amendment. A confusion of this kind may, indeed, have early arisen from
a change of residence of our hero's parents during his infancy. But the
oldest Volksbuch was written nearly forty years after the death of
Faustus, and Widmann's work appeared even ten years later,--both,
indeed, professing to be founded on the Doctor's writings, as well as
on an autobiographical manuscript, discovered in his library after his
death. Perhaps, however, the assertion of two of his contemporaries,
one of whom was personally acquainted with him, is more entitled to
credit in this respect. Joh. Manlius and Joh. Wier--the latter in his
biography of Cornelius Agrippa--name Kundlingen, in Würtemberg, as his
birthplace.

Manlius, in his work, "Collectanea Locorum Communium," (Basel, 1600,)
speaks of him as of an acquaintance. He says that Faustus studied at
Krakow, in Poland, where there was a regular professorship of Magic, as
was the case at several universities. Others let him make his studies
at Ingolstadt, and acquire there the honors of a Doctor of Medicine.
Both these statements may be true, as also that he was for some time
the companion and pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, the
celebrated scholar, whose learning and mysterious researches after the
philosopher's stone brought him, like many other wise men of the age,
into suspicion of witchcraft. Agrippa had a pet dog, black, like the
mystical companion of Dr. Faustus, and, in the eyes of a superstitious
multitude, like him, the representative of the Evil One. Black dogs
seem to have been everywhere considered as rather suspicious creatures.
The Pope Sylvester II. had also a favorite black poodle, in whom the
Devil was supposed to have taken up his abode. According to Wier,
however, Agrippa's black dog was quite a harmless beast, and remarkable
only for the childlike attachment which the great philosopher had for
him. It may be worth remarking, that this writer, although he speaks of