w, shall I believe?" The Devil shrugged his shoulders; for he
generally appeared to be ignorant when concealing the truth would be
profitable to himself and injurious to mankind.

_Faustus_. But why should I ask thee? I will obey the call of my own
heart. A man who is so nearly allied to me by his way of thinking shall
not die.

If Faustus had been acquainted with some of our modern bawlers for
freedom, he would not have been so mistaken in the Doctor; but such a
being was a novelty at that period.

The next morning, when the execution was to take place, Faustus went into
the grand square, attended by the Devil, and told him in going along what
he was to do. At the very moment the executioner was about to decapitate
the Doctor, who had kneeled down, looking very ghastly, the latter
disappeared. The Devil carried him through the air beyond the frontiers;
and there, delivering him a large sum of money, he abandoned him joyfully
to his fate, for he saw pretty clearly how he would employ his gold and
liberty. The people raised a wild shout of joy at the disappearance of
the Doctor, and believed that Providence had rescued their favourite.
Faustus also shouted, and rejoiced at the glorious action.

Faustus and the Devil now rode to the court of the Prince of ---. {134}
They soon reached the court of this prince, who was cried up through all
Germany as a wise and virtuous ruler, whose only happiness consisted in
the welfare of his subjects. It is true that the subjects themselves did
not always join in this cry; but the prince is not yet born who can give
satisfaction to all men.

Faustus and the Devil, by means of their dress and equipage, soon found
admittance at court. Faustus regarded the Prince with the eyes of a man
whose heart was already prepossessed in his favour; and to carry this
prepossession even to conviction, nothing more was necessary than the
noble exterior of the Prince himself. He was, or appeared to be, frank
and open; endeavoured to please and to win all hearts without appearing
to do so; was familiar without laying aside his dignity, and possessed
that prudent coldness which inspires respect, though we scarcely know
why. All this was blended with so much elegance, urbanity, and decorum,
that it would have been difficult for the most acute eye to have
distinguished the acquired, the artificial, and the assumed, from the
plain and natural. Faustus, who had as yet seen few of those men of th