations of Rome, that he
hardly knew whether he was in the Vatican or in the Temple of Venus.  The
Cardinal made him more nearly acquainted with his sister, who was married
to Alphonso of Arragon.  This siren displayed voluptuousness and
sensuality in a form and face so attractive and charming, that Faustus
stood before her like one enchanted.

Faustus and the Devil went one evening to the Vatican to see a play,
which astonished the young German more than any thing he had yet seen at
the papal court.  It was the _Mandragola_ which was represented.  The
noble Machiavel had composed this licentious and satirical piece, in
order to lay before the eyes of the court of Rome a striking picture of
the boundless corruption of the clergy, and to prove that to be the sole
cause of the dissolute lives of the laity.  But he deceived himself in
his honourable design: the _Mandragola_ was applauded, not on account of
its morality, which was not understood, but of its licentiousness.
Faustus heard the Pope and the cardinals, the nuns and the ladies,
praising certain things which, in his opinion, the most dissolute of the
Roman emperors would not have permitted upon their theatre.  But real
scenes yet more abominable soon put an end to his astonishment; and he
perceived that the actions of Alexander and his children infinitely
surpassed all that which the annals of the human race had hitherto
consigned to infamy and abhorrence.  Lucretia was pleased yet more by
Faustus's rich presents than his fine face and form.  By this intimate
connexion with her, he discovered her incestuous intercourse with her two
brothers, the Cardinal and Francisco; which she also extended to the Pope
her father.  The only one whom she treated ill was Alphonso, who had the
honour to be her spouse.  Faustus now guessed the cause of the implacable
hatred which the Cardinal entertained against his brother Francisco: it
arose from jealousy at his sister's preferring the latter to himself; and
he often swore to take vengeance upon his brother.

It was the custom of Faustus, after having the whole day wallowed in the
shameful pleasures of the court and city, to pester the Devil's ears with
complaints of the wickedness of men.  He was shocked at their crimes,
although he himself had neither strength nor desire to resist any of his
inclinations.  He generally concluded his sermonising by asking, "How
could such a monster ever have been elected Pope?"

The Devil, who perfectly knew how that event had been brought about (for
one of the princes of hell had been at the election), would tell him how
"Alexander bought up the votes of the cardinals by magnificent promises;
and being called upon, after his installation, to fulfil them, he either
banished or caused to be privately assassinated all those who had any
claims upon him."

_Faustus_.  I can easily conceive that the cardinals were sufficiently
corrupt to make him Pope; but how the people can submit to his decrees is
beyond my comprehension.

_Devil_.  The Romans are perfectly content with him.  He protects the
populace, and ravages and pillages the great.  Can they wish for a better
Pope than one who sanctifies their crimes by his own example; and who,
besides the indulgences he distributes, shows by his actions that men
have no reason to be terrified at any crime?

The Pope having, at a consistorial court, elevated his eldest
illegitimate, Francisco, to the dignity of General of the Papal See, the
Cardinal instantly formed the Christian resolution of putting his brother
out of the way, and thereby opening a more extensive field to his own
ambition.  Vanosa, his mother, had informed him that the Pope intended to
raise a throne for Francisco upon the ruin of the Italian princes; and
through him, as his eldest-born, execute all the projects which he had
formed for the prosperity and aggrandisement of his family.  The
Cardinal, who had always certain assassins in his pay, sent for his
faithful Dom Michelotto, and thus addressed him:

"Brave and honest Michelotto, five years have already passed since the
accession of my father to the papal chair, and I am not yet what I might
have been, had I acted with less delicacy and more prudence.  He first
made me an archbishop, and now I am become a cardinal; but what is that
for a spirit which burns with a desire to distinguish itself, and which
aspires to glory!  My revenues scarcely supply me with absolute
necessaries, and it is impossible for me to reward, according to the wish
of my heart, those friends who have rendered me essential services.  Art
thou not, O Michelotto, a striking example of it thyself?  Have I been
able to acquit myself towards thee in the manner which my obligations to
thee demand?  But shall we always languish in this shameful inactivity;
and shall we wait till fortune or chance do something for those who will
do nothing for themselves?  Dost thou think that the monotonous life I
lead in the conclave and in the church was intended for a spirit like
mine?  Am I born for all these ridiculous and superstitious ceremonies?
If nature had not by foolish caprice brought my brother into the world
before me, would not all those situations, all those honours, by which
men are alone enabled to perform great actions, have fallen to my lot?
Does my brother know how to profit by the advantages which the Pope and
blind Fortune fling in his way?  Let me once occupy his place, and my
name shall soon resound through all Europe.  Nature stamped me for a
hero, and him for a priest; therefore I must seek to repair the
negligence of Fortune if I wish to fulfil my destiny.  Compare him and
me, and who will say we are sprung from the same father?  But be he my
brother--and it little matters; for the man who wishes to rise above the
rest should forget tenderness and relationship--those puny bonds of
nature--and should not hesitate to dip his hands in the sacrifice of any
one whose existence may be an obstacle to his noble views.  It is thus
that all great men act; it is thus that the founder of immortal Rome
acted.  In order that Rome might arrive at the height of grandeur to
which his genius wished to carry it, he did not hesitate to stab his
brother; and, in order that Caesar Borgia may attain immortality, his
brother Francisco must bleed beneath thy knife, most courageous
Michelotto.  Yes; for although it would be easy for me, in the darkness
of the night, to assassinate him myself and remain unsuspected, I reserve
for thee this deed, in order that thou mayst have a greater right to
share with me my grandeur and my future fortunes.  To-morrow I shall go
to Naples to assist, in quality of legate, at the coronation of the king.
Vanosa, my mother, who, between you and me, is weary of seeing her
enterprising Caesar a cardinal, gives this evening a supper to myself, my
brother, and a few friends.  Francisco will go late at night to an
assignation in which he and I mutually share; and I ill know Michelotto
if ever he finds his way back to his palace.  My name is Caesar, and I
will be all or nothing."

Michelotto grasped the cardinal's hand, thanked him for his confidence,
assured him of his fidelity, and went his way in order to get some of his
companions to assist him in the affair.

Faustus and the Devil were also invited to the supper.  Gaiety reigned
among the guests.  The good-natured Francisco loaded his brother with
caresses, which, however, did not shake his resolution.  When they rose
from table, Caesar took leave of his mother, and said he must now go to
the Pope and receive his orders for Naples.  The two brothers walked with
each other a little way, followed by Faustus and the Devil.  Francisco
soon took leave of his brother, having first told him where he was going.
The Cardinal, with a smiling air, wished him much pleasure: hurrying to
the Vatican, he finished his business there, and then went to the
rendezvous, where he found Michelotto and his ruffians, whom he directed
how to proceed.  Faustus had not the slightest suspicion of what was
going forward; but the Devil, who knew when the horrible drama was to
conclude, transported him to the banks of the Tiber at the very moment
Michelotto and his assistants flung into the stream the corpse of the
murdered Francisco.  Faustus would have attacked the assassins, though he
was still ignorant who their victim was; but the Devil prevented him, and
said:

"Do not approach; keep thyself quiet, and let none of those people see
thee; they swarm so at Rome and at the Vatican, that thou wouldst not be
safe, even at my side, if they were to perceive that thou didst observe
them.  The murdered man whom they flung into the water is Francisco
Borgia, Duke of Candia; his murderer is his brother, and what thou seest
now is only the prelude to actions which will astonish hell itself and
make it tremble."

He then discovered to him the whole of the plot, and repeated to him the
Cardinal's conversation with Michelotto.  Faustus replied, with more
coolness than the Devil expected:

"Their deeds will not astonish me, however infamous they may be; for what
else can we expect from a family where the father lives in incest with
his daughter, and the brothers with their sister?  But henceforth I will
never suffer any one to boast in my presence of the moral worth of man;
for, in comparison with man, especially if he be a priest, the worst
fiend is innocent as an angel.  Oh, why was I not born in happy Arabia,
where I might have passed my solitary existence, with a palm-tree for my
shelter, and with Nature for my god!"

The body of Francisco being found in the Tiber, his assassination was
soon noised about Rome and through all Italy.  The Pope was so afflicted
at the intelligence, that he abandoned himself to the most frightful
despair, and remained three days without eating or drinking; but he did
not forget to offer immense rewards for the discovery of the murderers.
His daughter, who guessed from whence the blow came, gave her mother
intelligence of the severe intentions of the Pope; and Vanosa, at dead of
night, went to the Vatican.  The Devil, who, in quality of favourite, had
remained alone with his holiness whilst his affliction was at its height,
hastened away upon the appearance of Vanosa; and having found Faustus,
who was consoling the lovely Lucretia, he led him to the door of the
Pope's apartment, where they heard the following dialogue.

