A world of happiness and misery; heaven Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose His seat and place my foot triumphantly So powerful in its features and individuality is the portrait of Satan drawn and painted by Milton, that one cannot suppose he was at all indebted to "El Magico Prodigioso" for the hero of "Paradise Lost; but the coincidence is surely very remarkable, and remarkable also as never having been noticed before, so far as I am aware: but I say this under correction. The Demon proceeds in a strain equally Miltonic: Nor was I alone, Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone; and other celebrated men who had a "familiar demon" in frequent attendance, we may regard it as pretty certain that the sale of the human soul to the Devil in order to obtain forbidden knowledge, together with magic powers enabling the possessor to work wonders, and also to obtain unlimited enjoyments of life during a specified number of years, originated in German country towns, and probably in the form of itinerant plays and puppetshows, as early as 1404. Some of these, or of similar kind, were subsequently printed. There was the " Wahrhaftigen Historien von denen gräulichen Sünden Dr. Johann Faustens; Hamburgh, 1599. There was "Doctor Faustus, von J. Widman," printed in Berlin 1587, and another in the same year by Spiess. Plays on this subject, if not printed, were acted in travelling shows in Poland and in France; and it was probably not long after this period that Marlowe wrote his tragedy, and had it produced on the stage,. though it seems not to have been printed till some years later. This subject was produced in various forms during the next twenty years; but it is remarkable how closely they all held to the main principle of the early legend. A curious old theatrical pamphlet is now before me, entitled "The Necromancer, or Harlequin Doctor Faustus, as performed at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Printed and sold at the bookseller's shop at the corner of Searle Street, and by A. Dodd at the Peacock, without And there was hope, and there may still be Temple Bar. 1723." It is preceded by hope, For many suffrages among his vassals With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven, We must admit that Shelley's translation, being in his stately and harmonious blank verse, makes the resemblance to Milton far greater than the asonante lyrics of the original (or those of the literal translation of Mr. MacCarthy for neither of them sound at all like Milton); the sense and purport, however, is not affected by the difference in the genius and style of the two languages. Without searching ancient classic times, or times yet more remote, for philosophers "The Vocal Parts of the Entertainment." The reader of the present day, having be fore his mind the vulgar comic stuff that is "said and sung" at three-fourths or more of the London theatres, and at ninetenths of our provincial theatres, and of the theatres in all English-speaking countries- for which London managers are directly answerable will naturally anticipate that these "vocal parts," introductory to the necromantic entertainment of" Harlequin Doctor Faustus," can be nothing else than a burlesque, and one of the most unmitigated kind. It is no such thing. The title, no doubt, is not a little misleading; but the treatment of the old legend is worthy of all respect, as the opening scene will testify: Break off in time; pursue no more Faustus, go on !- That fear is vain: Till knowledge make thee deem'd a god. [Good and Bad Spirits disappear. The Doctor uses magical motions, and an Infernal Spirit rises. This infernal spirit informs the doctor that his spells have been successful, and that the "King of Night" proposes to divide his power with the magician. The infernal spirit then significantly shows a paper. The good spirit again appears, and warns Faustus; but in vain, and we then have the following INCANTATION. Arise! ye subtle forms that sport Around the throne of sable night, Whose pleasures in her silent court Are unprofaned with baleful light. As the doctor still hesitates to sign the fatal "paper," the infernal spirit "strikes the table, and it appears covered with gold, crowns, sceptres, etc." All sorts of promises are then made, and finally the apparition of the beautiful Helen of Troy is called up. The doctor's scruples being overcome by that, he is "preparing to address Helen with fondness," when the infernal spirit "interposes," and, conditionally, "offers the paper!" The doctor "gazing at Helen " signs the bond, but after this, on "attempting to approach Helen," she vanishes, together with the infernal spirit, "who sinks laughing," in the most dishonorable manner. The next scene is called" The Doctor's School of Magic;" and pupils are seated on each side of the stage to receive lessons, and "see the power of his art." Not much, however, comes of this, even though the phantom of the Stygian ferryman, Charon, proposes to show them "ghosts of every occupation." We are not favored in this old theatrical curiosity with an account of the " Harlequinade," which is to follow; and as we know nothing of the scenery, the dresses, and the music, it is impossible to form any judgment or conjecture as to its effect as a stage representation. My only object was to make apparent the earnestness with which