ing below his sister's window. Mephistophilus and Faustus appear together, and the former says in his old tone

"I will sing a moral song, the better to make a fool of her." Valentine rushes forward, sword in hand, to attack the musician, but the Devil proves too hard for him; he parries the thrusts, leaving to Faustus the task of murder, which is at last accomplished by the fall of the gallant soldier, who rolls at their feet mortally wounded. They fly; the crowd collects, and the noise at length brings down Margaret; she exclaims Who lies here?"-"Your mother's son,"reply the people. From this hour all happiness is an utter stranger to the breast of the unhappy girl. The evil spirit is every where with her, at home and abroad, in the city and in the fields. This gives rise to one of the most powerful and original scenes within the wide circle of modern poesy. Margaret is at church, in earnest and agonizing prayer, endeavouring to reconcile herself to the offended deity, and obtain remission of her sins. Close beside her is the Evil Spirit, his form unseen, his voice unheard, by the assembled multitude.

Evil Spirit. How different was it with you, when,
In innocence to God and men,

You knelt before the altar throne,

And lisp'd forth pray'rs in murmur'd tone,

Half God in heart, half childish play!

Where, Margaret, do thy senses stray?

What evil's in thy bosom vow?

Dost for thy mother breathe the vow?

Through thee, fool, she has slept, through thee,

Into the pain that long must be.

Woe! woe!

Mar. That I were free from these thoughts that possess me utterly! Chorus. That day of wrath, that judgment day,

When all that is shall pass away

Evil Spirit. Fury seizes thee! The trumpets sound!

The graves are shaken! and thy heart, re-created, rises trembling From the peace of the tomb to the pains of the fire.

Marg.

Chorus.

Marg.

Alas! that I were far away

It seems as if the organ's play
Had stopt my breath. the choral roll
Had mov'd my very inmost soul.
When the day of judgment's here,
All that's hidden shall appear,
Nought shall be from vengeance clear.
All is so crush'd within this breast!
The columns seem upon me prest!
The vault upon my head to rest!
Air!

Evil Spirit. Conceal thyself! Sin and shame remain not hidden,
Air! light! woe to thee!

Chorus.

What then shall the sinner say?

To what patron shall he pray?

When the righteous fear that day?

Evil Spirit. The saints turn away their faces from thee. The pure ones would shudder to stretch their hands to thee. Woe!

Margaret, wrought up to the highest pitch of agony faints away in the arms of a bystander. Indeed nothing else was left to the poet; for to have stretched the scene beyond this point would hardly have been possible, even to the genius of a Goethe. A situation more truely forlorn than that of Margaret could never be conceived by the wildest or the saddest imagination. The prayer of the assembled multitude rises to heaven; she, and she only, cannot pray; and all this effect is produced by means apparently the most simple, without the least violence of language, or the slightest exaggeration of ideas.

While this passes, the busy dæmon is employed in providing fresh pleasures for the eternal restlessness of Faustus, who has enjoyed sensuality till it ceases to be an enjoyment. To dissipate the melancholy of weariness in his pupil, the fiend conducts him to a strange spot, where the witches are celebrating their unholy Sabbath, and opens to the reader a scene, whose terrific wildness beggars all description. The melancholy moon throws a cold, insufficient gleam upon them; they stumble against the rude rocks and the huge roots of the trees, that, serpent-like, twine about the cliffs, and had twined about them since the first disentangling of elements from primal chaos. The guide, which Mephistophilus calls up, is no less wild than the mountain maze they are threading; it is the ignis fatuus, that he summons from its gambols on the moor and the morass, to light their path, and the reluctant meteor is obliged to marshal them the way. By the glimmer of his torch they climb over rocks and mountains, by the bed of the torrent and the brink of the abyss. The wind howls, the streams roar, the owls cry, and the trees crash and rattle with their blending branches, while "Echo resounds like the tale of other times.",

At length they arrive at the witches' glen, to a scene of

such unutterable wildness, that the head actually turns dizzy in the contemplation. Image is heaped on image, idea upon idea, and all clothed in verse, that sweeps along like a whirlwind. It is a perfect tempest of thoughts and words, in which the reader is utterly confounded, till all at once he is recalled from the torrent by a circumstance of more reality, and of more immediate connexion with the general fable. A variety of magie pictures succeed each other, till at last Faustus fancies he sees the likeness of Margaret, or as he calls her, with the familiarity of tenderness, Gretchen: he exclaims

66 Mephisto, dost see that pale, lovely girl, standing in the distance ? She moves slowly, as though her feet were knit together. I must confess, it seems to me that she resembles the good Gretchen.

Meph. Let it be: no good can come of it. "Tis a creation of magic, 'tis lifeless, 'tis ideal. To meet it is not good. The human blood is frozen by its cold gaze, and he who looks on it is turned to stone, as you have heard of the Medusa.

Faust Those are the eyes of one dead-eyes which no loving hand has closed. That is the breast which Gretchen yielded to me; that is the sweet form that I enjoyed.

Meph. Easy fool, 'tis all enchantment.

Faust. What ecstacy! what anguish! I cannot tear myself from that gaze. How strange that lovely neck should be circled with a red collar, not broader than the edge of a knife."

Faustus learns,-how and when is not distinctly made out that Margaret has given birth to a child, and murdered it, in the hope of concealing her shame, a crime which has been followed by discovery, and that discovery by condemnation! on the ensuing morrow she is to perish on the scaffold by the axe of the executioner. Sentence of death, too, has been passed against himself for the murder of Valentine; but the fate of the unhappy girl is predominant over every other idea; one thought occupies his whole soul, and that thought is Margaret. In bitterness of heart he exclaims :

"A prisoner! In irrevocable misery! Delivered up to evil spirits and human judges insensible of feeling !-And in the meantime you cocker me up in idle dissipations, conceal from me her misery, leave her hopelessly to perish!

