Dr. Faustus seems at first to have settled as a practising physician, and at this period of his life Wagner appears as his famulus; for we never find this Philister among scholars as a companion of the travelling Faustus, although his connection with him was apparently lasting. According to the popular legend, the Doctor made him his heir, and expressly obtained for him Auerhahn, (Heathcock,) a familiar spirit in the shape of a monkey. This was a sort of caricature of Mephistopheles, who became, through his ludicrous clumsiness, a pet-devil of the populace in the puppet-shows, particularly in Holland. Widmann calls Wagner Waiger; while in all other publications referring to him he bears his right name, Christoph Wagner.
What city it was where Faustus lived before the reputation of witchcraft made him the subject of so much talk remains unsettled. Wittenberg and Ingolstadt are alternately named. Some of his biographers relate, that he led a loose and profligate life, and soon wasted his cousin's inheritance. Others represent him as a deep, secluded student, laying hold of one science after another, and unsatisfied by them all, until he found, by means of his physical and chemical experiments, the secret path to the supernatural, and, in order to reap their full fruits, allied himself with the hellish powers. Faustus himself tells us, in his "Mirakel-, Kunst-, und Wunder-buch," (or rather, the author of this book makes him tell us,) how his intercourse with the Devil commenced almost accidentally and against his intentions:—
"I, Doctor Johann Faust, who apply myself to the Free Arts, having read many kinds of books from my youth, happened once to light upon a book that contained various conjurations of the spirits. Feeling some desire to enlarge my ideas on these things, having, indeed, at the beginning, small belief that the prescriptions of that book would so soon be verified, I tried them only for an experiment. Nevertheless, I became aware that a mighty spirit, named Astaroth, presented himself before me, and asked me wherefore I had cited him. Then, hurried as I was, I did not know how to make up my mind otherwise than to demand that he should be serviceable to me in various wishes and desires, which he promised conditionale, asking to make a compact with me. To do this I was at first not inclined; but as I was only provided with a bad circle, being merely experimenting, I did not dare to bid him defiance, but was obliged to yield to the circumstances. I therefore made up my mind, inasmuch as he would serve me, and would be bound to me a certain number of years. This being settled, this spirit presented to me another, named Mochiel, who was commanded to serve me. I asked him how quick he was. Answer: 'Like the wind.' 'Thou shalt not serve me! get thee back to whence thou camest!' Now came Aniguel; he answered, that he was as quick as the bird in the air. 'Thou art still too slow,' I replied; 'begone!' At the same moment a third stood before me, named Aziel; this one, too, I asked how quick he was. 'Quick as the thought of man.' 'Right for me! thee will I keep!' And I accepted him. This spirit has served me long, as has been made known by many writings."
Whether it was this quick Aziel, or Astaroth himself, who became Faustus's travelling-companion under the name of Mephistopheles, or whether the prince of the lower regions in person condescended to play that part, we do not know; but in all popular stories of the Doctor, his servant bears the latter name,—while in the various books in which, under the name of Hoellenzwang, the system of his magic is laid down, he is called Aziel.
In possession of such a power, Faustus soon became tired of his lonely study. He craved the world for his theatre. His travels seem in reality to have been very extensive, while in the popular stories a magic mantle carried him over the whole globe. Conrad Gesner, the great physiologist, who speaks of him with some respect as a physician, comparing him with Theophrastus Paracelsus, reckons him among the scholastici vagantes, or fahrende Schueler, an order of men already considerably in the decline, and grown disreputable at that period. As early as the thirteenth century, we find the custom in Germany, of young clergymen who did not belong to any monkish order travelling through the land to get a living,—here by instructing in schools for a certain period,—there by temporarily serving in churches as choristers, sacristans, or vicars,—often, too, as clerks and copyists to lawyers or other private men. When they could no longer find a livelihood at one place, they went to another. Their offices became, in course of time, of the most varied and unsuitable order. They were generally received and treated with hospitality, and this may have been one reason why all kinds of adventurers were ready to join them. Their unstable mode of life easily explains their frequenting the society of other vagabonds, who traversed the country as jugglers, treasure-diggers, quacks, or sorcerers, and that their clerical dignity did not prevent their occasionally adopting these professions themselves. The Chronicle of Limburg, in speaking of the Diet of Frankfurt in 1397, says: "The number of princes, counts, noblemen, knights, and esquires, that met there, amounted to five thousand one hundred and eighty-two"; adding: "Besides these, there were here four hundred and fifty persons more, such as fahrende Schueler, wrestlers, musicians, jumpers, and trumpeters." The character of the clergy having sunk so low, the Church declared itself against the custom, and at several German councils theological students were expressly forbidden to lead this roving life. It required, however, considerable time for the ancient custom to become extinct, and we learn, among others, from Conrad Gesner, that it still existed at the time of the Reformation.