this old necromantic legend was treated by all parties. Even the prose stories had a grim air of reality about them. In an old pamphlet I picked up when a child, one of the feats of magic performed by Dr. Faustus was during a walk in the high 66 road near a little market-town, when, for a 'pleasant wager" with some friend, he stops a wagoner, and "eats a load of hay." A moment never to be forgotten, from its startling effect upon the imagination of childhood, on reading-all in secret - the heading of one of the chapters, "Doctor Faustus eats a load of hay!" With devouring eyes we read the account of the preposterously impossible performance, and more than half believed it. That scenes of comedy, even of low comedy, and occasionally broad farce, have been introduced in the great majority of the numerous dramas that have been written on this subject, is well known. Even the classic Spanish of "El Magico Prodigioso" is made to stoop from its dignified earnestness and poetical altitude to indulge in several of the dullest attempts at fun, and the dreariest of humor, except in the malignant gymnastics of the demon in his several manoeuvres to destroy the reputation of Justina. The "jovial fellows" in Auerbach's cellar, and certain. other characters in Goethe's "Faust," are also introduced with a view to variety and relief; and the same may be urged in justification of the broad, and coarse, as well as farcical scenes introduced in Marlowe's tragedy. But with regard to these latter offences, a very acceptable exoneration may be discovered. We find it in old records of his time that one "William Bride, and one Samuel Rowled received £4 for their adycions to Dr. Faustus, in 1602,"-i.e., before its first publication in quarto, and probably before it was acted. The ears of the "groundlings" of that day required to be tickled with stuff of that sort, just as in our own day the eyes, both of the groundlings and the upperlings, require or are constantly assumed by managers to require a grossness of an equal though a different kind. It is fairly open to opinion that Marlowe did not write the coarse nonsense in the above drama, although he may have interpolated a passage or two. For instance, - the doctor having had a quarrel with Mephistopheles on some question of astronomy, is abruptly left by the latter, and then Faustus calls upon Christ "to save distresséd Faustus' soul!" Whereupon, Lucifer and Belzebub, having been apprised by Mephistopheles of the danger of losing their prey, enter suddenly to bring him to his senses. With this view they "entertain" him with a sight of the Seven Deadly Sins, who appear in succession. One of these (viz., Envy) is certainly not unworthy of Marlowe, in his grotesque vein: I am Envy! begotten of a chimney-sweep | pathetically reminds him, while they are and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and there- both in the condemned cell, that she had fore wish all books burned. I am lean with said she could only love him in death, and seeing others eat. O that there would come a that now she is ready to fulfil her promise. famine all over the world! that all might die, They both declare themselves prepared to and I live alone. Then thou should'st see endure any tortures, and Cyprian grandly how fat I'd be! But (to Lucifer) must thou sit while I stand? Come down with a ven- adds that one who has given his soul for geance! her, should make light of giving up his body to God. Among other entertaining things Faustus wishes to have a good look at Hell. He exclaims to Lucifer in passionate accents, "Oh, might I see Hell-and return again safe - how happy were I then!" After this we have more vulgar tricks, not so much like magic for the "lower orders," as conjuring tricks for country clowns; and all this we may, without offence, set down to the account of the £4 paid to "right wittie" Master W. Bride, and the very worthy and ingenious Master Rowled, for their pleasant "adycions." It may be asked, how did Marlowe relish this? Why, just as Shakespeare relished, or disregarded, the many interpolations made in his plays. Besides, these things were continually done. In those days, they didn't care a straw about such matters. But the profound tragic pathos and power of Marlowe begins to show itself as he is approaching the closing scenes of the tragedy. His Mephistopheles has previously displayed, occasionally, both pathos and dignity; and Milton found some thoughts worthy of being placed in the mouth of his grand Satan. In one of the early scenes, the devil says, in reply to a question about the infernal regions: Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed MARLOWE'S Faustus. The closing movements in "El Magico Prodigioso" are conducted with great dignity and impassioned earnestness. Cyprian has sold his soul to the demon for various services to be rendered; but, by a puzzling kind of theological contradiction, he is doomed to die, not in fulfilment of his contract with the demon, but by public execution as one of the early Christian martyrs of Antioch. How the fiend could allow this to happen is perplexing, for surely he must have known that it would be very difficult to carry off the soul of a man who had earned the crown of martyrdom. Justina also abjures the gods of her country, and dies on the scaffold as a convert to Christianity. Having always refused herself