d his greatest elaboration at the hands of writers who believed
in him just as little as Shakespeare did in the ghost of Hamlet's
father.

Commenting on Anatole France's _The Revolt of the Angels_, an American
critic has recently written: "It is difficult to rehabilitate
Beelzebub, not because people are of one mind concerning Beelzebub,
but because they are of no mind at all." How this demon must have
laughed when he read these lines! Why, he needs no rehabilitation. The
Devil has never been absent from the world of letters, just as he has
never been missing from the world of men. Since the days of Job, Satan
has taken a deep interest in the affairs of the human race; and while
most writers content themselves with recording his activities on this
planet, there never have been lacking men of sufficient courage to
call upon the prince of darkness in his proper dominions in order to
bring back to us, for our instruction and edification, a report of his
work there. The most distinguished poet his infernal Highness has ever
entertained at his court, it will be recalled, was Dante. The mark
which the scorching fires of hell left on Dante's face, was to his
contemporaries sufficient proof of the truth of his story.

The subject-matter of literature may always have been in a state of
flux, but the Devil has been present in all the stages of literary
evolution. All schools of literature in all ages and in all languages
set themselves, whether consciously or unconsciously, to represent and
interpret the Devil, and each school has treated him in its own
characteristic manner.

The Devil is an old character in literature. Perhaps he is as old as
literature itself. He is encountered in the story of the paradisiacal
sojourn of our first ancestors, and from that day on, Satan has
appeared unfailingly, in various forms and with various functions, in
all the literatures of the world. His person and his power continued
to develop and to multiply with the advance of the centuries, so that
in the Middle Ages the world fairly pullulated with demons. From his
minor place in the biblical books, the Devil grew to a position of
paramount importance in mediaeval literature. The Reformation, which
was a movement of progress in so many respects, left his position
intact. Indeed, it rather increased his power by withdrawing from the
saints the right of intercession in behalf of the sinners. Neither the
Renaissance of ancient learning nor the in