Elizabethan dramatists: Marlows̓ "Dr. Faustus", Jonsons̓ "Every man in his humour", Beaumont and Fletchers̓ "Philaster"

Contents

PAGE

Introduction vii

Keats's " Lines on the Mermaid Tavern " . xvi

Introduction

It is not the purpose of this introduction to trace the history of English drama from its origin, but rather to present as briefly as may be the conditions in which that marvellous production of Elizabethan days came forth. We must pass by the old liturgical plays, the mysteries, miracles, interludes, and masks that served as forerunners of the perfected form. The lines between tragedy and comedy had been fixed, and the struggle between classic and romantic types was well on when Marlowe " of the mighty line " went to London " to find his fortune, not to make it."

The causes of that tremendous burst of lyrical and dramatic splendor are in part conjectural. Literature is an expression of life, national and individual ; and whenever there comes to the individual or to society a realization and recognition of self, there comes also the expression of that idea. Neither conception nor expression can be dragged or driven, cajoled or coaxed. Conditions and men are equally essential.

In the days of Elizabeth, England awoke to a new consciousness of her greatness and power. The person was reborn and became an individual, confident of his own and of his country's strength. The world was large, but Drake had sailed around it and brought safely back his treasure-laden vessel. What hmit could be placed to man's effort ? Mighty issues were at stake ; the days were full of adventure ; ambition was almost boundless. New lands were discovered.

vii viii INTR on UCTION.

A bold commerce brought not only the merchandise but the bewildering legends from the people of the East. The sway of one religion had passed and men governed themselves by new beliefs. The courtier, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the soldier, — lived in one man. The versatiHty of Sidney, Bacon, Raleigh and a host of others bears amazing testimony. Men were stirred as they had never been before nor since. Romance seemed reality, and life romantic.

The spirit thus engendered demanded a free course and full expression. The accomplishment of the reformation, the repulse of Spain, and the enlightenment of the renaissance made its power resistless. The new learning took quick root, sprang up, and flourished. Classical study was adapted to modern thought ; translations of the Bible were developing a perfection of English speech ; and English travellers and students seized eagerly the lore and legends of Italy, France, and Germany. Every source was laid under contribution. Materials were thus collected for a splendid art of some sort : what that art should be, the national conditions and native genius of the English people soon determined. The stage for the display of the new-found knowledge was found in the romantic drama which from the first was close to the hearts of the people and soon displaced other forms of art, — painting, sculpture, architecture. The drama in England was the main outlet for the energy acquired from the renaissance of the South and the reformation of the North.

In answer to this call, a host of playwrights made their way to London. Kyd, Nash, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, Munday, Lodge, Chettle, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakspere — where shall such a catalogue

INTR OD UCTION. IX

end? They were authors and actors alike, bound in good fellowship and genial feeling ; hale fellows, all of them, rich while a shilling remained in pocket, careless alike of poverty or wealth, and never anxious beyond the moment. They drank too much, lived lives all too fast, and their short years were quickly run.i Liberty still meant ugly license, and life was careless, exuberant, unrestrained, lawless. Many a tavern reechoed to rollicking songs through many a merry night. Most famous is the " Mermaid, " where the literary clique gathered for the common carousal of wine and wit.

" What things have we seen — ...

Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit into a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life."

The business of playwright was the only lucrative literary occupation of the day. The demand for plays exceeded the supply so that a ready market awaited every product. Prices were not high, it is true, but money was worth more then than now. In the early days, four pounds, from twenty-five to thirty now, was an average price. Later ten pounds were given, and this according to one of Ben Jonson''s characters^ became the customary price. The author was closely connected with some one theatre and company of actors. All that he wrote belonged to the theatre and formed a part of its library — its most valuable property.

1 Xyd died at thirty-eight, Nash at thirty-four, Peele at thirty-nine, Greene at thirty-two, Marlowe at twenty-nine,

2 Chrisoganus, in Histriomastix.

X INTR OD UCTION.