The part played by Faustus was at first in some degree respectable, and that of a scholar. An old Erfurt Chronicle tells us that he had come to that city and obtained permission from the university to deliver a course of lectures on Homer. A dark rumor of his magic powers had preceded him; the students, therefore, thronged to hear him, and, deeply interested, requested him to let them see the heroes of Homer by calling them from their graves. Faustus appointed another day for this, received the excited youths in a dark chamber, commanded them to be perfectly silent, and made the great men of the Greek bard rise up, one by one, before their eyes. At length Polyphemus appeared; and the one-eyed Cyclops, with his red hair, an iron spear in his hand, and, to designate him at once as a cannibal, two bloody human thighs in his mouth, looked so hideous, that the spectators were seized with horror and disgust, the more so that the wily magician professed to have some difficulty in dismissing the monster. Suddenly a violent shake of the whole house was felt; the young men were thrown one over another, and were seized with terror and dismay. Two of the students insisted upon having already felt the teeth of the Cyclops.—This ridiculous story was soon known throughout the city, and confirmed the suspicions of the Franciscan monks and magistrates, that the learned guest was in league with the Evil One. It is said that Faustus had previously offered to procure for them the manuscripts of the lost comedies of Terence and Plautus, and to leave them for a short time in their hands, to be copied,—but that the fathers of the city and of the university declined, because they believed this could be done only by sorcery, or with the help of Satan. Now they sent to him the Guardian of the Convent, Dr. Klinger, in order to convert him and to have masses read for him, for the purpose of delivering him from his hellish connection. But Faustus opposed, was by the clergy solemnly delivered to the Devil, and, in consequence, banished from the city by the magistrates.
We do not know whether it was for similar juggleries, that, when at Wittenberg, the Elector John the Steadfast ordered him to be arrested, as Manlius relates. He saved himself by flight. Melancthon, in one of his letters, mentions having made his acquaintance; the whole tone of the allusion, however, expresses contempt.
The character of the miracles he performed soon ceased to have the literary tincture of the one related above, and they became mere vulgar juggleries and exhibitions of legerdemain, suited to the taste of the multitude. Scholars turned their backs on him, and we find him only among tipplers and associates of the lowest kind. At one of their carousals his half-intoxicated companions asked him for a specimen of his witchcraft. He declared himself willing to gratify them in any request. They then demanded that he should make a grape-vine full of ripe fruit grow out of the table around which they sat. Faustus enjoined complete silence, ordered them to take their knives and keep themselves in readiness for cutting the fruit, but not to stir before he gave them leave. And, behold, before the eyes of the gaping youths, while they themselves were enveloped in a magic mist, there arose a great vine, with as many bunches of grapes as there were persons in the room. Suddenly the obscuring mist dissolved, and each one saw the others with their hands at their own noses, ready to cut them off, as the promised grapes. But the vine and the magician had disappeared, and the disenchanted drunkards were left to their own rage.
The reader will be aware that this is the tale of which Goethe availed himself in representing Faustus's visit to Auerbach's cellar at Leipzig. Whether it really occurred there is not stated; but that Faustus was said to have been at Leipzig, and even in Auerbach's cellar, is an historical fact, attested by two pictures still extant at this famous old tavern, where many of our curious American travellers may have seen them. These pictures, which have been retouched and renovated more than once,—last in 1759,—are marked at the top with the date 1525. Whether this means the year in which they were painted, or that in which Faustus performed the great feat which the scene represents, remains uncertain. As it occurred in the beginning of his career, upon which we may assume him to have entered somewhere between 1520 and 1525, the date is quite likely to refer to the time of the feat; but, to judge from the costumes and several other signs, the pictures cannot have been painted much later. They were evidently made expressly for the locality, sloping off on both sides at the top, to suit the shape of the vault. The German inscription at the foot of one of the pictures indicates that it was written after the Doctor's death, which must have occurred between 1540 and 1550; but it is probable that these verses were added at a later time, the more so as the traces of an older inscription, now no longer legible, may still be discovered. One of these curious paintings represents Faustus in company with students and musicians sitting around a table covered with dishes and bottles. Faustus is lifting his goblet with one hand, and with the other beating time on the table to the music. At the bottom we read the following verse in barbarous Latin:—
"Vive. Bibe. Obgregare. Memor Fausti hujus, et hujus
Poenae. Aderat claudo haec. Ast erat ampla
Gradu. 1525."[4]