Meph. She will not be the first.

Faust. Hound! detested monster! Change him, thou infinite spirit, change him again into his houndlike shape !**** Return him to his

darling form, that he may creep on his belly in the sand before me, that! may trample him beneath my feet, him, the rejected one!-Not be the first! Oh, Grief!-Grief not to be comprehended by the soul of man, that more than one creature should sink into this abyss of misery, that

the first sufferer should not, by his agony of death, atone for the sins of all others in the sight of the ever-merciful! The wretchedness of this single being pierces through my soul, through the marrow of my bones, while you cooly grin at the fate of thousands.

Meph. Why did you make community with us if you could not go through with it? Would you fly, and are not secure from giddiness? Did you force yourself upon us, or we intrude on you?

Faust. Save her, or woe be to you! The most horrible curses be upon you for centuries!

Meph. I cannot loosen the bonds of the avenger, cannot undo his bolts.-Save her! Who was it that plunged her into destruction ? I or you? (Faustus looks wildly around.) What, are you grasping after the thunder? Well that it is not given to you wretched mortals! Faust. Lead me hence, I say, and free her."

Mephistophilus at length yields to hisfimportunities, and they set out to the prison of Margaret, to which the supernatural power of the Dæmon gives them ingress. It is midnight when they enter it by means of stolen keys, and concealed by a mist that the magic arts of the fiend have flung about the turrets. Faustus, as he creeps in, hears the voice of Margaret, singing a song, whose grossness sufficiently proves the derangement of her senses, coupled as it is with her former purity of thought and expression. He gently calls upon her, bidding her rise to freedom; but she mistakes his errand, and imagines him to be the messenger of death. When he takes up the fetters to unlock them, she flings herself upon her knees, exclaiming :

"Who, hangman, has given you this power over me? You fetch me already, at midnight! Take pity on me, and let me live! Is not tomorrow time enough? (she rises.) And then I am so young! so young! And must I die already? I was handsome too, and that was my ruin! Then my friend was near, but now he is far away. My garland is torn, and its flowers scattered. Grasp me not so violently! Spare me! What have I done to thee? Let me not sue in vain! I have never

even seen you before.

Faust. How shall I support her agony?

Marg. I am now wholly in thy power, but only let me suckle my ehild first ; I have hugged it to my heart this live-long night! They took it from me to vex me, and now they say that I destroyed it***. Faust. (Flings himself before her.) Thy lover lies at thy feet; he comes to unlock thy chains.

Marg. (Kneeling by him.) Aye, let us on our knees iuvoke the saints! See! below these steps, and beneath the threshold, hell is seething. The evil one roars with fearful voice.

Faust. (Aloud.) Gretchen! Gretchen!

Marg. (With attention.) That was the voice of my friend-(She (jumps up and the chains fall off.) Where is he! I heard him call!

1

I am free! Nobody shall keep me in prison; I will hang about his neck, will lie upon his bosom***. "Tis he! 'tis he! Where now is all my anguish? where the torture of the prison, of the chains? "Tis thou! thou comest to save me, and I am saved! Already is the street before me, where I first saw you, and the smiling garden, where I and Martha used to wait for you.

Faust. Come with me! come!

Marg. Oh stay. I love to be where thou art.

Faust. Haste! If you delay, we shall dearly rue it.

!

Marg. How you cannot kiss any more? My friend, so short a time away from me, and yet has forgotten how to kiss !***

Faust.Come, follow me: take courage, dearest! I love thee with a thousand-fold ardour; but follow me; I ask no more of you than that.

Marg. But is it you? is it indeed you?

Faust. It is. Come with me.

Marg. And will you unlock my chains, and take me again to your bosom? How comes it that you do not shrink from me? Do you know, my friend, whom you would free?

Faust. Comé, come! the advanced night is already fading.

Marg. My mother I have killed; my child I have drowned.—Was it not given to thee and me?-To thee also-'tis thou! I scarcely can believe it. Give me thy hand-it is no dream-thy dear hand. Alas, it is damp! wipe it: methinks there's blood upon it! Oh God! what hast thou done! Put up thy sword, I do entreat you.

You kill me.

Faust. Let the past be past. Marg. No, you must stay, and I will describe to you the tombs you shall prepare to-morrow. Give the best place to my mother, lay my brother close beside her, me you will put a little way apart, only not too far, and my little.one on my right breast; no one else must lie near me. It was a joy to me once to nestle by thy side, but that is for me no longer. I feel as if I were dragged towards you while you pushed me back again; and yet it is you, and your look is so good, so holy !

Faust. If then you feel that it is I, come.

Marg. Whither?

Faust. To freedom.

Marg. The grave is without, yonder, and death is watching for me. Then come !-from here to the bed of endless sleep, but not a step farther. Are you going? O, Henry, if I could go with thee! Faust. You can, if you will do so: the door stands open. Marg. I dare not go forth: there is no hope for me. Of what avail is flight? my steps will be watched. It is so wretched a thing to beg, and that too with an evil conscience ! So miserable to wander in a foreign land, and after all they would lay hold on me.

Faust, I will be with thee.

Marg. Quick, quick save thy poor child! Away! keep the road along the rivulet, and cross over the bridge into the wood-on the left where the plank stands in the pond-Catch at it instantly! it will rise, for it isstill struggling!-Save! save!

Faust. Recollect thyself! One step only, and thou art free.

Marg. Had we but passed the mountain! There sits my mother