"A fratricide! a cardinal!--and thou, mother of them both, dost tell me
this with as much coolness as if Caesar had merely poisoned one of the
Colonnas or Orsinis.  He has, in murdering his brother, destroyed his own
fame, and has undermined the foundation of that monument of grandeur
which I was about to raise.  But the monster shall not escape punishment;
he shall feel my vengeance."

_Vanosa_.  Rodrigo Borgia, thou hast shared the couch of my mother and
myself, and wast the first that dishonoured Lucretia, my daughter and
thine.  Who can number all those whom thou hast secretly poisoned and
assassinated?  Yet thou art not less a pope.  Rome trembles before thee,
and all Christianity adores thee.  Every thing depends upon the situation
in which men are when they commit crimes.  I am the mother of both,
Rodrigo, and I knew that Caesar would murder Francisco.

_Pope_.  Thou wretch!

_Vanosa_.  Am I?  If I be, I have become so in thy school.  It was right
that the timorous and gentle Francisco should give place to the fiery,
the enterprising Caesar, in order that the glittering hopes may be
fulfilled which thou didst confide to me upon thy elevation to the papal
chair.  Francisco was intended by nature to be a monk; my Caesar to be a
conqueror--and I call him so already in prophetic spirit.  He alone has
power to annihilate the great and petty tyrants of Italy, and to win
himself a crown.  Appoint him standard-bearer to the papal see, and he
will make the Borgias kings of the Italian realms.  Is not this thy most
ardent wish?  All thy poisonings and murders will have been to no more
purpose if Caesar remains a cardinal, than they would have been if yon
feeble driveller had lived.  Only from Caesar can I expect protection
when thou art no more.  He loves his mother; but the other boy neglected
me, and only flattered thee, from whom he expected his greatness.  Caesar
feels that a woman like me, who could bring forth a hero, can likewise
point out to him the way to immortal deeds.  Brighten up, Rodrigo, and be
wise; for know that the hand which dispatched thy favourite was directed
by a daring spirit, who would not hesitate to take thy own life wert thou
to remove the veil which has been flung over this deed of necessity.

_Pope_.  The solidity of thy arguments restores me to myself, and thy
eloquence exalts my soul, although it makes me shudder.  Francisco is
dead; Caesar lives: let him live, and take his brother's place, since
fate will have it so.

He rang the bell, caused refreshments to be brought, and was in excellent
spirits.

Francisco was forgotten, and the Pope thought of nothing else than to
open to the daring Caesar a wider field in which he might exercise his
dangerous talents.  The latter, in the mean time, crowned the King of
Naples, with hands yet reeking with fraternal blood.  He returned to
Rome; and Faustus saw, with a malicious laugh, the cardinals and the
ambassadors of Spain and Venice receive the fratricide, whom they knew
for such, at the city-gate, and then conduct him in triumph to the Pope,
who embraced him with great tenderness.  Vanosa laid aside her mourning,
and celebrated the day of his return by a festival, at which appeared all
the grandees of Rome.  Caesar shortly afterwards changed his cardinal's
hat for a helmet, and was with much pomp and magnificence consecrated
Gonfalonier, or Standard-bearer of the Holy See.

The Devil saw, with much pleasure, Faustus endeavouring, by the wildest
excesses, to escape the pangs by which his heart was now torn.  He
remarked how every new scene of horror he was doomed to witness galled
his soul, and that he was becoming more and more convinced that all he
saw or heard had its origin in the nature of man.  The Devil supported
him in this idea by sophisms, which later philosophers have worked up
into systems.  He ransacked the earth of its treasures, and showered gold
and precious gems upon his victim; and Faustus, dishonouring the wives
and daughters of Rome, believed that he could not sufficiently corrupt
the human family, which, in his opinion, was doomed to misfortune and
destruction.  The lessons he had learnt from Lucretia had long since
poisoned his senses.  All the sweet ties of humanity, which had so long
fettered his heart, were now totally destroyed.  He represented the world
to himself as a stormy sea, on which the human race is cast, and is
tossed here and there by the wind, which drives this man upon a rock,
where he is dashed to pieces, and blows the other happily to his haven.
But what seemed to Faustus most incomprehensible was, that the
shipwrecked mariner should be punished in an after-state for not having
guided his vessel better; when the rudder which had been given him to
shape his course by was so weak that any extraordinary billow could not
fail to shatter it.

A new scene now presented itself.  Alexander had determined on taking the
amusements of the chase at Ostia.  He was accompanied thither by a vast
throng of cardinals, bishops, ladies, and nuns; the latter being summoned
from their cloisters, and, by their beauty, rendering the cavalcade a
glorious spectacle.  The Devil was constantly by the side of the Pope,
and Faustus and Lucretia were inseparable.  Every one abandoned himself
at Ostia to pleasure, and in the course of a few days excesses were
committed there from which even Tiberius and Nero might have learnt
something.  Faustus had now an excellent opportunity of examining man in
his nakedness, as the Devil had expressively termed it; but what were all
these scenes of wickedness when compared with the plans which the Pope
formed with his bastards, by way of relaxation, in the presence of
Faustus and the Devil?  It was here determined that Alphonso of Arragon,
the husband of Lucretia, should be assassinated, in order that they might
give the King of France a proof that they were willing to break entirely
with the King of Naples, and to assist the former in his usurpation of
the crown of Sicily.  Louis the Twelfth had already, with the approbation
of Alexander, invaded Italy, and the Borgias thereby saw all their
projects ripening.  Lucretia intrusted this bloody deed to the management
of her brother, and already considered herself as a widow.  The plan of
the ensuing campaign was then adjusted in a very expeditious manner; for
it was merely to take possession of all the towns, castles, and domains
of the noblemen of Italy, who were one and all of them to be murdered,
together with their offspring and relations, in order that not a soul
might remain alive who had the slightest claim upon the property, and who
might therefore trouble the assassins with future conspiracies.  To
support the army in the interim, the Pope and Caesar dictated to Lucretia
a list of rich cardinals and prelates, who were to be poisoned
successively, and their goods to be taken possession of by the right of
inheritance vested in the papal chair.

When this secret council was broken up, the members of it repaired to the
grand hall, where supper awaited them.  The Pope was so contented with
his schemes, and the certainty of their accomplishment, that he
committed, in his joy, the most shameful extravagances, and by his
example incited his guests to actions similar to what we have read of in
the pages of Petronius Arbiter, and other writers of the same character.
He, nevertheless, did not entirely forget the cares of the state; for he
suddenly asked those present how the revenues of the papal see might be
increased, so as to support its numerous army during the approaching
campaign.  After various projects, Ferrara of Modena, Bishop of Patria,
Alexander's worthy minister, by whom he caused the benefices of the
Church to be disposed of to the highest bidder, proposed that indulgences
should be sold through Europe, under the pretence of an approaching war
with the Turks; adding, like a true papal financier, "that the foolish
idea which men entertained, of being able to wash away their sins by
means of gold, was the surest source from which the income of a pope
arose."

Lucretia, who lay on the lap of her father, and played with Faustus's
yellow looks, incidentally remarked, with a smile,

"The present list of indulgences contains such insipid, antiquated, and
absurd crimes, that it is impossible to turn it to much account.  It was
composed in stupid and barbarous times; and it is now highly necessary to
make a new tariff of sin, for which Rome herself can furnish the most
important articles."

The company, hot with wine, and reeking from their abominations, eagerly
caught up this sally of female wantonness; and the Pope commanded each
one present to propose some particular sin, and to tax it; recommending
them, above all, to choose those which were most in vogue, and which
would consequently bring in the most wealth.

_Borgia_.  Holy father, leave this to the cardinals and prelates; they
are better versed in crime than any other people.

Ferrara of Modena sat down to fulfil the office of secretary.

_A Cardinal_.  Absolution to each and every priest who commits
fornication, let it be with whom it may; with permission to perform all
the duties of the Church, and to receive and hold new benefices, provided
he pay into the papal treasury nine gold ducats.

_Pope_.  Write down nine gold ducats, Bishop; and then let us drink
absolution to those priests who shall pay the sum.

Each guest filled his glass, and exclaimed in chorus, "Absolutio!
dispensatio!"

                                * * * * *

_A Nun_.  Ha; what means all this?  Will no one think of us?  Holy
father, have we alone no claim to your paternal favour?  I entreat you to
let us be taxed also, in order that we may sin in peace.

_Pope_.  Right, my daughter; and you shall not be dealt with more hardly
than the priests.  Bishop, write down: Absolution for each nun who shall
commit carnal sin, be it with whom it may, within or out of the circle of
the cloister; with fall capacity of assuming any conventual dignity when
called upon so to do: nine ducats.

