Page:History of the devil, ancient and modern (3).pdf/22

 butchered, and they had been collected by fair promiſes from every corner in France.

So long a ſeries of deluſion followed this that even the famous doctors of the faculty at Paris, when John Fauſtus brought the firſt printed books that had then been ſeen in the world, or at leaſt not there, into the city and fold them for manuſcripts; they were ſurpriſed at the performance, and queſtioned Fauſtus about it; but he affirming they were manuſcripts, and that he kept a great many clerks employed to write them, they were ſatisfied for a while

But looking further into the work, they obſerved the exact agreement of every book one with another, that every line ſtood in the ſame place, every page a like number of lines, every line a like number of words; if a word was miſ ſpelt in one, it was miſ ſpelt alſo in all; nay, that if there was a blot in one, it was alike in all, they began again to muſe, how this ſhould be? In a word, the learned divines, not being able to comprehend the thing (and this was always ſufficient), concluded it muſt be the Devil; that it was done by magic and witchcraft; and that in ſhort, poor Fauſtus (who was indeed nothing but a mere printer) dealt with the Devil.

So the learned doctors, not being able to underſtand how the work was performed, concluded as above, it was all the Devil, and that the man was a wizard; accordingly they took him up for a magician, and a conjurer, and one that worked by the black art: that is to ſay, by the help of the Devil: and, in a word, they threatened to hang him in their criminal courts, which made ſuch a noiſe in the world, as raiſed the fame of poor John Fauſtus, to a frightful height, till at laſt he was obliged, for fear of the gallows, to diſcover the whole ſecret to them.

N. B. This is the true original of the famous Dr. Fauſtus or Foſter, of who we have believed ſuch ſtrange things, as that it is become a proverb, as great as the Devil and Dr. Fauſtus; whereas