consequences, and leagues himself with demoniacal power, with
"fate and metaphysical aid." The idea of witchcraft and necro-
mancy, once the dread of the vulgar and the darling of the vision-
ary recluse, seems to have had its origin in the restless tendency
of the human mind, to conceive of and aspire to more than it can
achieve by natural means, and in the obscure apprehension that
the gratification of this extravagant and unauthorized desire can
only be attained by the sacrifice of all our ordinary hopes and
better prospects, to the infernal agents that lend themselves to
its accomplishment. Such is the foundation of the present story.
Faustus, in his impatience to fulfil at once and for a moment, for
a few short years, all the desires and conceptions of his soul, is
willing to give in exchange his soul and body to the great enemy
of mankind. Whatever he fancies, becomes by this means pre-
sent to his sense: whatever he commands, is done. He calls
back time past, and anticipates the future: the visions of antiquity
pass before him, Babylon in all its glory, Paris and Enone: all
the projects of philosophers, or creations of the poet, pay tribute
at his feet all the delights of fortune, of ambition, of pleasure,
and of learning are centred in his person; and from a short-lived
dream of supreme felicity and drunken power, he sinks into an
abyss of darkness and perdition. This is the alternative to which
he submits; the bond which he signs with his blood! As the
outline of the character is grand and daring, the execution is
abrupt and fearful. The thoughts are vast and irregular; and
the style halts and staggers under them, "with uneasy steps;"-
"such footing found the sole of unblest feet." There is a little
fustian and incongruity of metaphor now and then, which is not
very injurious to the subject. It is time to give a few passages
in illustration of this account. He thus opens his mind at the
beginning:

"How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please?
Resolve me of all ambiguities?

Perform what desperate enterprize I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,

Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,

And search all corners of the new-found world

For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.

I'll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings:
I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg;
I'll have them fill the public schools with skill,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces:
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp bridge,
I'll make my servile spirit to invent.

Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS.

Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,

And make me blest with your sage conference.
Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,

Know that your words have won me at the last
To practise magic and concealed arts.
Philosophy is odious and obscure;

Both Law and Physic are for petty wits;
'Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish'd me.
Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;
And I, that have with subtle syllogisms
Gravell'd the pastors of the German church,
And made the flow'ring pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems, as th' infernal spirits
On sweet Musæus when he came to hell;
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,

Whose shadow made all Europe honour him.

Valdes. These books, thy wit, and our experience

Shall make all nations to canonize us.

As Indian Moors obey their Spanish lords,

So shall the spirits of every element

Be always serviceable to us three.

Like Lions shall they guard us when we please;
Like Almain Rutters with their horseman's staves,
Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides:

Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows

Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love.

From Venice they shall drag whole argosies,

And from America the golden fleece,

That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury*;

If learned Faustus will be resolute.

* An anachronism.

Faustus. As resolute am I in this

As thou to live, therefore object it not."

In his colloquy with the fallen angel, he shows the fixedness of his determination :

"What! is great Mephostophilis so passionate

For being deprived of the joys of heaven ?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,

And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess."

Yet we afterwards find him faltering in his resolution, and struggling with the extremity of his fate :

My heart is harden'd, I cannot repent:

Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven;
Swords, poisons, halters, and envenom'd steel
Are laid before me to dispatch myself;

And long ere this I should have done the deed,
Had not sweet pleasure conquer'd deep despair.
Have I not made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Enon's death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes
With ravishing sounds of his melodious harp,
Made music with my Mephostophilis ?
Why should I die then or basely despair?
I am resolv'd, Faustus shall not repent.

Come, Mephostophilis, let us dispute again,
And reason of divine astrology."

There is one passage more of this kind, which is so striking and beautiful, so like a rapturous and deeply passionate dream, that I cannot help quoting it here it is the address to the Apparition of Helen.

Enter HELEN again, passing over between two Cupids.
Faustus. Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless tow'rs of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

Her lips suck forth my soul! See where it flics.
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for Heav'n is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.

-Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars:
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter,
When he appeared to hapless Semele ;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azure arms;

And none but thou shalt be my paramour."

The ending of the play is terrible, and his last exclamations betray an anguish of mind and vehemence of passion not to be contemplated without shuddering:

Perhaps the finest trait in the whole play, and that which softens and subdues the horror of it, is the interest taken by the two scholars in the fate of their master, and their unavailing attempts to dissuade him from his relentless career. The regard to learning is the ruling passion of this drama, and its indications are as mild and amiable in them as its ungoverned pursuit has been fatal to Faustus.

"Yet, for he was a scholar once admir'd

For wondrous knowledge in our German schools,
We'll give his mangled limbs due burial;
And all the students, clothed in mourning black,
Shall wait upon his heavy funeral."

So the Chorus:

"Cut is the branch that might have grown full strait,
And burned is Apollo's laurel bough,

That sometime grew within this learned man."

And still more affecting are his own conflicts of mind and agonizing doubts on this subject just before, when he exclaims to his friends: "Oh, gentlemen! Hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches. Though my heart pant and quiver to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years; oh! would I had never seen Wittenberg, never read book!" A finer compliment was never paid, nor a finer lesson ever read to the pride of learning. The intermediate comic parts, in which Faustus is not directly concerned, are mean and grovelling to the last degree. One of the Clowns says to another, "Snails! what hast got there? A book? Why thou can'st not tell ne'er a word on't." Indeed, the ignorance and barbarism of the time, as here described, might almost justify Faustus's overstrained admiration of learning, and turn the heads of those who possessed it from novelty and unaccustomed excitement, as the Indians are made drunk with wine! Goethe, the German poet, has written a drama on this tradition of his country, which is considered a master-piece. I cannot find in Marlowe's play, any proofs of the atheism or impiety attributed to him, unless the belief in witchcraft and the Devil can be regarded as such; and at the time he wrote, not to have believed in both would have been construed into the rankest atheism and irreligion. There is a delight, as Mr. Lamb says, "in dallying with interdicted subjects;" but that does not, by any means, imply either a practical or speculative disbelief of them.

'Lust's Dominion, or The Lascivious Queen,' is referable to the same general style of writing; and is a striking picture, or rather caricature of the unrestrained love of power, not as