_Chorus_.  Absolutio! dispensatio!

_A Bishop_.  Absolution and dispensation to each priest who publicly
keeps a mistress: five ducats.

Lucretia then interposed: "Absolution for carnal knowledge, the enormity
of which is indicated by fifteen ducats."

Faustus, whom this scene had horribly mortified, on account of the
triumph which it afforded the Devil over him, but who, nevertheless,
wished to have a hit at Borgia, exclaimed, with a voice of thunder,

"Absolution to any parricide, matricide, or fratricide, for three
ducats."

_Pope_.  Ho, ho, friend; what are you aiming at now?  Will you tax murder
lower than fornication?

_Caesar Borgia_.  Holy father, he does not wish, by too high a penalty,
to deter men from the commission of the crime.

_Devil_.  You are well aware, gentlemen, that the poor are incapable of
receiving benefit from any of the above-named absolutions and
dispensations.

_Chorus_ (_amidst shouts of laughter_).  Damnation to him who has no
money!

_Caesar Borgia_.  Whoever commits theft, be it sacrilege or not, shall
have his soul secured from damnation, upon depositing in the papal
treasury three parts of what he has stolen.

_Chorus_.  Absolution to all thieves, sacrilegious or not, provided they
share their booty with the Pope.

_Pope_.  Thou hast opened a rich mine, Caesar.  Write that down, Bishop.

_Faustus_.  Absolution to any one who shall practise magic, or enter into
an alliance with the Devil.  How high shall I tax that, father?

_Pope_.  My son, you will not, by this last article, enrich the papal
treasury.  The fiend does not understand his own advantage; we call upon
him in vain.

_Faustus_.  But provided that should so happen, how high, I repeat?

_Pope_.  For rarity's sake, one hundred ducats.

_Faustus_.  Here they are; and now write me out an absolution, that I may
be able to shake it in the face of the Devil, provided I ever sell myself
to him.

_Chorus_.  Absolution to him who shall sell himself to the fiend.

_A Nun_.  Most reverend Bishop, since you are writing out the absolution
for the magician, be so good as to furnish me with a paper likewise,--you
know for what.  Here is my rosary; it is worth fifteen ducats; I shall
have, therefore, something in bank until another absolution becomes
necessary.

Ferrara wrote, and the Pope signed his name beneath.

_Devil_.  Does your holiness imagine that Satan will pay any regard to
these scraps of paper?

The grand inquisitor snatched his hand out of the bosom of an abbess, and
screamed, with stammering tongue:

"I smell heresy!  Who is the atheist? who has uttered that blasphemy?"

The Pope pressed his forefinger softly upon the mouth of the Devil, and
said, "Cavalier, these are state secrets: handle them not; for if you do,
I myself, with all my authority, shall not be able to protect you."

Every male in the assembly now opened his purse, either from a wish to
pay his court to the Pope, or to quiet his conscience.  The Bishop had so
many applications, that he was soon obliged to call in other secretaries,
to assist him in expediting absolutions.  Each applicant took away his
particular license, and each sought and found an opportunity of using it
during the remainder of the night.  Never were sins committed with more
quiet minds.

Ferrara of Modena, the next day, caused this tariff to be fairly copied;
he then sent it to the press, {249} and caused it to be secretly
circulated throughout Christendom.

Caesar Borgia did not forget the promise which he had made to his sister.
Alphonso of Arragon was dispatched on the steps of the Gonfalonier's
palace, at the moment he was about to enter, in order to be present at a
play to which all the nobility of Rome had been invited, and which
represented the victories of the great Caesar, whom Borgia intended
henceforward to imitate, if not excel.  This latter personage shortly
after marched out of Rome with his army; and, within the space of a few
months, the Devil purloined from the Pope's pocket the following letter,
which he gave Faustus to read:

    "REVEREND FATHER,--

    "I kiss the feet of your holiness.  Victory and fortune have followed
    my steps, and I drag them behind my car like slaves.  I hope now that
    Caesar is worthy of his name; for I also can say, _Veni_, _vidi_,
    _vici_.  The Duke of Urbino has fallen into the snare which I laid
    for him.  By virtue of your holiness' letter, I asked him for his
    artillery to fight your enemies with.  Dazzled by the marks of
    friendship and affection which I showed him, and which flattered his
    self-love, he sent to me a gentleman with his consent in writing.
    Having thus a very decent pretence, I instantly despatched some
    thousands of men to Urbino, who, by my commands, took possession of
    that city and of the whole duchy.  The duke, unfortunately, escaped;
    but I revenged myself for his flight upon the powerful and dangerous
    family of Montefeltro, and annihilated their whole race.  Vitelozzo
    was fool enough to join me, with all his troops, near Camerino.  I
    deceived Caesar di Varono by promising him honourable conditions if
    he would evacuate Camerino, and I attacked the city at the very
    moment he was engaged in signing the articles of capitulation.  I had
    hoped to have exterminated the whole family at once; but the father
    found means to elude me.  However, I strangled his wife, and cut the
    throats of his two sons; and I flatter myself that despair and grief
    will soon send the old fellow after them.  I left Camerino, and
    despatched Paul Orsino, Vitelozzo, and Oliverotto, to Sinegaglia,
    with orders to take the town by storm, so that they might prepare
    their future grave with their own hands.  When I saw them all in the
    net, I sent forward my trusty Michelotto and his associates, with
    directions to seize the fools when I should give the signal.  I then
    put myself upon the march, and Orsino, Vitelozzo, and Oliverotto came
    to meet me, and pay me their respects.  They had left all the troops
    behind them, according to my expectations.  I received them with
    caresses, and went with them into the city; and at the very moment my
    people fell upon their straggling soldiers, Michelotto and his
    comrades each seized his man.  Thus I made myself master of the
    domains and fortresses of those whom we deceived by pretending to
    assist them in subduing their enemies.  The following night I caused
    them to be slaughtered in their dungeons.  Michelotto, to whom I
    intrusted this business, told me, with much laughter, that all the
    mercy Vitelozzo prayed for was, _that he might not be murdered until
    he had received_, _from your holiness_, _absolution for his sins_.
    Who now will tell me that it requires much art to make oneself master
    of the minds of men?  As soon as your holiness shall have put out of
    the way the Orsinis and the rest, I will send the Pagolas, the Duke
    of Gravina, and my other prisoners, to bear them company.  If
    Carraccioli, General of the Venetians, whose lovely wife I seized
    upon her journey, and who now sweetens my labour, should come to Rome
    with his _complaint_, send him Michelotto's brother to be his
    physician.  I hear that he is a turbulent, hot-headed fellow, and
    therefore it will be as well to get rid of him.  The tumult of arms
    has not made me forget my sister's widowhood: the envoy of the eldest
    son of the Duke of Este is already on the way to marry her, in his
    name.  We have now massacred the most dangerous of our foes; if we
    can win over or exterminate (which is almost the same thing) the
    houses of Este and Medici, who will then have the audacity to oppose
    the Borgias in Italy?  I kiss the feet of your holiness.

                                             "CAESAR BORGIA, Gonfalonier."

Faustus, after reading this letter, looked angrily upward; but the Devil,
without giving him time to moralise, led him to the Vatican, where they
found the Pope overjoyed at the success which had attended his weapons.
He had already ordered the remaining Orsinis, Alvianis, Santa Croces, and
the other cardinals and archbishops, to be arrested, and awaited the
event with impatience.  All Rome hastened to congratulate him.  Those who
were marked out for destruction were seized in the Vatican, conducted
into different prisons, and privately executed; whilst the myrmidons of
the Pope plundered their palaces.  The Cardinal Orsini alone was sent to
the Castle of Saint Angelo, and was permitted, for a few days, to be
supplied with food from his mother's kitchen; but the Pope, having heard
that he possessed a pearl, very precious on account of its extraordinary
size, retracted this favour.  The mother of the once mighty and
flourishing Orsinis went to the Vatican, and offered the Pope the pearl
and two thousand crowns if he would liberate her son; when he seized the
pearl and the money with one hand, and with the other gave the sign for
the cardinal's execution.

When Caesar Borgia learnt that the Pope had accomplished his design, he
instantly commanded all his own prisoners to be assassinated; and,
entering Rome in triumph, shared, with his holiness and the other
illegitimates, the booty he had brought with him; and, in return,
received his dividend of the confiscated property of the slaughtered
cardinals and ecclesiastics.

