"Truly laudable and excellent, most sapient masters, seems to me that which our most prudent and politic brother has now advanced, were it not for one single circumstance which unhappily spoils all. I, indeed, do not make a boast of possessing the deep visual penetration of the alderman,--a penetration, my brethren, which can spy out a storm before it arises; nevertheless, whether it be from chance or reflection, I have long foreseen, and have long foretold, that which is now gathering around us. You must all remember, that at each of our sittings I advised you not to treat this Faustus so contemptuously, but to purchase his Latin Bible for the small sum he demanded. Even my wife, who is a mere woman, like all other women, has frequently said that, although we ourselves neither understood nor could use the book, we ought nevertheless to have it; and, on account of the beautiful letters in the title-page, and of the curious invention, to make a show of it, as we do of our golden bull, and attract strangers from all parts. It was likewise fitting that a free and rich state like ours should protect the arts, and give them a helping hand. But I know very well what was in your minds; 'twas envy--sheer envy. You could not brook that my name should be rendered immortal. You could not digest that posterity should read in the chronicle, '_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."