TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DR. FAUSTUS

HONOURABLE HISTORY OF

FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY

ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, LITT.D.

MASTER OF PETERHOUSE, CAMBRIDGE

LATE PRINCIPAL OF THE OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER

FOURTH EDITION

REVISED AND ENLARGED.

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1901

THE present edition of this book must, I fear, so far as I am concerned, be looked upon as final. Since the third edition was issued, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus has continued to attract, in an exceptional degree, the attention of scholars, and I have sought to make the best use I could of their labours. The Faustus-Notes of Professor H. Logeman (Ghent, 1898) in particular have determined me, in more instances than one, to discard hesitations for which the time seems now to have passed; and I gladly acknowledge the debt which I owe to this very able commentary. The same scholar's quite recent publication of The English Faust-Book of 1592 (Ghent and Amsterdam, 1900) has enabled me to substitute in my Introduction extracts from this edition of the English history for those from the German Faustbuch; but I have carefully compared his text with that of the British Museum copy. For the bibliography of the story of Faustus, I have made frequent use of the Faustsplitter of Dr. A. Tille (1898), to whom I owe several courteous communications in connexion with the subject. The excellent Catalogue of the Faust Exhibition, held at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in the autumn of 1893, has been of considerable general service.

Among the fresh additions to my Notes will be found several parallel or illustrative passages with which I have