HERE FOLLOWETH THE SECOND PART OF DR. FAUSTUS HIS LIFE AND PRACTICES,
UNTIL HIS END.
Dr. Faustus having received denial of his spirit to be resolved any more
in such questions propounded, forgot all good works, and fell to be a
calendar-maker by the help of his spirit, and also in short time to be a
good astronomer or astrologian. He had learned so perfectly of his
spirit the course of the sun, moon, and stars, that he had the most
famous name of all the mathematicians that lived in his time, as may
well appear by his works dedicated unto sundry dukes and lords, for he
did nothing without the advice of his spirit, which learned him to
presage of matters to come, which have come to pass since his death. The
like praise won he with his calendars and almanack-making; for when he
presaged of anything, operations, and alterations of the weather or
elements, as wind, rain, fogs, snow, hail, moist, dry, warm, cold,
thunder, lightning, it fell so duly out, as if an angel of heaven had
forewarned it. He did not, like the unskilful astronomers in our time,
that set in winter, cold moist air, frosty, and in the dog days, hot,
dry, thunder, fire, and such like; but he set in all his works the day
and hour, when, where, and how it should happen. If any wonderful things
were at hand, as mortality, famine, plague, wars, he would set the time
and place, in true and just order, when it would come to pass.