Doubtless, with respect to such a poet, we covet his biography. We

desire to look back upon the process of gathering together in a

lifetime the materials of the work we behold entire; of elaborating,

perhaps under difficulty and with hindrance, all that is familiar

to our admiration in the apparent facility of success. And the

inner impulse of this effort and operation, what induced it? Did a

soul's delight in its own extended sphere of vision set it, for the

gratification of an insuppressible power, on labor, as other men are

set on rest? Or did a sense of duty or of love lead it to communicate

its own sensations to mankind? Did an irresistible sympathy with men

compel it to bring down and suit its own provision of knowledge and

beauty to their narrow scope? Did the personality of such an one stand

like an open watch-tower in the midst of the territory it is erected

to gaze on, and were the storms and calms, the stars and meteors,

its watchman was wont to report of, the habitual variegation of his

every-day life, as they glanced across its open door or lay reflected

on its four-square parapet? Or did some sunken and darkened chamber

of imagery witness, in the artificial illumination of every storied

compartment we are permitted to contemplate, how rare and precious were

the outlooks through here and there an embrasure upon a world beyond,

and how blankly would have pressed on the artificer the boundary of his

daily life, except for the amorous diligence with which he had rendered

permanent by art whatever came to diversify the gloom? Still, fraught

with instruction and interest as such details undoubtedly are, we can,

if needs be, dispense with them. The man passes, the work remains. The

work speaks for itself, as we say; and the biography of the worker

is no more necessary to an understanding or enjoyment of it than is

a model or anatomy of some tropical tree to the right tasting of the

fruit we are familiar with on the market-stall,--or a geologist's map

and stratification to the prompt recognition of the hill-top, our

landmark of every day.

"We turn with stronger needs to the genius of an opposite

tendency,--the subjective poet of modern classification. He, gifted

like the objective poet with the fuller perception of nature and

man, is impelled to embody the thing he perceives, not so much with

reference to the many below as to the one above him, the supreme

Intelligence which apprehends all things in their absolute truth,--an

ultimate view ever aspired to, if but partially attained, by the

poet's own soul. Not what man sees, but what God sees,--the _Ideas_ of

Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly on the Divine Hand,--it is

toward these that he struggles. Not with the combination of humanity

in action, but with the primal elements of humanity, he has to do; and

he digs where he stands,--preferring to seek them in his own soul as

the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind, according to the intuitions

of which he desires to perceive and speak. Such a poet does not deal

habitually with the picturesque groupings and tempestuous tossings of

the forest tress, but with their roots and fibres naked to the chalk

and stone. He does not paint pictures and hang them on the walls, but

rather carries them on the retina of his own eyes: we must look deep

into his human eyes to see those pictures on them. He is rather a

seer, accordingly, than a fashioner, and what he produces will be less

a work than an effluence. That effluence cannot be easily considered

in abstraction from his personality,--being indeed the very radiance

and aroma of his personality, projected from it but not separated.

Therefore, in our approach to the poetry, we necessarily approach the

personality of the poet; in apprehending it we apprehend him, and

certainly we cannot love it without loving him. Both for love's and

for understanding's sake we desire to know him, and, as readers of his

poetry, must be readers of his biography also.