Piracy was of course exceedingly common ; indeed, the theft of his work by some rival company or unprincipled publisher was one of the chief vexations of the Elizabethan dramatist. He had but little security against the theft and no redress if the crime were committed. Of the early group, those commonly called Shakspere's predecessors all, with the exception possibly of Peele, were actors. Their business had the cordial approval and support of queen and court, and they were no less popular with the varied classes of people who made up an Elizabethan audience.

A motley crowd assembled in "the fields." These were London's suburbs, where stood the Globe, the Curtain, the Rose, and Blackfriars, forced beyond the immediate rule of the Lord Mayor by Puritan dissatisfaction. But the distance and discomfort mattered nothing. 'Prentices, journeymen, fops, courtiers, and noblemen came to see and hear. For the play was the thing, rich in fervid eloquence and beautiful description. A penny gained admission and twopence would buy a place among the groundlings or " stinkards," as the poorer frequenters of public theatres were called. Among them, apples, nuts, and beer circulated freely. The wealthier and more fastidious might for sixpence sit in a box above, or perchance might give a shilling and have a three-legged stool or "tripod "upon the stage — a custom annoying to both actors and spectators, for the gallants who followed this plan had consideration for no one. Performances began about three in the afternoon and continued until five or thereabouts.

On days when plays were to be presented a flag was floated from the theatre roof. As the hour approached drums were beaten, and as a final signal

INTR OD UCTION. XI

there was a flourish of trumpets. Playbills were used to announce the show, those in red letters indicating tragedy. The Prologue, in a black mantle, with a flowing wig and crowned with bays, ambled on the stage and begged attention, even then grudgingly given. There were many interruptions in the nature of fights between the tripod fops and the stinkards. Curses were exchanged and apples hurled back and forth. Card-playing whiled away time until the play itself began.

The stage and the theatre were themselves poor affairs, hardly conceivable in these later days of elegant mountings and wonderful settings. Even court performances, upon which vast sums of money were expended, rested largely for effect upon dance-groupings, tableaux, and processions. There was barely any scenery and only the simplest sort of setting was known. The stage was narrow, and projected out into the yard, so that the actors were surrounded by the spectators. There was no perspective, no illusion ; the event presented became a reahty shared equally by audience and actor. The action was adorned by no art of stage-craft.

Under such unfavorable conditions was created a dramatic literature, equalled but once and never surpassed. The old traditions of dramatic construction would not answer. The defenders of Aristotle, Seneca, Plautus, and Terence fought valiantly, but their cause in England was hopeless from the beginning. The earliest dramas, and indeed all the critics including Sidney, favored the form which obeyed the classic laws. Stage limitations likewise defended the same structure ; but the people preferred romance, and the people always win. In France the struggle was proxii INTRODUCTION.

The new spirit would not tolerate the old rigor. A new muse was invoked. She had never heard of Parnassus, nor dreamed of the heights of Olympus. She had not even a name. Marlowe was still playing truant at the Canterbury School, and, with Avon's fields and forests and larks, Shakspere was learning his " native wood-notes wild." All nature and all forms of life were her domain. She was found in all the haunts of men — palace, market, church, shop, tavern, and street. Good and evil, hearts and minds, action and passion, all were in her province. Thus she was a sovereign all potent and swayed the destiny of a perfect art.

The muse of romantic drama was no niggard. She scattered her favors lavishly among her worshippers. Ill-tempered, misanthropic Greene, courtly Lyly, and complacent, scholarly Jonson were charmed alike. With Fletcher she tripped daintily through flowerykirtled meads along his "primrose path "; she shuddered with Webster among his yew trees, ghouls, and charnel-houses ; laughed at Shirley's sparkling wit ; and wept with Ford o'er sweet Calantha's broken heart. Her faults were those of youth and ignorance, and the mere fact that she was unlearned in the maze of classic art made her worthy to become the " muse of modern drama."

