“He that loves reading has everything within his reach.”

— William Godwin (c.1795)

“Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.”

— William Godwin (c.1795)

“Next in respect of time to Cornelius Agrippa comes the celebrated Dr. Faustus. Little in point of fact is known respecting this eminent personage in the annals of necromancy. His pretended history does not seem to have been written till about the year 1587, perhaps half a century after his death. This work is apparently in its principal features altogether fictitious. We have no reason however to deny the early statements as to his life. He is asserted by Camerarius and Wierus to have been born at Cundling, near Cracow, in the kingdom of Poland, and is understood to have passed the principal part of his life at the university of Wittenberg. He was probably well known to Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. Melanchthon mentions him in his letters; and Conrad Gessner refers to him as a contemporary. The author of his life cites the opinions entertained respecting him by Luther. Philip Camerarius speaks of him in his ‘Horas Subsecivae’ as a celebrated name among magicians, apparently without reference to the life that has come down to us; and Wierus does the same thing. He was probably nothing more than an accomplished juggler, who appears to have practiced his art with great success in several towns of Germany. He was also no doubt a pretender to necromancy.”

— William Godwin (1834), Lives of Necromancers [3]