to Cyprian in life, she very Soon after this scene a terrible storm shakes the whole city, to the dismay of the to crowd round him in the hall of justice. governor, and all the people who appear The last scene then opens, and discovers bodies of Cyprian and Justina are seen; a scaffold, upon which the heads and while in the air above them the demon is seated upon a winged serpent. He addresses the spectators, declaring the purity of Justina, and that the two martyrs sacred throne of God," who commands have ascended to the "spheres of the him, most unwillingly, to make this an nouncement. The demon than darts downward under the earth; but the pagan religion, assures the people that what governor, standing firm for the State they have just seen and heard are the enchantments effected as the last despairing act of the wicked Cyprian. Gov. Todos estos son encantos, - In the preternatural workmanship — the diablerie of Goethe- the close and vivid familiarity with thaumaturgic scenes of picturesque glamor, as well as fast and frantic revels - not to speak of the apparently intimate knowledge of the secret movements of the devil's mind, prodigally displayed in his "Faust" with all the dialogues, characters, scenery, songs, and choruses in the "Walpurgisnacht"— the great German poet may fairly be said to surpass every other; and, indeed, to put all others, except Shakespeare, far into the shade. The comical devilries interpolated in Marlowe's “Faustus" are mere clownish pretences in comparison; and even the mountain-moving and other encantaciones in Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso" are poor enough beside what is seen, said, sung, and done, after the Ignis Fatuus has led Faust and Mephistopheles into the The thor did not intend him to make good his damnatory bond at this time seems evident, by this close of the drama, and next by his writing a second part. "true witch element" of the Hartz Moun- | unfairly considered, as a clearly intelligible tains on May-day night. This is the very matter, to end with the first part. Margaperfection of realized unreality in high ret cries out with horror that Mephistophfantastic incantations. But what are we to eles is coming to bear her away. make of the last scene of this tragedy, fiend calls to Faust to come to his side, or whether we take it from the first part (as he will leave him in the same predicament is usually done) or from the second part? as Margaret, who, he says, has been As to the last scene in Marlowe's tragedy, "judged." But a "voice from above says it is worthy of special note that with re-she is saved!" That is, Eternal Justice gard to the three heroes of these three recognizes the fact that, whatever may extraordinary tragedies, in which each have been her wrong-doings, they were hero has, by a bond sealed with his blood, really attributable to her brain-seething, sold his soul to the devil-not through a seductive lover the theological roué, juggle, but by direct intention - Marlowe's Faust. And what becomes of him? man is the only one who is really damned. Why, the fiend now becomes his guardian The other two, by one means or other, are genius, having previously warned him not "saved;" but an Elizabethan dramatist to stay and share the expected doom of was not likely to play at fast and loose, Margaret, and calling him to his side, and he therefore "gives the devil his due," | vanishes with him! That the great auand allows him to take full possession of his horror-stricken bondman. This is preceded by agonizing mental struggles and writhings to avoid what he knows to be inevitable; and few things can be more If any great author of a former date touching than the amiability and unselfish- could uplift his head from the tomb, and ness now brought out for the first time, note with astonishment what was said as by the uprooting of his Inmost depths about him and his works at the present of feeling with which Faustus reverts to day, it may safely be assumed that no ashis early love of study among his dear tonishment could surpass that of Master fellow-students; while he now wishes from William Shakespeare. And this feeling his heart, with scalding tears, that he had would probably rise to its height on find"never seen Wittenberg never read ing that Dr. Hermann Ulrici has proved book." And then, a few hours before that Shakespeare had, though midnight, he begs his friends not to im-sciously, a special ethical, philosophical, or peril their own lives by coming in to his theological design in each of his principal assistance, whatever cries and screams plays!* Something not unlike this might they may hear, "for nothing can save him." They take a last farewell, and Faustus calls upon the "hours" to stand still. "O lente, lente, currite Noctis equi!" The whole of this final scene is worked up with a dreadful power of ideal realization that perhaps surpasses every other scene in the entire range of tragic composition. "See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!" He calls upon Christ, and madly endeavours to "leap up"- but something" pulls him down"! If tragic terror and the profoundest pathos of pity ever attained their utmost limits, they certainly do so in this closing scene, wherein he cries: - O Soul, be changed into small water-drops, And fall into the ocean!