In defence of the new spirit and in reverence for its muse the work of Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher was done. It was Marlowe who, in the twenty-nine years that spanned his life, crystallized the amorphous efforts of his predecessors. He knew what he wanted to do and lost no time in setting

INTRODUCTION. xm

about his task. It is no uncertain note that rings in the prologue of his first play ; it is the definite, determined purpose of the conscious artist.

" From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits, And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, We '11 lead you to the stately tent of war, Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine Threatening the world with high astounding terms. And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword. View but his picture in this tragic glass, And then applaud his fortune as you please."

Marlowe did what he here promised. He gave the drama a new form of verse, he put popular material in classic form and carried both to a high level of perfection. Lacking Marlowe, there had been no explainable Shakspere. Life that was huge, tense, and quivering went into the " jigging veins " of his verse. Herein is the shadow of Marlowe's most patent characteristic, — what Dr. Symonds calls his " love of the impossible." Tamburlaine would conquer the world : Faustus craved all knowledge for his domain : Mortimer would have no less than Edward's queen and England's crown : Barabas is a type of superhuman lust and greed. His characters are all Titans who aim at supreme power and covet the impossible.

Jonson's work was contemporary with Shakspere's. In acquired ability he surpassed all his fellows and among our poets is second only to Milton. His range of reading was far wider than the Greek and Latin classics usually read in his day. He knew at first hand the philosophers, historians, poets, and a later field of literature including Agrippa, Paracelsus. Erasmus, Rabelais ; and had a fair knowledge of German. His tragedies, comedies, and masks are rich in exam-

XIV INTR OD UC TION.

pies of the learning prized in the universities. He is proud of his learning, excusably so perhaps, and boasts that he but seldom " condescends to imitate a modern author."

And he knew life full well. Before he became an actor and author he had been a student, a tradesman, and a soldier. He had travelled far. Flanders, France, and England were familiar. Nobles, scholars, bookmen were his associates, and he was " lord of misrule " at the Mermaid and in the Apollo room at the "Devil." The technicalities of theology, law, science, alchemy, and the cant of all trades, casts, and Bohemianism were the common tools of his work.

Critics have cavilled at his learning, but it was \ neither learning nor knowledge of life that made him a great dramatist. It was rather the application of these powers under the direction of a lofty purpose and great genius. He had a noble conception of his work — the applause of the moment was never the end of his aspiration. "To maintain the dignity of tragedy on the level of what he recognizes as its highest models ; and in comedy to hold the mirror up to the ridiculous foibles and vices of human nature by realistically reproducing its most striking types of this description; — these are the ends which he consciously pursues." ^ In him were united the scholar, and the man of action — such an one as must have made warm the heart of the Concord seer.

Shakspere's work was nearly if not wholly done when Beaumont and Fletcher began to write. They belong distinctly to the group of later Elizabethans. Both were well born and educated and " must have moved with ease, and as equals, among the gently 1 Ward : English Dramatic Literature, Vol. II., p. 400.

INTR OD UCTION. XV

born and bred." Their productive power is amazing. Themes, tragic and comic, seemed equally welcome and each was treated with a power rarely surpassed even in that marvellous age.

They had, of course, the advantage of their predecessors' experience. The work of Shakspere must have been known to them, and at the outset of their careers we know that both were admirers and esteemed friends of the learned Jonson. They therefore had the chance and, still better were able, to profit by the failures, and shortcomings of the older generation. The best specimens of dramatic composition were before their eyes ; they had wide range in choice of subjects and freely availed themselves of every opportunity.

And now, as these pages go to press, comes the welcome news that Elizabethan drama is to be revived. May Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and a host of others give light and pleasure to multitudes who to-day know them not.

Utica, N.Y., February, 1903.

KEATS'S LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.

SOULS of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine?

Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison ? O generous food !

Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day Mine host's sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till An astrologer's old quill To a sheepskin gave the story, Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new old-sign Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

xvi ^

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS.

