TJic Reputation of Christopher Marlozve. 375 



lowe) hath written to the Stage his Dr. Faustus hath made the 

 greatest noise with its Devils and such like Tragical sport. '^'* 



Samuel Rowlands in The Knave of Clubs (1609: ed. Grosart, 

 ii. 29) relates a story which, if not true, is at least illustrative. 

 A 'Guir pays twenty pounds for 



A Deuill in a box, 



An artificiall flie of silke, 



(A deuill with a pox). 



He and the knavish vendor are to make the devil rise by incantation. 



So both against the pointed day, 

 Themselues for spirits arme. 

 The Gull gets on a surplis, 

 With a crosse vpon his breast, 

 Like Allen playing Faustus, 

 In that manner he was drest : 

 And hauing all his furniture. 

 He steps into the ring. 



The result is that he is arrested by the constable and sent to 

 Newgate. 



Dekker remembers a striking feature of the stage action in his 

 IVorke for Armourers (1609: Grosart iv. 154) : 'wilde fire flew 

 from one to another, like squibs when Doctor Faustus goes to the 

 diuell;' and again in Nezvs from Hell (1606: Grosart ii. 95): 

 T swore by Hellicon (which he could neuer abide) that because 

 tis out a fashion to bring a Diuell vpon the Stage, he should (spite 

 of his spitting fire and Brimstone) be a Diuell in print.' John 

 Alelton, in The Astrologaster, or the Figure-Caster, (1620)^-^ has 

 a yet more definite allusion : 



Another will fore-tell of Lightning and Thunder that shall happen such 

 a day, when there are no such Inflammations seene, except men goe to the 

 Fortune in Golding-Lane, to see the Tragedie of Doctor Faustus. There in 

 deede a man may behold shaggehayr'd Deuills runne roaring ouer the Stage 

 with Squibs in their mouthes, while Drummers make Thunder in the Tyring- 

 house, and the twelue-penny Hirelings make artificiall Lightning in their 

 Heauens. 



Ben Jonson's prologue to Every Man in his Humour (ed. 1616) 

 alludes in more general language to Faustus: 



''^ See below, p. 387. 



"" Quoted by Tille, p. 145. 



