Sir Thomas.
“What chapter thereof wouldst thou recall unto my recollection?”
William Shakspeare.
“That concerning owls, with the grim print afore it.
“Doctor Faustus, the wise doctor, who knew other than owls and owlets, knew the tempter in that form. Faustus was not your man for fancies and figments; and he tells us that, to his certain knowledge, it was verily an owl’s face that whispered so much mischief in the ear of our first parent.
“One plainly sees it, quoth Doctor Faustus, under that gravity which in human life we call dignity, but of which we read nothing in the Gospel. We despise the hangman, we detest the hanged; and yet, saith Duns Scotus, could we turn aside the heavy curtain, or stand high enough a-tiptoe to peep through its chinks and crevices, we should perhaps find these two characters to stand justly among the most innocent in the drama. He who blinketh the eyes of the poor wretch about to die doeth it out of mercy; those who preceded him, bidding him in the garb of justice to shed the blood of his fellow-man, had less or none. So they hedge well their own grounds, what care they? For this do they catch at stakes and thorns, at quick and rotten—”
Here Master Silas interrupted the discourse of the devil’s own doctor, delivered and printed by him before he was the devil’s, to which his worship had listened very attentively and delightedly. But Master Silas could keep his temper no longer, and cried, fiercely, “Seditious sermonizer! hold thy peace, or thou shalt answer for ’t before convocation.”
Sir Thomas.
“Silas! thou dost not approve, then, the doctrine of this Doctor Duns?”
Sir Silas.