'_Sub consulatu_ . . . a Latin Bible was bought from Faustus
of Mayence for two hundred gold guilders.' Yes, yes; 'twas that stuck in
your gizzards; but, as you have brewed, so may you drink: Faustus is a
devilish wild fellow, and a very strange hand to deal with; I saw that
proved yesterday. And now that the imperial envoy has travelled hither
merely on his account, merely on account of him whom we have treated
worse than a poor cobbler, think ye not he will blow us up with the envoy
out of revenge, and all our scrapings and grimaces will serve for nothing
but to make us appear ridiculous before the citizens? But he who has
driven his cart into the mire may draw it out again. I wash my hands of
the whole business, and, like Pilate, am innocent of Israel's blindness
and destruction."

Here followed a deep silence. The bloody battle of Cannae, which
threatened Rome with ruin, did not terrify her senate more than did this
eloquent philippic the enlightened magistracy of Frankfort. Already the
mayor triumphed in proud anticipation: he thought even that he had hurled
the alderman entirely out of his saddle; when the latter, collecting his
political wisdom and heroic strength, hastened to the assistance of the
sinking state, and bellowing aloud, _ad majora_, undauntedly proposed
"immediately to send an embassy from the council to the hotel, in order
to welcome the distinguished guest, and to offer Faustus four hundred
gold guilders for his Latin Bible, and thereby to appease him, and to
make him favourable to the state."

The mayor scoffed at the idea of giving four hundred gold guilders for a
thing which the day before they might, in all probability, have had for
one hundred; but his jeers and his scoffs availed nothing. "_Salus
populi suprema lex_," cried the alderman; and, with the approbation of
the council, he commanded the mayor to entertain Faustus and the envoy in
the most sumptuous manner, at the expense of the state.

This circumstance consoled his worship, who willingly displayed his
wealth, partly on account of his defeat by the alderman, while the
concluding words, "at the expense of the state," put him in good humour.
The junior alderman immediately set out with one of the four syndics, and
the mayor sent to his house to order every thing proper for the festival.
The devil Leviathan was engaged with Faustus in a deep discourse when
these ambassadors were announced. They were instantly admitted. They