Green Box. It is known that he received payment for it by a bill at
five or six months, {53b} but there is no mention of the amount. It
would appear that the translation had long been projected, for in The
Monthly Magazine, July 1824, there appeared, in conjunction with the
announcement of Celebrated Trials, the following paragraph: "The
editor of the preceding has ready for the press, a Life of Faustus,
his Death and Descent into Hell, which will also appear the next
winter."

Faustus did not meet with a very cordial reception. The Literary
Gazette (16th July 1825) characterised it as "another work to which
no respectable publisher ought to have allowed his name to be put.
The political allusion and metaphysics, which may have made it
popular among a low class in Germany, do not sufficiently season its
lewd scenes and coarse descriptions for British palates. We have
occasionally publications for the fireside,--these are only fit for
the fire."

Borrow had apparently been in some doubt about certain passages, for
in a note headed "The Translator to the Public," he defends the work
as moral in its general teaching:


"The publication of the present volume may at first sight appear to
require some brief explanation from the Translator, inasmuch as the
character of the incidents may justify such an expectation on the
part of the reader. It is, therefore, necessary to state that,
although scenes of vice and crime are here exhibited, it is merely in
the hope that they may serve as beacons, to guide the ignorant and
unwary from the shoals on which they might otherwise be wrecked. The