The marriage of Lucretia was soon afterwards celebrated with more than
Asiatic pomp, and the Romans contributed to render it as brilliant as
possible.  The bells pealed from the churches; the artillery thundered
from Saint Angelo; there were bull-fights; the most immoral and indecent
comedies were performed; and the delighted populace shouted before the
Vatican, "Long live Pope Alexander! long live Lucretia, Duchess of Este!"
Faustus huzzaed with the best of them, and said to the Devil: "If these
acclamations ascend to heaven with the groans of the assassinated, which
will the Eternal believe?"  The fiend bowed himself to the earth, and was
silent.

In order to crown the festivities of the marriage, Alexander and his
daughter commanded a spectacle which must for ever stand unparalleled in
the annals of human infamy.  The Pope sat, with his daughter, upon a
couch, in a vast illuminated hall.  Faustus, the Devil, and others who
had been invited to this scene, stood around them.  Suddenly the doors
opened, and in rushed fifty nude courtesans,--more beautiful than the
houris in Mahomet's paradise,--and performed, to the voluptuous sound of
flutes and other instruments, a dance which decency forbids us to
describe, although it was a Pope who designed the figure.  When the dance
was ended, his Holiness gave the signal for a combat which we are still
less permitted to depict,--he himself holding the prize of victory.  They
proclaimed Faustus to be the conqueror.  Lucretia overwhelmed him with
kisses, and crowned him with laurels; while the Pope delivered to him the
prize,--a golden goblet, on which Lucretia had caused to be engraven the
School of Pleasure.  Faustus gave it the very next day to a Venetian
monk, in whose possession Aretino saw it a long time afterwards, and
illustrated some of its incidents in his sonnets.

The Pope, on the day of his daughter's marriage, had made an election of
cardinals, choosing only the richest prelates for that dignity.  Caesar
Borgia, being in want of large sums of money for the next campaign,
determined to send some of the newly-elected into the other world, at a
festival which his father intended to give at one of his villas.  [The
details of these marriage-festivities are omitted; inasmuch as the
grossness of the spectacle renders it unfit for the general reader.  The
conduct of Lucretia Borgia has been the subject of much obloquy, which
her defenders maintain rests chiefly on inferences from her living in a
flagitious court, where she witnessed the most profligate scenes.  It is
asserted that some of the accusations have no better foundation than the
epigrams of Pontano, and other Neapolitan poets, the natural enemies of
her family.--_Transl_.]  The Pope went in a coach, with his daughter, the
Devil, Faustus, Borgia, and the wife of the Venetian general.  Here,
after witnessing a gross spectacle, Lucretia retired with Faustus; and
Borgia went with the Venetian; and the Pope remained alone with the
Devil.  His holiness now made to the fiend certain proposals, which so
exasperated the Devil that he appeared under a form which no mortal eye
had ever yet been able to sustain.  The Pope, who knew him immediately,
uttered a cry of joy.

"Ah, ben venuto Signor Diavolo!  You could not have come to me at a more
seasonable time than the present; I have long wished to see you, for I
know perfectly well what a deal of use might be made of so powerful a
spirit as yourself.  Ha, ha, ha! you please me now much better than you
did before, you rogue, you!  Come, be my friend; assume your former
figure, and I will make you a cardinal; for you only can raise me at once
to the height which I wish to attain.  I entreat you to destroy my foes,
procure me money, and drive the French out of Italy, since I have no
further occasion for them.  This to you will merely be the work of a
moment; and you may then ask me for any reward you please.  But by all
means do not discover yourself to my son Caesar: he is so great a wretch,
that I verily believe he would poison me, his father, in order to become,
by thy help, King of Italy and Pope at the same time."

The Devil, who had at first been a little mortified that his frightful
exterior had produced no greater effect, was now unable to refrain from
laughing; for what he saw and heard surpassed every thing which had as
yet come to the knowledge of hell.  But recovering himself, he said, with
a serious air, "Pope Alexander, Satan once showed to the Son of the
Eternal all the kingdoms of the world, and offered him them, if he would
fall down and worship him."

_Pope_.  I understand you.  He was a God, and wanted nothing; had he been
a man, and a pope, he would have done what I will now do.

He fell upon his knees, and kissed the fiend's feet.

The Devil stamped upon the floor, so that the whole villa trembled.
Faustus and Lucretia, Caesar and the Venetian, saw through the door,
which had been burst open by the shock, the Pope kneeling with clasped
hands before the frightful figure of the Devil, who seized the trembling
miscreant, strangled him, and gave his soul to an attendant spirit to be
conveyed to hell.  Borgia fell to the ground in an agony of terror; and
the horrible spectacle brought upon him an illness, which soon sent him
after his father.  The body of the Pope, frightfully disfigured, was
buried with much pomp; and his historians, who are not well acquainted
with his tragic end, invented the story, which is partly founded on
truth, that he and his son having drunk, by the cupbearer's mistake, some
poisoned wine which had been intended for the cardinals, were thus caught
in their own net.



CHAPTER V.


The horrible death of the Pope, and the frightful figure of the Devil,
whom Faustus had hitherto only seen majestic and comely, made so strong
an impression upon him, that he hastened from the villa to Rome; and,
having packed up his things, instantly departed, with perturbed mind and
beating heart.  His spirit had become so weak from all that he had seen
and heard, that he who once dared to defy the Eternal in thought scarcely
ventured now to look Satan in the face, though he still had absolute
dominion over him.  Hatred and contempt for men, cruel doubt,
indifference to every thing which occurred around him, murmurings at the
insufficiency of his moral and physical powers, were the rewards of his
experience and the fruits of his life; yet he consoled himself with the
idea that what he had witnessed authorised in him these gloomy
sentiments, and confirmed him in the opinion, that there either existed
on earth no connexion between man and his Creator, or that, if any did
exist, such connexion ran so confusedly and equivocally through the
labyrinth of life, that it was impossible for the eye of man to follow
it.  He yet flattered himself with the delusion, that his crimes, when
added to the vast mass of earthly wickedness, would be like a drop of
water falling into the ocean.  The Devil willingly permitted him to
repose in this dream, in order that the blow he intended for him might
fall with greater violence.  Faustus resembled those men of the world who
abandon themselves to their pleasures without thinking of the
consequences; and at length, worn out and dejected, look morosely on the
world, and judge of the human race according to their own sad experience,
without reflecting that they have only trodden the worst paths of life,
and seen the worst part of the creation.  In a word, he was on the point
of becoming a philosopher of the species of Voltaire, who, whenever he
found the _bad_, always held it forth to public view; and, with
unexampled industry, always endeavoured to keep the _good_ in the
background.

Faustus was lying in a sweet morning slumber on the frontiers of Italy,
when a portentous dream depicted itself to his soul in the liveliest
colours; and this dream was followed by a frightful apparition.  He saw
the Genius of Man, whom he had once before seen.  He saw him upon a vast
and blooming island, surrounded by a stormy sea, wandering up and down,
and looking very anxiously upon the raging billows.  The ocean was
covered with innumerable barks, in which men, aged and young, children,
women, and maidens, of all the nations of the world, were struggling
against the tempest, in order to reach the island.  When they arrived
there, their first care was to bring to land different building
materials, which they flung together confusedly.  After an immense number
had gained the shore, the Genius marked out, upon the most elevated part
of the island, the plan of a vast edifice; and each of the crowd, young
and old, weak or strong, took, according to his or her strength, a piece
from the mass of materials, and, directed by those whom the Genius had
chosen, carried it, and deposited it at the proper place.  All worked
with pleasure, with courage, and without relaxation; and the fabric had
already risen high above the ground, when they were suddenly attacked by
numerous foes, who advanced out of a dark ambush in three columns.  At
the head of each of these columns stood a general.  The first bore a
glittering crown upon his head; on his brazen shield was written the word
_Power_; and in his right hand he held a sceptre, which, like the rod of
Mercury, had a snake and a scourge twisted round it.  Before him went a
fierce hyena, holding in its jaws a book, on the back of which was
written _My Word_.  His troops were armed with swords, spears, and other
implements of destruction.  The second column was commanded by a majestic
matron, whose noble figure was clothed in a sacerdotal robe.  On her
right stood _Superstition_, a gloomy-eyed spectre, bearing in his hand a
bow formed from the bones of the dead, and on his back a quiver filled
with poisoned arrows.  On her left hovered a wild, fantastically clothed
figure, called _Fanaticism_, bearing a blazing torch.  These two
phantoms, with menacing gestures and frightful grimaces, led the noble
matron in chains, like a prisoner.  Before them went _Ambition_, whose
head was adorned with a triple crown; in his hand was an episcopal staff,
and on his mailed breast shone the word _Religion_.  Fanaticism and
Superstition waited, with the utmost impatience, until Religion should
give them the signal to vent their fury, which they could scarcely
restrain.  The army was a confused and howling rabble, and each soldier
carried a dagger and a flaming torch.  The chief of the third column
advanced with bold and haughty steps; he was clothed in the simple dress
of the sages, and was called _Philosophy_.  He bore in his hand, as did
all his followers, a golden cup, filled with foaming and intoxicating
liquor.  These two last armies howled and screamed so frightfully, that
even the bellowing of the waters and the roar of the tempest were no
longer audible.

