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