rks after a
tempest, and strange wrecks of memory float past in troubled visions. In
the dawning light the clouds roll away, a great calm comes upon his
spirit, and he recognises his friend. It is laid upon him, before he
departs, to declare the meaning of his life. This life of his had been
no farce or failure; in his degree he has served mankind, and what _is_
the service of man but the true praise of God? He perceives now the
errors of the way; he had been dazzled by knowledge and the power
conferred by knowledge; he had not understood God's plan of gradual
evolution through the ages; he had laboured for his race in pride rather
than in love; he had been maddened by the intellectual infirmities, the
moral imperfections of men, whereas he ought to have recognised even in
these the capacities of a creature in progress to a higher development.
Now, at length, he can follow in thought the great circle of God's
creative energy, ever welling forth from Him in vast undulations, ever
tending to return to Him again, which return Godwards is already
foretold in the nature of man by august anticipations, by strange gleams
of splendour, by cares and fears not bounded by this our earth.

Were _Paracelsus_ a poem of late instead of early origin in Browning's
poetical career, we should probably have received no such open prophecy
as this. The scholar of the Renaissance, half-genius, half-charlatan,
would have casuistically defended or apologised for his errors, and
through the wreathing mists of sophistry would have shot forth ever and
anon some ray of truth.

We receive from _Paracelsus_ an impression of the affluence of youth.
There is no husbanding of resources, and perhaps too little reserve of
power. Where the poet most abandons himself to his ardour of thought and
imagination he achieves his highest work. The stress and tension of his
enthusiasm are perhaps too continuous, too seldom relieved by spaces of
repose. It is all too much of a Mazeppa ride; there are times when we
pray for a good quarter of an hour of comfortable dulness, or at least
of wholesome bovine placidity. The laws of such a poem are wholly
determined from within. The only question we have a right to ask is
this--Has the poet adequately dealt with his subject, adequately
expressed his idea? The division of the whole into five parts may seem
to have some correspondency with the five acts of a tragedy; but here
the stage is one of the mind, and the acts are f