don_,
ascribed to Ulpian Fulwell (1599); _The Devil and his Dame_ by P. M.
Houghton (1600); _Machiavel and the Devil_ by Daborne and Henslowe
(1613); _The Devil is an Ass_ by Ben Jonson (1616); and _Belphagor, or
the Marriage of the Devil_ (1690). In France the story was treated in
verse by La Fontaine (1694), and in Germany it served the Nuremberg
poet Hans Sachs as the subject for a farce (1557).

The _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ is authority for the statement that
Machiavelli's own married life had nothing to do with the plot of his
story.

"The notion of this story is ingenious, and might have been made
productive of entertaining incident, had Belphagor been led by his
connubial connections from one crime to another. But Belphagor is only
unfortunate, and in no respect guilty; nor did anything occur during
his abode on earth that testified to the power of woman in leading us
to final condemnation. The story of the peasant and the possession of
the princesses bears no reference to the original idea with which the
tale commences, and has no connection with the object of the infernal
deputy's terrestrial sojourn" (J. C. Dunlop, _History of Fiction_). To
this criticism Mr. Thomas Roscoe replies that "part of the humour of
the story seems to consist in Belphagor's earthly career being cut
short before he had served the full term of his apprenticeship. But
from the follies and extravagances into which he had already plunged,
we are now authorized to believe that, even if he had been able longer
to support the asperities of the lady's temper, he must, from the
course he was pursuing, have been led from crime to crime, or at least
from folly to folly, to such a degree that he would infallibly have
been condemned" (T. Roscoe, _Italian Novelists_).

The demon of Machiavelli offers no features of a deep psychology, but
he distinguishes himself from the other demons of his period by his
elegant manners. Like creator, like creature.

Belphagor, the god of the Moabites, like all other pagan gods, joined
the infernal forces of Satan when driven off the earth by the Church
Triumphant.

The parliament of devils, which we find in this story, was taken from
the mystery-plays where the ruler of hell is represented as holding
occasional receptions when he listens to the reports of their recent
achievements on his behalf, and consults their opinion on matters of
state. Satan, who has always wished to rival God, has instituted the
in