momentarily quickened his conscience into revolt.
Finally, when we recall the words with which Tamburlaine faced death,
what contempt, despite the frightful anguish of the scene, is aroused by
Faustus's screams of terror at the approach of Lucifer to claim him as
his own! Instinctively we think of Byron's Manfred and his scorn of hell
and its furies. It is his cowardice that spoils the effect of the
backward glances and twinges of conscience, the intention of which has
been rightly praised by so many. Marlowe probably wished to represent
the strife of good and evil in a man's soul. Under other circumstances
it is fair to suppose that he would have achieved success, and so have
anticipated Goethe. But his Faustus moves on too low a level. Of a moral
sense, independent of the dread of punishment, he knows nothing. Four
times his Good Angel suggests to him a return to the right path; once an
Old Man warns him; twice Mephistophilis says that which might fairly
have bid him pause; twice, at least, his own conscience advises
repentance. Yet only on two occasions is there any real revolt, and then
only because his cowardice has been enlisted on the side of
righteousness by the sudden thought of the devils that will tear him in
pieces or of the hell that 'claims his right, and with a roaring voice
says, "Faustus, come".' In proof of this we see his hesitation scared
away by the greater terrors of a present devil, a Lucifer clothed in
horror, or a threatening Mephistophilis. In his vacillations we see, not
the noble conflict of good and evil impulses, but an ignoble tug-of-war
between timidity and appetite.

If Faustus himself falls short of success as a tragic character, if his
aspirations are too mean, his qualities too contemptible to win our
sympathy save at rare moments of transcendent poetry, what shall be said
of the setting provided for the story of his career? Once more we are
offered the stale devices of the Moralities, the Good and Bad Angels,
the Devil, the Old Man (formerly known as Sage Counsel), the Seven
Deadly Sins, Heaven, Hell, and the carefully-pointed moral at the end.
Even the Senecan Chorus has been forced into service to tell us of
Faustus's early manhood and of the marvellous journeys taken in the
intervals. There are no acts, but that is not a great matter; they were
added later in the edition of 1616. What does matter very much is the
introduction of stupid scenes of low comedy into which Faustus is
d