I'll be the pimp, and you shall be the lover. [To some old Women, who are sitting round a heap of glimmering coals.

Old gentlewomen, what do you out here?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry—
But every one is best content at home.

GENERAL.

Who dare confide in right or a just claim?
So much as I had done for them! and now-

With women and the people 'tis the same,

Youth will stand foremost ever,-age may go To the dark grave unhonoured.

MINISTER.

Now-a-days People assert their rights; they go too far; But, as for me, the good old times I praise. Then we were all in all; 'twas something worth One's while to be in place and wear a star; That was indeed the golden age on earth.

PARVENU.*

We too are active, and we did and do
What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now
Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and
round,

A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.
A sought of fundholder.

AUTHOR.

Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
And ponderous volume? 'Tis impertinence
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.

MEPHISTOPHELES. (Who at once appears to have grown very old.)

I find the people ripe for the last day,
Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
And as my little cask runs turbid now,
So is the world drained to the dregs.

PEDLER-WITCH.

Look here,

Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast,
And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
I have a pack full of the choicest wares
Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle
Is nothing like what may be found on earth;
Nothing that in a moment will make rich
Men and the world with fine malicious mis-
chief.

There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl From which consuming poison may be drained By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,

The price of an abandoned maiden's shame; No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose, Or stabs the wearer's enemy in the back; No

MEPHISTOPHELES.

Gossip, you know little of these times.

What has been, has been; what is done, is past.
They shape themselves into the innovations
They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us;
You think to impel, and are yourself impelled.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

Lilith, the first wife of Adam.

Beware of her fair hair, for she excels

All women in the magic of her locks,

And when she winds them round a young man's

neck,

She will not ever set him free again.

FAUST.

There sit a girl and an old woman-they Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

There is no rest to-night for any one:
When one dance ends, another is begun;

Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fur.

[FAUST dances and sings with a Girl, and MEPHISTO PHELES with an old Woman,

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST

What is this cursed multitude about?

Have we not long since proved to demonstration
That ghosts move not on ordinary feet!

But these are dancing just like men and women.

THE GIRL.

What does he want then at our ball?

FAUST.

O! he

Is far above us all in his conceit:
Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;
And any step which in our dance we tread,
If it be left out of his reckoning,

Is not to be considered as a step.

There are few things that scandalize him not;
And, when you whirl round in the circle now,
As he went round the wheel in his old mill,
He says that you go wrong in all respects,
Especially if you congratulate him
Upon the strength of the resemblance.

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST.

Fly!

Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there

In this enlightened age too, since you have been
Proved not to exist!-But this infernal brood
Will hear no reason and endure no rule.
Are we so wise, and is the pond still haunted?
How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish
Of superstition, and the world will not
Come clean with all my pains!—it is a case
Unheard of!

THE GIRL.

Then leave off teasing us so.

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST.

I tell you spirits, to your faces now,
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it,
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope,
Before my last step in the living dance,
To beat the poet and the devil together.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

At last he will sit down in some foul puddle:
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together.
[To FAUST, who has seceded from the dance
Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,
Who sang so sweetly to you in the dance?

FAUST.

A red mouse in the middle of her singing