When the three columns arrived near the labourers, they united, by the
directions of their generals, and attacked them furiously with their
murderous weapons.  The most courageous of the workmen flung away their
implements of labour, and drew their swords, which hung at their belts,
in order to drive their foes back.  The others, in the mean time,
endeavoured, with redoubled zeal, to complete the fabric they had begun.
The Genius protected his brave warriors and his industrious labourers
with a huge glittering shield, which was handed to him from the sky; but
he could not cover the whole of the countless multitude.  He saw with
deep sorrow thousands of his people sink to the earth beneath the swords
and poisoned darts of their adversaries.  Many allowed themselves to be
ensnared by the invitations and allurements of those who offered them the
enchanted cup to refresh themselves with; and, in their intoxication,
they soon destroyed the laborious work of their hands.

Those who bore torches made their way with their daggers, and hurled the
torches into the unfinished edifice, when the flames, rearing up,
threatened to reduce it to ashes.  The Genius looked mournfully upon the
slain, and on those who had been intoxicated by the deceitful beverage;
but he encouraged the rest, and inspired them, by his firmness and his
dignity, with strength and patience.  They extinguished the flames;
replaced what the others had overturned; and laboured, amid death and
destruction, with so much zeal, that, in spite of the fury and malignity
of their foes, they raised at length a vast and sublime temple.  The
Genius then healed the wounded, comforted the weary, praised the bold
warriors, and conducted them all, amid songs of triumph, into the temple.
The foes stood confounded at the enormous work; and, after they had in
vain attempted to shatter its solidity, they retreated, with rage in
their hearts.  Faustus now found himself upon the island.  The field
around the majestic building was covered with dead bodies of all ages and
of both sexes; and those who had tasted of the enchanted cup walked
coolly among the corpses, disputed with each other, and laughed at and
criticised the structure of the temple.  Faustus went past them, and as
he approached the edifice he read over the entrance the following words:
"Mortal, if thou hast bravely struggled, and hast remained faithful,
enter, and learn to know thy noble destiny."

At these words he felt his heart leap with joy, and he hoped to be now
able to penetrate the obscurity which had so long tormented him.  With
bold and daring pace he ran up the lofty steps, and caught a glimpse of
the interior of the edifice, which seemed filled with the roseate colours
of morning.  He heard the soft voice of the Genius, and was about to
enter; but the gate of brass closed before him with a harsh sound, and he
recoiled in terror.  His desire to penetrate into the secrets of the
temple was increased by the impossibility.  All of a sudden he felt
wings, and rising high into the air, he precipitated himself furiously
against the brazen gate, was hurled back, and started out of his sleep
just as he was on the point of touching the ground.  He opened his eyes
in dismay.  A ghastly figure, wrapped in a winding-sheet, drew back the
curtains of his bed.  He recognised the features of his old father, who,
gazing upon him for a moment, said, in a lamentable voice:

"Faustus! Faustus! never yet did father beget a more unfortunate son; and
in this feeling I have just died.  For ever--ah! for ever!--must the gulf
of damnation lie between thee and me."

The portentous dream and this horrible apparition filled the soul of
Faustus with affright.  He sprang from his bed, and opened the window to
inhale the fresh air.  Before him lay the enormous Alps, whose tops were
just gilded by the rising sun.  He surveyed them for some time, and at
last fell into a profound reverie.  He trembled as he thought of his
nocturnal vision, and was endeavouring to explain to himself its most
prominent passages, when, falling anew into his cruel doubts, he
exclaimed:

"Whence came those monsters who attacked the industrious labourers?  By
whom were they authorised to disturb and destroy them while engaged in
their noble occupation?  Who permitted it?  Was he who permitted it
unable, or did he not wish, to hinder it?  And why did the Supreme Genius
protect and save only a part of them who were assailed by those
cannibals?  Were some predestined to perish, in order that the others
might triumph and taste repose?  Who, then, will dare to tell me that I
am not one of those who are born with destruction for their lot?  What
evil had those unfortunates committed, and why should those be esteemed
criminal who, pressed by a burning thirst, endeavoured to quench it by
tasting the enchanted cup?"

Faustus wandered for a long time in a maze of doubt; but, remembering the
apparition of his father, it brought back to his mind his long-forgotten
family.  He instantly determined to return to them; to become again a
member of society; to resume his business; and to get rid of his infernal
companion.  He pursued his journey towards home like many others, who,
mistaking the ardour of insensate youth for genius, enter upon the career
of the world with high pretensions, and, having quickly exhausted the
little fire which their souls possess, soon find themselves a burden to
their kindred and their friends, at the very place from whence they
started.  Faustus brooded over all this, while he rode silently and
moodily by the side of the Devil.

The latter left him to his reflections, laughed inwardly at his
resolution, and shortened the time with the sweet idea of soon being able
to breathe the pleasant vapours of hell.  He determined to have a bitter
laugh at Satan, who had represented to him as a man of superior strength
of mind this Faustus, whom he now saw completely dejected even before he
knew the horrors of his fate.  He compared his present downcast and timid
looks with the haughty and bold glances he had cast upon him when he
first made him appear before his magic circle.  His hatred against him
increased, and he rejoiced in his black soul when he saw Worms lie before
them in the plain.

They rode towards the celebrated city; and when they were about half a
mile distant from it, they perceived a gibbet, to which was suspended a
tall, slender youth.  Faustus lifted up his eyes and gazed upon him.  The
evening wind blew freshly among his long hair, which half-concealed his
face, and swung his body to and fro.  Faustus burst into tears at this
spectacle, and cried, with trembling voice:

"Poor youth! hanging at the cursed tree before thou hadst reached the
flower of life!  What sin hast thou committed, which induced the tribunal
of men to cut thee off so soon?"

_Devil_ (_in a solemn and impressive tone_).  Faustus, this is thy work.

_Faustus_.  My work!

_Devil_.  Thy work.  Look at him closer.  He is thy eldest son.

Faustus looked up, recognised him, and sunk from his horse.

_Devil_.  Cry and groan!  The hour approaches in which I must remove the
thick veil from before thine eyes, and blow away, with a single breath,
the labyrinth in which thou hast so long wandered.  I will fling light
upon the moral world, and show thee how thou hast outraged it by each of
thy actions.  I, a devil, will show thee what are the consequences when a
worm like thyself dares to stop the wheel of so exact and so enormous a
machine.  Dost thou remember the youth whom I, at our departure from
Mayence, saved from drowning by thy command?  I gave thee warning, but
thou wouldst obey the rash impulse of thy heart.  If thou hadst permitted
that miscreant to perish, thy son would not now be rotting on yon gibbet.
He on whose account thou didst change the order of things, insinuated
himself, shortly after thy departure, into the society of thy young wife.
The glitter of the gold which we had left her in such abundance,
attracted him much more than her youth and beauty.  It was no difficult
thing for him to win the affections of her who had been forsaken by thee;
and in a short time he gained such influence over her, that she delivered
up herself and all she possessed to his will and control.  Thy old father
endeavoured to oppose his shameless sway; but the young man insulted him
and beat him: the poor old man sought an asylum in the workhouse, where
he died, a few days ago, of grief for thee and thy family.  Thy son,
having taken his grandfather's part, and threatened the life of his
mother's seducer, was by him turned out of the house also.  The boy
wandered among the woods and wildernesses till he was half famished.
Arriving at length in this city, and being ashamed to beg, he stole a few
pence from the poor-box in a church, in order to assuage his hunger; but
he committed this theft so artlessly, that several people perceived him,
and the most worshipful magistrate, in consideration of his youth,
sentenced him only to be hanged: he was accordingly hanged; although he
protested, with tears, that for the last four days he had swallowed
nothing but grass.  Thy daughter is at Frankfort, where she subsists upon
the earnings of vice; thy second son is in the profligate service of an
infamous prelate.  The young man whom thou didst save from death robbed
thy wife not long ago of her last stiver; thy friend whom we preserved
from beggary refused thy old father the slightest assistance, and spurned
thy children from his door when they came to him for bread.  And I will
now show thee thy family, in order that thou mayest see to what a state
thou hast reduced them.  I will then bring thee here again, and hold
reckoning with thee; for I am no longer thy slave--thou art mine.  The
worm of despair begins to gnaw within thee; thou art no longer fit to
live, and hell only is fit to receive thee.

