than Goethe's, and he was capable, at moments, of more satisfying
dramatic effects. When his Faustus says to Mephistopheles:

One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee,
To glut the longing of my heart's desire:
That I may have unto my paramour
That heavenly Helen which I saw of late;

and when, his prayer being granted, he cries:

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burned the topless towers of Ilium?

he is a much more splendid and significant person than the Faust of
Goethe, who needs the help of the devil and of an old woman to seduce a
young girl who has fallen in love with him at first sight. Goethe, it is
true, made what amends he could afterwards, in the Second Part, when
much of the impulse had gone and all the deliberation in the world was
not active enough to replace it. Helen has her share, among other
abstractions, but the breath has not returned into her body, she is
glacial, a talking enigma, to whom Marlowe's Faustus would never have
said with the old emphasis:

And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

What remains, then, in Wills' version, is the Gretchen story, in all its
detail, a spectacular representation of the not wholly sincere
witchcraft, and the impressive outer shell of Mephistopheles, with, in
Sir Henry Irving's pungent and acute rendering, something of the real
savour of the denying spirit. Mephistopheles is the modern devil, the