but, to judge from the costumes and several other signs, the pictures cannot have been painted much later.  They were evidently made expressly for the locality, sloping off on both sides at the top, to suit the shape of the vault.  The German inscription at the foot of one of the pictures indicates that it was written after the Doctor’s death, which must have occurred between 1540 and 1550; but it is probable that these verses were added at a later time, the more so as the traces of an older inscription, now no longer legible, may still be discovered.  One of these curious paintings represents Faustus in company with students and musicians sitting around a table covered with dishes and bottles.  Faustus is lifting his goblet with one hand, and with the other beating time on the table to the music.  At the bottom we read the following verse in barbarous Latin:—­

  “Vive.  Bibe.  Obgregare.  Memor Fausti hujus, et hujus
  Poenae.  Aderat claudo haec.  Ast erat ampla
       Gradu. 1525."[4]

The other picture shows us the same jolly party risen from table, and all expressing their wonder and astonishment, as Dr. Faustus is just riding out of the door on a wine-tub.  Beneath it is the following inscription in German:—­

“Dr. Faustus zu dieser Frist Aus Auerbach’s Keller geritten ist, Auf einem Fass mit Wein geschwind, Welches gesehn manch Mutterkind.  Solches durch seine subtilne Kunst hat gethan, Und des Teufels Lohn empfangen davon. 1525."[5]

On neither of the two pictures does Mephistopheles appear, unless he is meant to be represented in the shape of the black dog.  It is not, however, Goethe’s poodle that meets us here, but a sleek little creature with a collar around his neck, looking very much like a wooden toy-dog.

Most of the tricks and pranks reported of Dr. Faustus are of the same absurd kind, though not all of so harmless a character.  According to the popular legend, he travelled like a great lord, had the spirits pave the highways for him when he rode in the post-coach,—­it seems, then, that he did not always use his mantle,—­and lived in the taverns at which he stopped with an unheard-of luxury.  On his departure, he paid the hosts in a princely manner; but scarcely was he out of sight, when the gold in the receiver’s hand was changed to straw, or to round slices of gilded horn,—­a shabby trick indeed, as he could have as much money as he liked.

How much we have to believe of all these popular stories we may learn from Dr. Phil.  Begardi’s “Zeyger der Gesundtheyt,” (Guide to Health,) a book published in 1539, at Worms, at a time when Faustus seems to have already disappeared from Germany, after having lost caste there completely, and when he was trying his fortune in other countries.