The Devil seized the wretched man, flew with him to Mayence, and showed
him his wife and two youngest children sitting at the gate of the
Franciscan convent in expectation of the remnant of the monks' supper.
When the mother beheld Faustus, she screamed, "O Heaven!  Faustus! your
father--" then, covering her eyes with her hands, she fell into a swoon.
The children ran to him, clung about him, and cried for bread.

_Faustus_.  Devil, decide upon my fate: let it be more frightful than the
heart of man can support or conceive, but supply these unfortunate
creatures with bread, and rescue them from misery and hunger.

_Devil_.  I have plundered for thee the earth of its treasures; thou hast
sacrificed them to thy infamous pleasures, without once thinking of these
wretches.  Feel now thy folly; thou hast spun the web of their destiny,
and thy hungry, beggarly, miserable brood will transmit to their remotest
posterity the misery of which thou art the cause.  Thou didst beget
children--wherefore hast thou not been a father to them?  Wherefore hast
thou sought happiness where mortal never yet found it?  Look at them once
more.  In hell thou shalt see them again; and they will there curse thee
for the inheritance which thou didst entail upon them.

He tore him from his miserable family at the moment the wife was about to
embrace his knees, and to ask his pardon.  Faustus wished to comfort her;
but the Devil grasped him, and placed him once more beneath the gibbet at
Worms.

Night sunk dark upon the earth.  Faustus stood gazing on the remains of
his unfortunate son; madness glowed in his brain, and he cried, in the
wild tone of despair:

"Devil, let me bury this poor victim; take then my life, and bear me to
hell, where I shall never again see men in flesh and bone.  I have learnt
to know them; I am disgusted with them, with their destination, with the
world, and with life.  Since one good action brings on my head such
inexpressible evils, I have reason to believe that the wicked only have a
right to happiness.  If such be the order of things in this world, hurl
me at once into hell.  Its darkness is a thousand times preferable to the
light of day.

_Devil_.  Not so fast, Faustus.  In the first place, I take away from
thee thy mighty magic rod, and confine thee in the narrow circle which I
draw around thee.  Here shalt thou listen to me, and howl and tremble.  I
will unfold to thee the consequences of thy deeds, and will assassinate
thee through downright despair.

"Fool! thou sayest thou hast learnt to know man!  Where?  How and when
hast thou attained this knowledge?  Hast thou ever sounded his nature?
Hast thou separated from him that which he has acquired, and which is
foreign to him?  Hast thou distinguished that which proceeds from his
heart, from that which is merely the affect of an imagination corrupted
by artifice?  Hast thou compared the wants and the desires resulting from
his nature, with those which he owes to civilisation?  Hast thou
considered man in his proper shape, where each of his movements bears the
stamp of his inward disposition?  _Thou hast taken the mask of society
for his natural figure_; _and thou hast only known that man whom his
titles_, _his rank_, _his riches_, _his power_, _and his acquirements
have corrupted_.  _Thou hast only known him who has sacrificed his nature
to thy own idol_,--_to vanity_.  Thou hast merely frequented palaces and
courts, where men spurn away the unfortunate, and laugh at the complaints
of the oppressed, whilst they are dissipating in revel-rout and roar that
which they have robbed them of.  Thou hast seen the sovereigns of the
world; thou hast seen tyrants surrounded by their parasites and their
infamous courtesans; and thou hast seen priests who make use of religion
as an instrument of oppression.  Such are the men thou hast seen, and not
him who groans under the heavy yoke, and comforts himself with the hope
of futurity.  Thou hast passed by with disdain the hut of the poor and
simple man, who does not even know your artificial wants by name, who
gains his bread by the sweat of his brow, shares it faithfully with his
wife and children, and rejoices, at the last moment of his life, in
having completed his long and laborious task.  If thou hadst opened his
door, thou wouldst not indeed have found a vain ideal of heroic and
over-refined virtue, which is only the offspring of your vices and your
crimes; but thou wouldst have seen a man who, in meekness and resigned
magnanimity, shows more force of soul, than do your renowned heroes in
their blood-stained fields of battle, or your ministers in their
perfidious cabinets.  If it were not for these, and for your priests, and
above all for your false philosophers, the gates of hell would soon be
closed.  Canst thou say that thou knowest man, when thou hast only sought
for him in the paths of vice and crime?  Dost thou know thyself?  I will
make your wounds yet deeper, and pour poison into them.  But if I had a
thousand human tongues, and were to keep thee here confined for as many
years, I should still be unable to enumerate to thee all the frightful
consequences of thy actions and thy temerity.  Know now the result of thy
life, and remember, that I have scarcely fulfilled one of thy insensate
desires without having forewarned thee to check it.  It is by thy command
that I have interrupted the course of things, and committed crimes which
I myself could scarcely have imagined; so that, devil as I am, I am not
so bad as thyself.

"Dost thou remember the nun Clara, and the voluptuous night which thou
didst pass with her?  But how canst thou have forgotten her?  Listen now
to the consequences.  A short time after thy departure, the Bishop, who
was her friend and protector, died; and she, having become a mother, was
condemned, as an object of public horror, to be starved with her child in
a dark dungeon.  In her ravenous hunger she fell upon the newly-born, ate
of thy flesh and her own, and prolonged her existence as long as there
was a bone for her to gnaw.  In what had she sinned?--she who did not
comprehend her crime; she who did not know, or even suspect, the author
of her ignominy and her frightful death.  Feel now the result of one
single moment of pleasure, and tremble!  Hast thou not strengthened the
delusion which condemned her?  Must not hell now bear the reproach of thy
crime?  Those people condemned the child as the spawn of Satan, and
murdered the mother under the idea that she had been possessed by him;
and through this thy deed thou hast bewildered their minds, and those of
their posterity.

"Thou wast not more fortunate with the Prince Bishop.  He caused, it is
true, Hans Ruprecht to be buried, and provided for his family.  He
likewise, by the trick I played him, lost his fat, and became the most
mild and merciful of princes; but he so relaxed the band of social order
by his over-indulgence, that his subjects soon became a horde of
drunkards, sluggards, ruffians, and highwaymen.  The present Bishop is
obliged to be their executioner, and to disperse and destroy a hundred
families, in order that the rest, terrified by their example, may again
become humanised, and submit to the laws.  The furies themselves could
not do half the injury to these people which those now do to whom the
Bishop has been obliged to intrust the sword of justice and the power of
vengeance.

"Doctor Robertus, the renowned champion of freedom, the man after thine
own heart, was from his earliest youth an enemy to the Minister, whom he
hated on account of his talents.  Envy and jealousy caused his
independence of spirit; and if he had been in the situation of the other,
he would have adopted with pleasure the most cruel principles of
despotism, for which his wild and ferocious heart was only formed.  The
honest man was the Minister; Robertus was a monster, who would have set
the whole world in a blaze, and has done it partly, in order to satisfy
his boundless ambition.  Thou didst oblige me to rescue him, and to
furnish him with a large sum of money.  He made such good use of his
freedom, his gold, and the enthusiasm which his miraculous escape had
caused among the people, that he soon succeeded in stirring up a dreadful
rebellion.  He armed the peasants; they murdered the nobility, and
desolated the whole land.  The noble Minister fell a victim to his
revenge; and Robertus, the friend of liberty, the champion of the
oppressed, is the author of the calamitous war of the peasants, which by
degrees will spread over the whole of Germany, and will ravage it.
Murders, assassinations, robberies, and sacrilege are now committed with
impunity; and thy noble hero stands at the head of a furious rabble, and
threatens to make Germany the cemetery of the human race.  Satan himself
could not have laboured more effectually for the destruction of mankind,
than thou didst when I was forced by thee to rescue this madman from the
stroke of justice.

"Let us now return to the court of the German prince, where thou so
audaciously didst make thyself the avenger of virtue and oppressed
innocence.  That prince and his favourite affected virtues which they did
not possess; but their actions contributed to the good of the people,
because both had sense enough to perceive that the happiness of the
people constitutes that of the prince.  Does the thirsty traveller know,
or does he care, if the spring of which he drinks gushes out of a
mountain filled with poison, provided he cools his hot blood without
receiving any harm?  That hypocrite displeased thee because he did not
answer to thy preconceived high opinion, which thou, for certain reasons,
didst wish to thrust upon me; and I was compelled to strangle him by thy
orders.  His infant son was destined to succeed him in the government.
His tutors harassed and oppressed the people, once happy under the
dominion of his father; they corrupted the heart and the mind of the
future regent, who having enervated his body through early pleasure, they
rule him now he is come of age, and are his and his people's tyrants.
Hadst thou not compelled me to murder the father, he would have brought
up his son in his own maxims; he would have developed his faculties, and
have made him a man fit to govern a nation.  The numerous subjects who
are now groaning beneath iron-handed oppression, and whose misery is all
to be imputed to thee, would then have been the happiest in Germany.  Let
their tears, their despair, and the horrors of an approaching
insurrection, reward thee for having rashly exercised the duty of a
judge.

