[Footnote 40: i.e. _The English Faust Book_ which is printed in the present volume.] [Footnote 41: i.e. Faust’s compact with Mephisto.] [Footnote 42: V. Introduction.] [Footnote 43: Author of _Discovery of Witchcraft_, 1584.] [Footnote 44: Jean Bodin, author of _Démonomanie des Sorciers_, 1580.] THE SECOND REPORT OF DOCTOR JOHN FAUSTUS =In nomine aeterne & semperuiuae maiestatis, Amen. Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici.= CHAPTER I Doctor John Faustus, whose parentage howsoever hitherto informed, is known to be base, his father when he was at the best, but the son of a poor Farmer, his Mother the daughter of one of the same condition, born in a small village called Kundling in Slesia, brought up in literature at Gracovia, after at Wittenberg, whose life made him famous, and death notorious: being thus tormented and torn in pieces, at the time appointed betwixt the Devils and him, moved by this example woeful and lamentable enough, the hearts of the Students and Scholars which were witnesses of his distraughture, that with an inward terror of conscience vexed and tormented, they departed and declared the whole volumes of his detestable life, which afore his Tragedy was thus acted, were not known. Christopher Wagner, his familiar servant unto whom he had committed the secrets of his bosom, and had intimated unto him whatever his four and twenty years’ familiarity with the black Art, and more black Devils had taught him: He after the death of his thus slain Master musing at everything thus done, everything thus done being wonderful: (as men do whom fear makes passionate and meditation of former loss urgeth a latter augment of fresh sorrows): in a distraughtful fury (the Company of Students being departed, which were eye witnesses of the Doctor’s lamentable end) conveyed himself unto his Master’s Library, viewing with sorrowful eyes the only Monuments of his life, the disputations betwixt him and Mephostophiles, his answers and demands, and else whatsoever questions moved or disputed of betwixt the Devils and him, and memorials of his Heavens and Hells voyages, his conveyance with many the like comical journeys. The boy of a sudden fell into a deep considering of his former merriments, sports and delights, in so much that in this conceit he flung out of this study, as if he meant to bury the remembrance of these matters by contempt and negligence: coming into the same Hall wherein his Master’s latest Tragedy was performed, sighing for his want, he remembered (for as then he lately read it) how that one Article to the which his Master had bound Mephostophiles was, that after his death he should be a Spirit in nature and essence as others were. The Wag at this began to smile (oh how such things seeming pleasant make fools’ hearts merry) conceiving with himself how to make his once Master become his man, and to have the number of his spiritual followers doubled, scorning the alonely attendance of one servant.