to
Rome; and Faustus saw, with a malicious laugh, the cardinals and the
ambassadors of Spain and Venice receive the fratricide, whom they knew
for such, at the city-gate, and then conduct him in triumph to the Pope,
who embraced him with great tenderness. Vanosa laid aside her mourning,
and celebrated the day of his return by a festival, at which appeared all
the grandees of Rome. Caesar shortly afterwards changed his cardinal's
hat for a helmet, and was with much pomp and magnificence consecrated
Gonfalonier, or Standard-bearer of the Holy See.

The Devil saw, with much pleasure, Faustus endeavouring, by the wildest
excesses, to escape the pangs by which his heart was now torn. He
remarked how every new scene of horror he was doomed to witness galled
his soul, and that he was becoming more and more convinced that all he
saw or heard had its origin in the nature of man. The Devil supported
him in this idea by sophisms, which later philosophers have worked up
into systems. He ransacked the earth of its treasures, and showered gold
and precious gems upon his victim; and Faustus, dishonouring the wives
and daughters of Rome, believed that he could not sufficiently corrupt
the human family, which, in his opinion, was doomed to misfortune and
destruction. The lessons he had learnt from Lucretia had long since
poisoned his senses. All the sweet ties of humanity, which had so long
fettered his heart, were now totally destroyed. He represented the world
to himself as a stormy sea, on which the human race is cast, and is
tossed here and there by the wind, which drives this man upon a rock,
where he is dashed to pieces, and blows the other happily to his haven.
But what seemed to Faustus most incomprehensible was, that the
shipwrecked mariner should be punished in an after-state for not having
guided his vessel better; when the rudder which had been given him to
shape his course by was so weak that any extraordinary billow could not
fail to shatter it.

A new scene now presented itself. Alexander had determined on taking the
amusements of the chase at Ostia. He was accompanied thither by a vast
throng of cardinals, bishops, ladies, and nuns; the latter being summoned
from their cloisters, and, by their beauty, rendering the cavalcade a
glorious spectacle. The Devil was constantly by the side of the Pope,
and Faustus and Lucretia were inseparable. Every one abandoned himself
at Ostia to pleasure, and in the course of