"Madman! in obedience to thy command, I burnt the castle of the fierce
Wildgrave, with all its inhabitants, with his wife and his infant.  What
crime had they committed?  It was a moment of delight to me.  If the
infant was consumed on the breast of the mother, it was thy work.  If the
Wildgrave attacked a neighbouring nobleman as the cause of the
conflagration, set fire to his house, and ignominiously whipped him, it
was thy work.  Thousands have already fallen beneath their reciprocal
vengeance, and tranquillity will not be restored to that part of Germany
until the hostile families shall be completely exhausted and annihilated.
And thus, poor worm, hast thou avenged the innocent; thou, who all thy
life hast been wallowing in the grossest sensuality; thou, who didst pull
me out of hell merely to satiate thy lusts.  Groan and weep; but I will
overwhelm thee with fresh horrors.

"By thy order I infused the poison of lust into the heart of the innocent
Angelica, she who was the ornament of her sex and of the world.  Thou
didst enjoy her in the wild intoxication of thy senses, and she scarcely
knew what had happened to her.  Shudder at the consequences!  I, who find
pleasure in evil and destruction, think with pity and compassion on her
end.  She fled from her native place, and a feeling of shame forced her
to conceal the state in which she found herself, and to which thou hadst
reduced her.  Alone, in solitude, and without help, amid agonising throes
and deadly pains, she became a mother.  The child died as soon as it saw
the light of day.  She, the wretched victim of thy momentary pleasure,
was cast into prison, and publicly executed as an infanticide.  Thou
shouldst have seen her in the last moments of her life; thou shouldst
have seen her pure blood spouting high into the air, when the sword of
the executioner separated her lovely neck."

Faustus gave a loud groan.  Despair was raging in his heart.

_Devil_.  The daughter of the miser in France, whom thou didst seduce,
and in whose bosom thou didst cause slumbering desire to awake, became
shortly afterwards the mistress of the youthful king.  She ruled him
entirely, and in order that he might not disturb her in her intercourse
with another lover, she urged him to the disastrous expedition into
Italy, and brought misfortunes upon France which many future reigns will
not be able to heal.  The flower of the French nobility, and the heroes
of the kingdom, are rotting on the sun-scorched plains of Italy; and the
king has returned home overwhelmed with shame and ignominy.  Thus,
wherever thou hast wandered, thou hast scattered around thee the seeds of
misery, which have sprung up, and will bear fruit to all eternity.

"Thou didst not pay attention to the look I gave thee when I tore down
the house upon the cruel physicians at Paris.  I had previously told thee
that, by my destructive hand, thou didst mangle the moral world worse
than they did the flesh of their fellow-creatures.  Thou didst pay no
attention to that look--hear now the cause of it.  Those wretches deserve
to perish beneath the ruins of their laboratory; but what evil had the
poor people committed who lodged in the lower part of the house, and who
were totally ignorant of what was going forward above their heads?  Why
should an innocent, happy family be crushed along with those monsters?
To satisfy thy blind vengeance, I was forced to bury them beneath stones
and falling timbers.  Judge and avenger at the same time, thou hadst not
thought of this.  Consider now all the consequences of thy delirium and
thy folly; cast thine eyes along the whole chain, extending to the
remotest posterity, and then sink beneath the terrible survey.  Did I not
once tell thee that man is much more rash in his decisions and in his
vengeance, than the Devil is in the accomplishment of wickedness?"

Faustus opened his haggard eyes, and looked towards heaven.

_Devil_.  It is deaf to thee.  Be proud of having lived a moment when thy
atrocity was so great that it almost made the deeds of the devils
themselves forgotten.  I speak of that moment when thou didst command me
to withdraw the veil which concealed the Eternal from thy sight.  The
angel whose charge it was to register thy sins averted his face, and
struck thy name from the Book of Life.

_Faustus_ (_springing up_).  Cursed be thou; cursed be myself; cursed be
the hour of my birth; cursed be he who begot me; cursed be the breast
which I sucked!

_Devil_.  O the delightful moment!  Precious reward of my toils!  Hell
rejoices at thy curses, and expects a yet more frightful one from thee.
Fool! wast thou not born free?  Didst thou not bear in thy breast, like
all who live in flesh, the instinct of good as well as of evil?  Why
didst thou transgress, with so much temerity, the bounds which had been
prescribed to thee?  Why didst thou endeavour to try thy strength with
and against Him who is not to be reached?  Did not God create you in such
a manner, that you were as much elevated above the devils as above the
beasts of the earth?  Did he not grant you the perceptive faculty of good
and evil?  Were not your will and choice free?  We wretches are without
choice, without will; we are the slaves of evil and of imperious
necessity; constrained and condemned to all eternity to wish nothing but
evil, we are the instruments of revenge and punishment upon you.  Ye are
kings of the creation, free beings, masters of your destiny, which ye fix
yourselves; masters of the future, which only depends upon your actions.
It is on account of these prerogatives that we detest you, and rejoice
when, by your follies, your impatience, and your crimes, you cease to be
masters of yourselves.  It is only in resignation, Faustus, that present
or future happiness consists.  Hadst thou remained what thou wast, and
had not doubt, pride, vanity, and voluptuousness torn thee out of the
happy and limited sphere for which thou wast born, thou mightst have
followed an honourable employment, and have supported thy wife and
children; and thy family, which is now sunk into the refuse of humanity,
would have been blooming and prosperous; lamented by them, thou wouldst
have died calmly on thy bed, and thy example would have guided thy
posterity along the thorny path of life.

_Faustus_.  Ah, the greatest torment of the damned is, no doubt, to hear
the devil preach penitence.

_Devil_.  It is pleasant enough that you force us to moralise; but,
wretch, if the voice of truth and of penitence were to echo down from
heaven, you would close your ears to it.

_Faustus_.  Destroy me at once, and do not kill me by thy prattling,
which tears my heart without convincing my spirit.  Pour out thy venom,
and do not distil it upon me drop by drop.  I am not to blame if, having
sown the seeds of good, bad has arisen from them.  A good action has
caused the ignominious death of my son, and a good action has
precipitated my family into the most profound misery.

_Devil_.  Why dost thou boast to me of thy good deed?  How does it
deserve that name?  I suppose because thou didst give me a command,
which, by the by, did not cost thee much.  To have made the action
meritorious, thou shouldst have cast thyself into the water, and have
saved the young man at the risk of thine own life.  I brought him to the
shore, and disappeared; he would have known thee, and, moved by
gratitude, would probably have become the protector, instead of the
destroyer, of thy family.

_Faustus_.  Thou canst torment me, Devil; but thou canst not, from
stupidity, or thou wilt not, from wickedness, dispel my doubts.  Never
have they torn my heart more venomously than at this moment, when I
consider the miseries of my existence and of my after-destination.  Is
human life any thing else than a tissue of crimes, torments, pains,
hypocrisy, contradictions, and false virtues?  What are free agency,
choice, will, and that so much vaunted faculty of distinguishing good
from evil, if the passions drown the feeble voice of reason, as the roar
of the sea drowns the voice of the pilot whose vessel is about to be
dashed against the rocks?  Is it possible for man to destroy and root out
of his breast the germ of evil which has been designedly introduced
there?  I hate, more bitterly than ever, the world, my fellow-creatures,
and myself.  Destined to suffer, why was I born with the desire of being
happy?  Born for darkness, why was I filled with the desire of seeing
light?  Why had the slave the thirst for freedom?  Why had the worm the
wish to fly?  Why had I a boundless imagination, the teeming mother of
bold desires, daring wishes and thoughts?  Tear from my uncertain and
doubtful soul the flesh which envelops it; destroy in it all remembrance
of its ever having animated a human body: I wish to become henceforward
one of you, and only to live in the desire of evil.  Ah, Devil, this is
not so pleasant to thy ears as the hissing, howling song of despair which
thou didst expect.  But loosen the enchantment which fetters me in this
circle; and let me perform my last sad duty.  I will not attempt to
escape from thee; if I could, I would not, for the pain of hell cannot be
greater than that which I now feel.

_Devil_.  Faustus, I am pleased with thy courage, and I would sooner hear
what thou hast said than the wild shriek of despair.  Be proud that the
force of thy spirit has carried thee even to madness and blasphemy, for
which the pain of hell awaits thee.  Step out of thy circle; bury that
wretched youth; thy part will then be played here, and thou must begin
another, which will never end.