-ne'er be found! We have seen how the hero of "El Magico Prodigioso" escapes from his bondholder. Let us now see how it fares with the Faust of the great German poet. We shall have a word or two to say as to the close of the second part; but, by common literary consent, the tragedy is not uncon perhaps be expected in the case of Goethe, and more particularly with regard to the second part of "Faust." All the English critics, as well as the translators " fight shy" of it, so that really the great majority of foreign readers scarcely know of its existence. But a deep-seeing, subtly inventive and expounding genius at length came to light in the person of William Kyle. His cabalistic book is entitled "An Exposition of the Symbolic Terms of the Second Part of Faust;'" which "proves itself to be a dramatic treatment of the modern history of Germany."† Alluding to this second part, a writer in the Satur day Review observed that it was too hopelessly mystical" not to find a great number of profound admirers in Germany. One of these students and a sincere one, let us frankly and unhesitatingly admit, is Herr Kyle. To examine this remarkably German book is of course impossible in 66 this paper. We can only observe that an | three philosophical heroes of these three elucidatory diagram is given in the page wonderful dramas have obtained by forbidpreceding the introduction, something like den and perilous means. Beyond personal a trapezium, or rather an imperfect square enjoyments and sundry magic pranks, they with nothing inside; and we must then really seem not to have had the least proceed at one vigorous dash through all idea what to do with their new faculties the physical elements, and their respective and endowments. Mr. Hewlett, in a resymbolic signification, etc., and come to cently published essay on "The Devil in the last act. We are here informed that English Poetry," remarks, and for the "Faust has already accomplished a part of first time we believe, that the various acts his prescribed task." "This consisted in of Marlowe's Faustus in necromantic travhemming the bounds of the sea." This els and tricks are so comparatively trifling rather bold figure of rhetoric is explained that the tragic scene of his terrific death to mean "rendering it more adapted for seems almost like an anti-climax. This the service of the rational man; i.e., the is a pregnant piece of criticism; for I great ocean of (religious) sentiment ex- consider that the same thing may very isting in the breast of the German na- nearly be said of the other two great tion." And this task "attracted the atten- dramas on this subject. What use do the tion of ideal genius since the year 1750." philosophical heroes make of their preterThe great names of Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, natural powers? The best things done Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach, Strauss, and that is, the most poetical of them— others are then adduced as apostles of this are where Marlowe's Faustus exclaims, work, which was to culminate in Faust!"Have I not made blind Homer sing to He is the ideal genius of rationalism, as me?"-when he has heard the "melodious Mephisto is "the spirit of religious dog-harp (of Orpheus) that built the walls of matism." The era of "ideal toleration Thebes; "- and when we witness his now begins, and" (without a word about real toleration)" Faust is reconciled to the imagination of the world at large." How this fine finishing up releases him from his soul's bond one cannot well perceive; but we are now told that "he ascends into heaven, guided by the ideal of eternal love." It is added, casually, that "royalty, aristocracy, and the Church, are no more visible. Henceforth, ideal genius is to be regarded as the sacred power of the world at large." Finally (and it is with extreme preparations and difficulty that we are allowed ever to get to any finality) Margaret pleads for her lover and seducer, who caused her evil-doing and pathetically tragic death, and "appeals to the higher power in heaven to the ideal of Eternal jove." rapturous love-scene with Helen of Troy. The rest of his thaumaturgic feats are, for the most part, coarse nonsense, whoever wrote them. In" El Magico Prodigioso we hear of mountains being made to shift sides of trees being frightened at the menacing groans Cyprian utters - that flowers faint away that the birds hush their sweet melodies at his weighty incantations (prodigios graves) that wild beasts are dazzled and confused, etc.; and after all this, Cyprian says boastively he has now made it evident that his estudio infernal has not been in vain! In fact, he is now able to teach his master (que puedo dar leccion & mi maestro). All the necromantic things Faust does, or gets done for him by Mephistopheles in Auerbach's cellar, in the Hartz Mountains, or elsewhere, are of no greater importance than the above, when we think of the dreadful price he has agreed to pay for them. If this view be accepted, we may say, and with profoundest respect for the "dead kings of melody," that another fable of Faustus may yet be imagined, though not very easily written. Thus : extreme personal enjoyments and egoistical triumphs can only charm for a few years; and the world around needs all sorts of improvements and peaceful glories. When thou hast obtained preternatural power, O Faustus of a nobler time! what wilt thou do with it? R. H. HORNE. |