nvented the story, which is partly founded on
truth, that he and his son having drunk, by the cupbearer's mistake, some
poisoned wine which had been intended for the cardinals, were thus caught
in their own net.

CHAPTER V.

The horrible death of the Pope, and the frightful figure of the Devil,
whom Faustus had hitherto only seen majestic and comely, made so strong
an impression upon him, that he hastened from the villa to Rome; and,
having packed up his things, instantly departed, with perturbed mind and
beating heart. His spirit had become so weak from all that he had seen
and heard, that he who once dared to defy the Eternal in thought scarcely
ventured now to look Satan in the face, though he still had absolute
dominion over him. Hatred and contempt for men, cruel doubt,
indifference to every thing which occurred around him, murmurings at the
insufficiency of his moral and physical powers, were the rewards of his
experience and the fruits of his life; yet he consoled himself with the
idea that what he had witnessed authorised in him these gloomy
sentiments, and confirmed him in the opinion, that there either existed
on earth no connexion between man and his Creator, or that, if any did
exist, such connexion ran so confusedly and equivocally through the
labyrinth of life, that it was impossible for the eye of man to follow
it. He yet flattered himself with the delusion, that his crimes, when
added to the vast mass of earthly wickedness, would be like a drop of
water falling into the ocean. The Devil willingly permitted him to
repose in this dream, in order that the blow he intended for him might
fall with greater violence. Faustus resembled those men of the world who
abandon themselves to their pleasures without thinking of the
consequences; and at length, worn out and dejected, look morosely on the
world, and judge of the human race according to their own sad experience,
without reflecting that they have only trodden the worst paths of life,
and seen the worst part of the creation. In a word, he was on the point
of becoming a philosopher of the species of Voltaire, who, whenever he
found the _bad_, always held it forth to public view; and, with
unexampled industry, always endeavoured to keep the _good_ in the
background.

Faustus was lying in a sweet morning slumber on the frontiers of Italy,
when a portentous dream depicted itself to his soul in the liveliest
colours; and this dream was followed by