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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Oh ! unveil thyself, fair goddess, 

 Not in clouds obscure and murky, 

 Not in vapors hide the sun — 

 Show its golden rays refulgent 1 

 [He draws aside the cloak, and discovers a skeleton.' 1 '' 1 



In the brief space at our disposal in the pres- 

 ent paper it must be obvious that no attempt can 

 be made to give more than a synthetical view of 

 this wonderful poem ; sufficient, however, has 

 been presented to show that it takes rank, to- 

 gether with Marlowe's tragedy, as the earliest of 

 the high-class poetical, magical, amatory, philo- 

 sophical, and theological treatment to which the 

 remarkable old legend of Dr. Faustus is so mani- 

 festly open. And this would be the more palpa- 

 ble with respect to " El Magico Prodigioso " if 

 we could give some of the argumentative discus- 

 sions between Cyprian and the Demon ; but for 

 these, as well as the love-scenes, the reader must 

 be referred to the original, or to the translations 

 of Shelley as the most beautifully poetical, and 

 to those of Mr. D. F. MacCarthy as the most com- 

 plete and literal. 



Highly, and justly, has Milton been eulogized 

 for his portrait of Satan, thus redeeming the 

 " Prince of Darkness " from the old grotesque 

 monster with horns and tail, as described and 

 " illuminated " in monastic missals and legends. 

 But in the intellectual sorrow and retrospective 

 pangs of the " archangel ruined," Milton was pre- 

 ceded in some degree by Marlowe, and in a direct 

 and sustained manner, both in sorrow and intel- 

 lectual grandeur, by Calderon : 



" Tan galan fui por mis partes, 

 Por mi lustre tan heroica, 

 Tan noble por mi linage, 

 Y por mi ingenio tan docto," etc. 



El Magico Prodigioso. —Jornada, II. 



Here is Shelley's noble translation : 



" Since thou desirest, I will then unveil 

 Myself to thee ; for in myself I am 

 A world of happiness and misery ; 

 This I have lost, and that I must lament 

 Forever. In my attributes I stood 

 So high and so heroically great, 

 In lineage so supreme, and with a genius 

 Which penetrated with a glance the world 

 Beneath my feet, that, won by my hitjh merit, 

 A king — whom I may call the King of kings, 

 Because all others tremble in their pride 

 Before the terrors of his countenance, 

 In his high palace roofed with brightest gems 

 Of living light— call them the stars of heaven — 

 Named me his Counselor. But the high praise 

 Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose 

 In mighty competition, to ascend 

 His seat and place my foot triumphantly 



- ' Calderon's Dramas, translated in the metre of the 

 Original by D. F, MacCarthy. 



Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know 

 The depth to which amoition falls : too mad 

 Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now 

 Repentance of the irrevocable deed : 

 Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory 

 Of not to be subdued, before the shame 

 Of reconciling me with him who reigns, 

 By coward cession." 



So powerful in its features and individuality 

 is the portrait of Satan drawn and painted by 

 Milton, that one cannot suppose he was at all in- 

 debted to " El Magico Prodigioso " for the hero 

 of " Paradise Lost ; " but the coincidence is sure- 

 ly very remarkable, and remarkable also as never 

 having been noticed before, so far as I am aware ; 

 but I say this under correction. The Demon pro- 

 ceeds in a strain equally Miltonic : 



" . . . . Nor was I alone, 

 Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone ; 

 And there was hope, and there may still be hope, 

 For many suffrages among his vassals 

 Hailed me their lord and king, and many still 

 Are mine, and many more, perchance, shall be. 

 Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious, 

 I left his seat of empire, from mine eye 

 Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words 

 With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven, 

 Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong, 

 And imprecating on his prostrate slaves 

 Rapine, and death, and outrage." 



We must admit that Shelley's translation, be- 

 ing in his stately and harmonious blank verse, 

 makes the resemblance to Milton far greater than 

 the asonanle lyrics of the original (or those of the 

 literal translation of Mr. MacCarthy — for neither 

 of them sound at all like Milton) ; the sense and 

 purport, however, is not affected by the difference 

 in the genius and style of the two languages. 



Without searching ancient classic times, or 

 times yet more remote, for philosophers and 

 other celebrated men who had a " familiar demon " 

 in frequent attendance, we may regard it as pretty 

 certain that the sale of the human soul to the devil 

 in order to obtain forbidden knowledge, together 

 with magic powers enabling the possessor to work 

 wonders, and also to obtain unlimited enjoyments 

 of life during a specified number of years, origi- 

 nated in German country towns, and probably in 

 the form of itinerant plays and puppet-shows, as 

 early as 1404. Some of these, or of similar kind, 

 were subsequently printed. There was the 

 " Wahrhaftigen Historien von denen griiuliehcn 

 Siinden Dr. Johann Faustens;" Hamburg, 1599. 

 There was "Doctor Faustus," von J. Widman, 

 printed in Berlin, 1587 ; and another in the same 

 year by Spiess. Plays on this subject, if not 

 printed, were acted in traveling shows in Poland 

 and in France ; and it was probably not long af- 



