wives bully them.

The first idea, the idea about the man at the bottom coming out on top,
is expressed in this puppet-play in the person of Dr. Faustus'
servant, Caspar. Sentimental old Tones, regretting the feudal times,
sometimes complain that in these days Jack is as good as his master.
But most of the actual tales of the feudal times turn on the idea
that Jack is much better than his master, and certainly it is so
in the case of Caspar and Faust. The play ends with the damnation
of the learned and illustrious doctor, followed by a cheerful and
animated dance by Caspar, who has been made watchman of the city.

But there was a much keener stroke of mediaeval irony earlier
in the play. The learned doctor has been ransacking all
the libraries of the earth to find a certain rare formula,
now almost unknown, by which he can control the infernal deities.
At last he procures the one precious volume, opens it at the proper page,
and leaves it on the table while he seeks some other part of his
magic equipment. The servant comes in, reads off the formula,
and immediately becomes an emperor of the elemental spirits.
He gives them a horrible time. He summons and dismisses them
alternately with the rapidity of a piston-rod working at high speed;
he keeps them flying between the doctor's house and their own more
unmentionable residences till they faint with rage and fatigue.
There is all the best of the Middle Ages in that; the idea
of the great levellers, luck and laughter; the idea of a sense
of humour defying and dominating hell.

One of the best points in the play as performed in this Yorkshire
town was that the servant Caspar was made to talk Yorkshire,