By Christopher Marlowe.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.

" Of all that he hath written to the stage his ' Dr. Faustus ' hath made the greatest noise with its Devils, and such like tragical sport." So wrote Edward Phillips, 1675, '^^ h^s Theatriun Poetaru7n Anglicaiioruni. Contemporary opinion has the same trend ; and critics of a later day — Lamb, Hazlitt, Lewes, Cunningham, Ellis, Courthope, Saintsbury — agree in giving Dr. Faustus high rank, not only in Marlowe's dramas, but in all Elizabethan productions.

The date of the play is uncertain. It may, however, with a fair degree of accuracy, be put in 1 588-1589 (before November, 1589), and was probably written for the Lord Admiral's Company. Thus Faustus followed Tamburlaine, — inordinate greed for knowledge followed inordinate greed for power. The success of the play as well as its date are well authenticated by Robert Greene's Friar Bacon ( 1 589), evidently written in rivalry with Marlowe's work. The references to Alexander of Parma, persecutor of the Netherlands, fixes the play before 1590, while the episode of the bridge brings it after 1585. In Samuel Rowland's Knave of Clubs (1600), we have a reference to the original actor of Fatcstus : —

" The gull gets on a surplis,

With a cross upon his breast, Like Allyn playing Faustus, In that manner was he drest."

4 MARLOWE.

Of Marlowe himself we know but little, despite a multitude of conjectures. He was baptized at Canterbury, February 26, 1564. He received his early education at King's School of the same place, and later entered Corpus Christi, Cambridge, whence he had B.A. in 1583, and M.A. in 1587. Soon afterward he settled in London and began his writing. "By guiving too large a swinge to his owne wit and suffering his lust to haue the full reives," ^ he incurred a charge of heresy and was arrested May 18, 1593. Whether he was punished or allowed to go free, Thomas does not tell. At Deptford, on the first of June, 1593, in a tavern brawl over a courtesan, he was stabbed in the eye and killed by Francis Archer, a serving-man.

Marlowe's untimely end was a sweet morsel to the Puritans. They held up his fate as an awful example of God's swift and terrible judgment upon a freethinker, a blasphemer, and an atheist. The catalogue of crimes was almost too short to supply their busy pens and doubtless busier tongues. The devil himself could scarcely have committed all the crimes laid at Marlowe's charge. Among his friends were some of the finest-fibred men of the time. His patron was Walsingham, a high-minded gentleman ; Shakspere in As Vo7i Like It alludes to the " dead shepperd " with tenderness ; Blount, his publisher and friend, tells of "the impression of the man that hath been dear unto us, living an after-life in our memory " ; and even sharp-tongued, jealous Nash penned an elegy on " Marlowe's untimely end." The only definite and specific charge was made by a rascally knave called Bame, who later was hanged at Tyburn. Mr. Saints- 1 Theater of God's Judgments, Thomas Beard (1597).

MARLOWE. 5

bury's judgment is doubtless correct : " That Marlowe was a Bohemian in the fullest sense is certain : that he was anything worse there is no evidence whatever."

Marlowe, renown'd for his rare art and wit, Could ne'er attain beyond the name of Kit — Hierarchic of the Blessed Angels, Thomas Heywood.

Neat Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, Had in him those brave translunary things That the first poets had ; his raptures were All air, and fire, which made his verses clear ; For that fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

— Of Poets and Poesie, Michael Drayton.

DRAMATIS PERSONS.

The Pope.

Cardinal of Lorrain.

Emperor of Germany., Duke of Vanholt.

Faustus.

Valdes. I p^jg^jg tQ Faustus.

Cornelius, j

Wagner, Servant to Faustus.

Clown.

Robin.

Ralph.

Vintner, Horse-Courser, Knight, Old Man, Scholars,

Friars, and Attendants.

Duchess of Vanholt.

Lucifer.

Belzebub.

