http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friar_Bacon_and_Friar_Bungay wrote:
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The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594) is
an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by Robert Greene.
[In it]
Friar Bacon displays a range of magical skills:
he shows Edward the romance of Lacy and Margaret in his magic glass,
and interrupts their wedding at a distance;
he magically transports a tavern hostess from one place to another;
he wins a contest of magic with a German named Vandermast, witnessed
by the Kings of England and Castile and the Emperor of Germany.
In collaboration with another magician, Friar Bungay, Bacon labors
toward his greatest achievement: the creation of an artificial head
made of brass, animated by demonic influence, that can surround
England with a protective wall of the same metal.
Yet Bacon's inability to remain awake and
the incompetence of his servant Miles spoil the opportunity.
- The brazen head speaks three times, saying:
"Time is." ... "Time was." ...
and "Time is past."
— then falls to the floor and shatters.
Miles doesn't have the wit to wake his master in time.
Finally, Bacon inadvertently allows two young Oxfordians to witness
their fathers' duel in the magic glass; in response the students
themselves duel, and kill each other. Appalled by this outcome,
Bacon renounces magic and turns to a life of repentance.
His bad servant Miles, haunted by Bacon's conjured devils,
gets a promise of a tapster's job in Hell from one of them,
and rides to perdition on the devil's back.>>