The first act opens with a pleasing landscape scene, in the midst of which Faust is discovered reclining upon a flowery turf, weary, restless, and seeking repose. The hour is twilight, and round the weary one Ariel and other quaint and pleasant Spirits are hovering in airy circles, entertaining his fancy with lovely shows, and lulling him with sweet sounds; quite a piece of Nature's most voluptuous and luxuriant beauty, such as Goethe's soul delighted to bathe in. As the Spirits continue their song, accompanying the watches of the night, the dawn approaches to the ear of mortal men calmly and gently, but to the sense of Spirits, the march of the hours is heard as a storm: the gigantic rock-gates of the East creak fearfully; Phœbus rolls his chariot wheels in thunder; and eye and ear are startled at the strong coming of the day. Faust then wakens, and gratefully welcomes the fresh tide of a renewed existence which, after the soothing influences of the magic sleep, seems to stream in upon him. A resolution is strongly stirred in his breast to strive after the highest perfection of which human nature is capable. The second scene brings us from the fairy into the court atmosphere. The Emperor sits on his throne, surrounded by all sorts of courtiers, ministers, and other appendages of Majesty; the astrologer and the fool, significantly for those times (for we must suppose the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century), occupying not the least conspicuous place. Forthwith begins a somewhat prolix discourse between the Imperial Majesty and his principal ministers--Chancellor, Treasurer, Master of the Household, etc., the burden of which is--a very common one with great people and people in office--that they have no money and are at their wit's end how to get it. The fool, into whose shoes Mephistopheles has cunningly shuffled himself, is applied to for the aid of his sage counsels, and is not slow with the common resource of German devils and necromancers--hidden treasures. But before the spade and the mattock can be brought into play to unearth this hidden heap, as it happens to be Carnival, there must be a masquerade. The Emperor, too, has just come from Rome, whither he had gone, according to the laudable old custom of the Heinrichs and Ottos and Friedrichs, to get himself dubbed Holy Roman Emperor, and with his crown on his head, he has brought also the fool's cap. Scene third, accordingly, exhibits a rich show of foolery and masquerading of all sorts. Flower-girls and gardeners; mothers and daughters; fishers, fowlers, and foresters; Pulcinellos, parasites, and drunkards; poets and critics; the three Graces, Aglaia, Hegemone, and Euphrosyne; the three Fates, Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis; the three Furies, Alecto, Megæra, and Tisiphone; Fear, Hope, and Providence leading in Victory, who stands on the top parapet of a tower--all this moves in motley operatic splendour