Mephistophilis.

Good Angel.

Evil Angel.

The Seven Deadly Sins.

Devils.

Spirits in the shape of ALEXANDER THE GREAT, of his

paramour, and of Helen of Troy.

Chorus.

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS.

Enter Chorus.

Chorus. Not marching now in fields of Trasymene,^ Where Mars did mate the Carthaginians ; Nor sporting in the dalliance of love, In com-ts of kings where state is overturned ; ,Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds, I Intends our Muse to vaunt his heavenly verse: Only this, gentlemen, — we must perform The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad ; To patient judgments we appeal our plaud, And speak for Faustus in his infancy. Now is he born, his parents base of stock, In Germany, within a town called Rhodes ; ^ Of riper years to Wertenberg he went. Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up. So soon he profits in divinity.

The fruitful plot of scholarism graced. That shortly he was graced with doctor's name, Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes In heavenly matters of theology ; Till swollen with cunning ^ of a self-conceit,

1 In the battle at Lake Trasumenus, 217 B.C., Hannibal overwhelmed the Romans and killed more than fifteen thousand, including the leader Flaminius.

8 This word is used throughout the play in the sense of skill or knowledge.

His waxen wings did mount above his reach,

And, melting, Heavens conspired his overthrow;

For, falling to a devilish exercise.

And glutted now with learning's golden gifts,

He surfeits upon cursed necromancy.

Nothing so sweet as magic is to him.

Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.

And this the man that in his study sits ! {Exit?-

Scene I. Faustus discovered in his Sticdy

Faust. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess ; Having commenced, be a divine in show. Yet level at the end of every art. And live and die in Aristotle's works. Sweet Analytics, 't is thou hast ravished me, {Reads. Bene disserere est finis logices? Is to dispute well logic's chiefest end? Affords this art no greater miracle ? Then read no more, thou hast attained the end ; A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit : Bid ov KOL fXY) ov ^ farewell ; Galen ^ come. Seeing [/^i desinit Philosophiis ibi incipit Mediais ;

1 It is possible, as Dyce suggests, that before going out, the Chorus, by drawing a curtain, discover Faustus.

2 The sense of this and the other Latin phrases is given in succeeding lines.

8 The edition of 1604 has " Oncaymaeon," by which Marlowe meant Aristotle's " being and not being."

* A celebrated Greek physician and philosopher of about 130 A.D. He composed some 500 treatises, of which 83 (genuine) have been preserved.

Be a physician, Faustus, heap up gold,

And be eternised for some wondrous cure. [^Reads.

The end of physic is our body's health.

Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that end?

Is not thy common talk found Aphorisms?^

Are not thy bills '^ hung up as monuments,

Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague,

And thousand desperate maladies been eased?

Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man.

Couldst thou make men to live eternally,

Or, being dead, raise them to life again,

Then this profession were to be esteemed.

Physic, farewell. — Where is Justinian ?3 \^Reads.

valorem rei, etc.

A pretty case of paltry legacies! \Reads.

Ex hcereditare filiiiin noii potest pater nisi, etc. Such is the subject of the Institute And universal Body of the Law.

This study fits a mercenary drudge, Who aims at nothing but external trash ; Too servile and illiberal for me. When all is done divinity is best ; Jerome's Bible,* Faustus, view it well. \_Reads.

Stipendiiwt peccati 7nors est. Ha! Slip endiuin, etc.

1 Medical maxims.

2 Prescriptions, or advertisements, which he used as a travelling physician.

3 Byzantine emperor, under whose direction the body of Roman law was composed and annotated.

4 The Latin version of the Scriptures and the authorized version for the Roman Catholic church. It was prepared by Jerome about the close of the fourth century.

lO THE TRAGICAL HISTORY

The reward of sin is death. That 's hard. {Reads. Si peccasse negarnus fallimur et nulla est in nobis Veritas.

If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and there 's no truth in us. Why then, behke we must sin and so consequently die.