Faustus climbed the gibbet, and cut the rope from the neck of his son.
He then bore him into a neighbouring field which the plough had lately
turned up, and scratching a grave with his hands, he buried the body of
the unfortunate youth.  He then returned to the Devil, and said, in a
wild tone:

"The measure of my wretchedness is full; break now the vase which can
hold nothing more; but I have yet courage to struggle with thee for my
life.  I will not perish like the slave who yields without resistance to
the might of his master.  Appear to me under whatever form thou wilt, and
I will grapple with thee.  For freedom, for independence, I once drew
thee out of hell; on its verge I will yet assert my right to both; on the
verge of the frightful gulf I will use my strength, and remember that I
once saw thee tremble before my magic circle, when I threatened to
scourge thee with my rod.  The tears which thou seest in my eyes ore
tears of indignation, of hate, and of disgust.  Not the fiend, but my own
heart, triumphs over me.

_Devil_.  Insipid braggart!  With this form I tear off the mask which
belied my courage.  Vengeance is at hand, and Leviathan is himself once
more!

He stood in gigantic stature before him.  His eyes glowed like full-laden
thunder-clouds, which reflect the rays of the descending sun.  The noise
of his breath was like the rushing of the tempest-blast.  The earth
groaned beneath his iron feet.  The storm rustled in his hair, which
waved round his head like the tail from the threatening comet.  Faustus
lay before him like a worm; for the horrible sight had deprived him of
his senses and his strength.  The Devil uttered a contemptuous laugh,
which hissed over the surface of the earth; and seizing the trembling
being, he tore him to pieces, as a capricious boy would tear an insect.
He strewed the bloody members with fury and disgust about the field, and
plunged with the soul into the depths of hell.

The devils were assembled round Satan, who was consulting with his
princes concerning the punishments which should be inflicted upon Pope
Alexander the Sixth.  His crimes, and the last moments of his life, had
been unparalleled, so that even the worst devils found themselves at a
loss to allot him a punishment suitable to his deserts.  The Pope stood
before his judges, who treated him as contemptuously as a tribunal of
princes treats an accused person who has nothing else to recommend him
than his being a man.  All of a sudden Leviathan rushed triumphantly into
the midst, held the soul of Faustus on high, and then hurled it with
violence upon the table, saying:

"There you have Faustus!"

He was received with so loud a bellow of joy, that the damned trembled in
their pools: "Welcome, Prince Leviathan!  There is Faustus!  There is
Faustus!"

_Satan_.  Welcome, prince of hell.  Welcome, Faustus; we have heard
enough of you here.

_Leviathan_.  There he is, Satan; see him yourself.  He has plagued me
not a little, but he has been a good recruit for us, and I hope that thou
art contented with my long sojourn upon earth.  But I entreat thee, for
many centuries to come, to send me no more on such errands; for I am
quite weary of the human race.  I must, however, acknowledge that this
fellow did not badly support the last hour of his life, hard as it was;
but that arose, I suppose, from his having applied himself in his youth
to that philosophy which thou hast taught mankind.

_Satan_.  I thank thee, Prince Leviathan; and I promise thee that thou
shalt long continue with me among the sweet vapours of this place, and
scourge the shades of the great princes of the earth for thy pastime.
Hem! a fine fellow, and seems to have had quite enough of men and things.
Despair, audacity, hate, rancour, agony, and pride, have torn deep
furrows in his soul.  He looks even at us and hell without trembling.
Faustus, art thou become dumb of a sudden?

_Faustus_.  Not from fear, I assure thee.  I have been bold to one much
mightier than thyself, and therefore am I here.

_Satan_.  Hey! carry the saucy hound to the pool of the damned; and after
being soused therein, let him be well scourged by a legion of my most
active pages, in order that he may become a little acquainted with the
rules of these regions.

A devil dragged Faustus to the pool; the legion swarmed after him.

_Leviathan_ (_perceiving the Pope_).  Ah! welcome, Pope Alexander.  I
hope you no longer feel any desire to make a Ganymede of the Devil.

_Pope_ (_sighing_).  No, alas!

_Satan_.  Ha, ha, ha!  This is now a good specimen of the men who at
present ravage the earth; but let them once get to the new world, and
they will make it a theatre of crimes which will put the old one to
shame.

_Pope_.  Would that I could be there too!

_Satan_.  A wish truly worthy of a pope; but console thyself,--thy
countrymen will murder millions of men for their gold.

_Pope_.  What will men not do for gold?

Faustus came back with his fiendish attendants.

_Satan_.  Well, Faustus, how do you like your bath, and those that rubbed
you dry?

_Faustus_.  Maddening and intolerable thought, that the noble and
ethereal part of man must expiate the sins of a body formed of clay!

The devils laughed till the vaults reechoed.

_Satan_.  Bravo, Faustus!  I am convinced, from thy words and behaviour,
that thou art too good for a man.  I am, besides, much indebted to thee
for having invented Printing, that art which is so singularly useful to
us.

_Pope_.  What, a printer!  He gave himself out at my court for a
gentleman, and won my daughter Lucretia!

_Faustus_.  Silence, proud Spaniard.  I paid her richly; and thou wouldst
have prostituted thyself to me for a like sum, if I had been one of thine
own stamp.  My noble invention will sow more good, and will be more
profitable to the human race, than all the popes from St. Peter down to
thyself.

_Satan_.  Thou art mistaken, Faustus.  In the first place, men will rob
thee of the honour of having invented this art.

_Faustus_.  That is worse than damnation.

_Satan_.  Observe now this man: he stands before me, the ruler here, and
holds everlasting torments as nothing when compared with the loss of his
fame and glory, those chimeras of his overheated brain.  In the second
place, Faustus, the shades will descend by hundreds of thousands, will
fall upon thee, and overwhelm thee with curses, for having converted the
little stream which poisoned the human mind into a monstrous flood.  I,
who am the ruler here, and shall gain by it, am therefore thy debtor; and
if thou wilt curse the Eternal, who either could not or would not make
thee better, thou shalt escape the torments of this place, and I will
make thee a prince of my dark kingdom.

_Pope_.  Let me be the first to curse, O Satan; as a pope, I have an
undoubted right to the precedence.

_Satan_.  Observe these men, ye devils, and see how they outdo ye.  No,
Pope; thou didst it when thy lips kissed the feet of my Leviathan.
Choose, Faustus.

Faustus stepped forward; raging despair was engraven in frightful
characters on his shadowy face.  He--!  Who can express what he said?

The devils trembled at his words, and were astonished at his audacity.
Since hell first existed, no such stillness had reigned in the dark,
frightful kingdom, the abode of eternal misery.  Faustus broke it, and
required Satan to fulfil his promise.

_Satan_.  Fool! how canst thou imagine that I, ruler of hell, will keep
my word, as there is no example of a prince of earth ever having kept his
word when he got nothing by so doing?  If thou canst forget that thou art
a man, forget not that thou standest before the Devil.  My fiendish
subjects turned pale at thy temerity; thy horrid words made my firm and
imperishable throne tremble; and I thought for a moment that I had risked
too much.  Away! thy presence makes me uneasy; and thou art a proof that
man can do more than the Devil can bear.  Drag him, ye fiends, into the
most frightful corner; let him there languish in solitude, and madden at
the recollection of his deeds, and of this moment, which he can never
atone for.  Let no shade approach him.  Go, thou accursed one, and hover
alone and abandoned in that land where neither hope, comfort, nor sleep
are found.  Those doubts which have tormented thee in life shall for ever
gnaw thy soul, and no one shall explain to thee that mystery, the pursuit
of which has brought thee here.  This is the most painful punishment of
all to a philosopher like thee.  Drag him away, I repeat; torture him.
Seize that Pope, and plunge him into the hottest pool; for their equals
are not to be found in hell.

After their departure, Satan said to himself, smiling:

"When men wish to represent any thing abominable, they paint the Devil:
let us, therefore, in revenge, when we wish to represent any thing
infamous, depict man; and philosophers, popes, priests, conquerors,
ministers, and authors, shall serve us as models."



Footnotes:


{134}  It is not out of fear that I refrain from giving the names of the
German princes who appear in this work, but because, having discovered
the secret springs of their actions, I should too often have to
contradict their lying, flattering, ignorant historians; and men who
willingly allow themselves to be deceived, might perhaps doubt the truth
of my assertions.  Hercules himself could not clear away all the ordure
which these historians have heaped up.--_Original_.

{249} See _Taxae Cancellariae Apostolicae_, &c., printed at Rome and
Paris.





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