I am is not meant as a criticism, but as a statement. not sure that Marlowe was wrong in so treating his subject; I am only sure that he treated it so. Faustus is disappointed with logic, because it teaches him nothing but debate, with physic, because he cannot with it bring dead men back to life, with law, because it concerns only the "external trash," and with divinity, because it teaches that the reward of sin is death, and that we are all sinners. Seeing advantage in none of these studies, he takes to necromancy, and there finds content; and how? "Faust. How am I glutted with conceit of this! Resolve me of all ambiguities? Perform what desperate enterprise I will? And search all corners of the new-found world There may in this seem something trivial to modern apprehensions, yet Marlowe's audience sympathised with it, having the feelings of an age when witches were burned, when men were commonly supposed to hold communication with infernal spirits, when the price of damnation was present enjoyment. The compact signed, Faustus makes use of his power by scampering over the world, performing practical jokes and vulgar incantations, -knocking down the Pope, making horns sprout on the heads of noblemen," cheating a jockey by selling him a horse of straw, and other equally vulgar tricks, which were just the things the audience would have done had they possessed the power. Tired of his buffooneries, he calls up the vision of Helen; his rapture at the sight is a fine specimen of how Marlowe can write on a fitting occasion. His last hour now arrives: he is smitten with remorse, like many of his modern imitators, when it is too late; sated with his power, he now shudders at the price. After some tragical raving, and powerfully depicted despair, he is carried off by devils. The close is in keeping with the commencement: Faustus is damned because he made the compact. Each part of the bargain is fulfilled; it is a tale of sorcery, and Faustus meets the fate of a sorcerer. The vulgar conception of this play is partly the fault of Marlowe, and partly of his age. It might have been treated quite in conformity with the general belief; it might have been a tale of sorcery, and yet magnificently impressive. What would not Shakespeare have made of it? Nevertheless, we must in justice to Marlowe look also to the state of opinion in his time; and we shall then admit that another and higher mode of treatment would perhaps have been less acceptable to the audience. Had it been metaphysical, they would not have understood it; had the motives of Faustus been more elevated, the audience would not have believed in them. To have saved him at last, would have been to violate the legend, and to outrage their moral sense. For, why should the black arts be unpunished? why should not the sorcerer be damned? The legend was understood in its literal sense, in perfect accordance with the credulity of the audience. The symbolical significance of the legend is entirely a modern creation. Let us now turn to Calderon's “ El Magico Prodigioso," often said to have furnished Goethe with the leading idea of his "Faust," which, however, does not resemble "El Magico" in plot, incidents, situations, characters, or ideas. The "Faustus" of Marlowe has a certain superficial resemblance to the "Faust," because the same legend is adopted in both; but in "El Magico" the legend is altogether different; the treatment different. Calderon's latest editor, Don Eugenio de Ochoa, is quite puzzled to conceive how the notion. of resemblance got into circulation, and gravely declares that it is enteramente infundada. The scene lies in the neighbourhood of Antioch, where, with "glorious festival and song," a temple is being consecrated to Jupiter. Cyprian, a young student, perplexing himself with the dogmas of his religion (polytheism), has retired from the turmoil of the town to enjoy himself in quiet study. Pliny's definition of God is unsatisfactory, and Cyprian is determined on finding a better. A rustling amongst the leaves disturbs him, caused by the demon, who appears in the dress of a cavalier. They commence an argument, Cyprian pointing out the error of polytheism, the demon maintaining his truth. We see that Cyprian has been converted to monotheism a step toward his conversion to Christianity; and this conversion operated by the mere force of truth, this change of opinion resulting from an examination of polytheism, was doubtless flattering to Calderon's audience, a flattery carried to its acme in the feeble defence of the demon, who on his entrance declares, aside, that Cyprian shall never find the truth. Calderon would not let the devil have the best of the argument even for a moment. Instead of the "spirit that denies," he presents us with a malignant fiend, as impotent as he is malignant, a fiend who acknowledges himself worsted in the argument, and who resolves to con quer by lust the student whom he cannot delude by sophisms. He has power given him to wage enmity against Justina's soul; he will make Justina captivate Cyprian, and with one blow effect two vengeances. We need not point out the dissimilarity between such a fiend and the fiend Mephistopheles. Cyprian is left alone to study, but is again interrupted by the quarrel of Lelio and Floro, two of his friends, who, both enamoured of Justina, have resolved to decide their rivalry by the sword. Cyprian parts them, and consents to become arbiter. He then undertakes to visit Justina in order to ascertain to whom she gives the preference. In this visit he falls in love with her himself. There is an underplot, in which Moscon, Clarin, and Libia, according to the usual style of Spanish comedies, parody the actions and sentiments of their masters; I omit it, as well as the other scenes which do not bear on the subject-matter of the drama. Justina, a recent convert to Christianity, is the type of Christian innocence. She rejects Cyprian's love, as she had rejected that of her former admirers. This coldness exasperates him: Between my love and jealousy, And so convulsed with hope and fear, So bitter is the life I live That, hear me, Hell! I now would give To thy most detested spirit My soul, for ever, to inherit, To suffer punishment and pine, So this woman may be mine. Hear'st thou, Hell? Dost thou reject it? My soul is offered. Demon (unseen). I accept it. [Tempest, with thunder and lightning.” In another writer we might pause to remark on the "want of keeping" in making a polytheist address such a prayer to hell; but Calderon is too full of such things to cause surprise at any individual instance. The storm rages, a ship goes down at sea; the demon enters as a shipwrecked passenger, and says aside: "It was essential to my purposes To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean, Cyprian addresses words of comfort to him on his misfortune; the demon says it is in vain to hope for comfort, since all is lost that gave life value. He then tells his story; describing, by means of a very transparent equivocation, the history of his rebellion in heaven and his chastisement. In the course of his narrative he insinuates his power of magic, hoping to awaken in Cyprian's breast a love of the art. Cyprian offers him the hospitality due to a stranger, and they quit the scene. In their next scene the demon asks Cyprian the reason of his constant melancholy. This is an opportunity for the display of fustian, never let slip by a Spanish dramatist. Cyprian describes his mistress. and his passion for her with the volubility of a lover, and the taste of an Ossian. He very circumstantially informs the demon that the "partes que componen á esta divina muger". the charms which adorn this paragonare the charms of Aurora, of fleecy clouds. and pearly dews, of balmy gales and early roses, of meandering rivulets and glittering stars, of warbling birds and crystal rocks, of laurels and of sunbeams; and so forth through the space of more than fifty lines, in a style to captivate magazine poets, and to make |