Ay, we must die an everlasting death. What doctrine call you this, Che sera sera, What will be shall be? Divinity, adieu! These metaphysics of magicians And necromantic books are heavenly : Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters ; Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires. O what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honour, of omnipotence Is promised to the studious artisan! All things that move between the quiet poles Shall be at my command : emperors and kings Are but obeyed in their several provinces. Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds ; But his dominion that exceeds in this Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man, A sound magician is a mighty god : Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity. Wagner!

Enter Wagner.

Commend me to my dearest friends, The German Valdes and Cornelius ; Request them earnestly to visit me.

Wag. I will, sir. {Exit.

Faust. Their conference will be a greater help to me Than all my labours, plod I ne'er so fast.

OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS. II

Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel.

G. Ang. O Faustus ! lay that damned book aside, And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul, And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy head. Read, read the Scriptures : that is blasphemy.

E. Ang. Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art. Wherein all Nature's treasure is contained : Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky, Lord and commander of these elements.

\Exeunt Angels.

Faust. 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 enterprise I will? I '11 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 '11 have them read me strange philosophy And tell the secrets of all foreign kings ; I '11 have them wall all Germany with brass, And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg, I '11 have them fill the public schools with silk, Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad ; I '11 levy soldiers with the coin they bring, And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,i

1 This refers to the famous blockade of Antwerp by Alexander of Parma, 1585. The following interesting account is from Creighton's Age of Elizabeth, p. 170 f.

"... But Antwerp was too well fortified to be taken by storm, and it was impossible to blockade it so long as the river remained open. The flat-bottomed boats of the Hollanders could take advantage of any condition of the tide and bring

And reign sole king of all the provinces ; Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war

supplies to the beleaguered city. Parma, however, made himself master of the banks of the Scheldt and built forts at such places as secured him the command of the navigation of the river. He then proceeded, during the winter of 1584, to build a bridge across the stream. The Scheldt was here sixty feet deep and eight hundred yards broad ; to bridge such a channel seemed to the besieged an impossible folly. But the Spaniards, beginning from either bank, slowly drove in their piles so firmly that their work withstood the huge blocks of ice that in the winter months rolled down the stream. When the piers had been built as far as was possible, the middle part was made sure by a permanent bridge of boats. In February, 1585, the Scheldt was closed.

" In Antwerp, however, lived an Italian engineer, Giambelli, who proposed a means of breaking through this barrier. He took two ships, in each of which he built a marble chamber, filled with gunpowder, over which was placed a pile of every kind of heavy missile. These ships were floated down the Scheldt, but their meaning was disguised by some small fire-ships which sailed in front of them. The Spaniards spent their energies in warding off the fire-ships, and the other two struck against the bridge; in one the match burnt out without reaching the powder, but the other took fire with a terrific explosion. A thousand Spanish soldiers were hurled into the air, and a breach of two hundred feet was made in the bridge. Confusion and panic terror struck the hearts of the Spaniards. But the men of Antw-erp could not use their success ; the signal was not given to the Zealand fleet which was waiting out at sea. No relief came, and Alexander of Parma, recovering at once his presence of mind, set to work with desperate energy to repair the breach. In three days the blockade was again established, and Parma awaited the end. Another desperate sally was made by the Netherlanders, who succeeded in carrying one of the Spanish forts ; but they could not maintain themselves there against the valor of the Spanish troops when they were under their heroic leader's eye. The Netherlanders were driven back, and with their failure Antwerp's last hope was

Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge, I '11 make my servile spirits 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 : Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy That will receive no object, for my head But ruminates on necromantic skill. Philosophy is odious and obscure, Both law and physic are for petty wits ; Divinity is basest of the three.

Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile : 'T is magic, magic that hath ravished me. Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt ; And I that have with concise syllogisms Gravelled the pastors of the German church, And made the flowering pride of Wertenberg Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits On sweet Musceus,^ when he came to hell. Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,