I shall observe, in passing, that it seems not so much from any

essential distinction in the faculty of the two poets, or in the

nature of the objects contemplated by either, as in the more immediate

adaptability of these objects to the distinct purpose of each, that the

objective poet, in his appeal to the aggregate human mind, chooses to

deal with the doings of men (the result of which dealing, in its pure

form, when even description, as suggesting a describer, is dispensed

with, is what we call dramatic poetry); while the subjective poet,

whose study has been himself, appealing through himself to the absolute

Divine mind, prefers to dwell upon those external scenic appearances

which strike out most abundantly and uninterruptedly his inner light

and power, selects that silence of the earth and sea in which he can

best hear the beating of his individual heart, and leaves the noisy,

complex, yet imperfect exhibitions of nature in the manifold experience

of man around him, which serve only to distract and suppress the

working of his brain. These opposite tendencies of genius will be

more readily descried in their artistic effect than in their moral

spring and cause. Pushed to an extreme and manifested as a deformity,

they will be seen plainest of all in the fault of either artist

when, subsidiarily to the human interest of his work, his occasional

illustrations from scenic nature are introduced as in the earlier works

of the originative painters,--men and women filling the foreground

with consummate mastery, while mountain, grove, and rivulet show like

an anticipatory revenge on that succeeding race of landscape-painters,

whose "figures" disturb the perfection of their earth and sky. It would

be idle to inquire, of these two kinds of poetic faculty in operation,

which is the higher or even rarer endowment. If the subjective might

seem to be the ultimate requirement of every age, the objective, in the

strictest state, must still retain its original value. For it is with

this world, as starting point and basis alike, that we shall always

have to concern ourselves: the world is not to be learned and thrown

aside, but reverted to and relearned. The spiritual comprehension may

be infinitely subtilized, but the raw material it operates upon must

remain. There may be no end of the poets who communicate to us what

they see in an object with reference to their own individuality: what

it was before they saw it, in reference to the aggregate human mind,

will be as desirable to know as ever. Nor is there any reason why these

two modes of poetic faculty may not issue hereafter from the same poet

in successive perfect works, examples of which, according to what are

now considered the exigencies of art, we have hitherto possessed in

distinct individuals only. A mere running in of the one faculty upon

the other is, of course, the ordinary circumstance. Far more rarely

it happens that either is found so decidedly prominent and superior

as to be pronounced comparatively pure; while of the perfect shield,

with the gold and the silver side set up for all comers to challenge,

there has yet been no instance. Either faculty in its eminent state is

doubtless conceded by Providence as a best gift to men, according to

their especial want. There is a time when the general eye has, so to

speak, absorbed its fill of the phenomena around it, whether spiritual

or material, and desires rather to learn the exacter significance

of what it possesses than to receive any augmentation of what is

possessed. Then is the opportunity for the poet of loftier vision to

lift his fellows, with their half-apprehensions, up to his own sphere,

by intensifying the import of details and rounding the universal

meaning. The influence of such an achievement will not soon die out.

A tribe of successors (Homerides), working more or less in the same

spirit, dwell on his discoveries and reinforce his doctrine; till, at

unawares, the world is found to be subsisting wholly on the shadow of

a reality, on sentiments diluted from passions, on the tradition of a

fact, the convention of a moral, the straw of last year's harvest. Then

is the imperative call for the appearance of another sort of poet, who

shall at once replace this intellectual rumination of food swallowed

long ago, by a supply of the fresh and living swathe; getting at new

substance by breaking up the assumed wholes into parts of independent

and unclassed value, careless of the unknown laws for recombining

them (it will be the business of yet another poet to suggest those

hereafter), prodigal of objects for men's outer and not inner sight;

shaping for their uses a new and different creation from the last,

which it displaces by the right of life over death,--to endure until,

in the inevitable process, its very sufficiency to itself shall require

at length an exposition of its affinity to something higher, when the

positive yet conflicting facts shall again precipitate themselves under

a harmonizing law, and one more degree will be apparent for a poet

to climb in that mighty ladder, of which, however cloud-involved and

undefined may glimmer the topmost step, the world dares no longer doubt

that its gradations ascend.

Such being the two kinds of artists, it is naturally, as I have

shown, with the biography of the subjective poet that we have the

deeper concern. Apart from his recorded life altogether, we might

fail to determine with satisfactory precision to what class his

productions belong, and what amount of praise is assignable to the

producer. Certainly, in the fact of any conspicuous achievement of

genius, philosophy no less than sympathetic instinct warrants our

belief in a great moral purpose having mainly inspired even where it

does not visibly look out of the same. Greatness in a work suggests

an adequate instrumentality; and none of the lower incitements,

however they may avail to initiate or even effect many considerable

displays of power, simulating the nobler inspiration to which they

are mistakenly referred, have been found able, under the ordinary

conditions of humanity, to task themselves to the end of so exacting

a performance as a poet's complete work. As soon will the galvanism,

that provokes to violent action the muscles of a corpse, induce it to

cross the chamber steadily: sooner. The love of displaying power for

the display's sake; the love of riches, of distinction, of notoriety;

the desire of a triumph over rivals, and the vanity in the applause

of friends,--each and all of such whetted appetites grow intenser

by exercise, and increasingly sagacious as to the best and readiest

means of self-appeasement: while for any of their ends, whether the

money or the pointed finger of the crowd, or the flattery and hate to

heart's content, there are cheaper prices to pay, they will all find

soon enough, than the bestowment of a life upon a labor hard, slow,

and not sure. Also, assuming the proper moral aim to have produced

a work, there are many and various states of an aim: it may be more

intense than clear-sighted, or too easily satisfied with a lower field

of activity than a steadier aspiration would reach. All the bad poetry

in the world (accounted poetry, that is, by its affinities) will be

found to result from some one of the infinite degrees of discrepancy

between the attributes of the poet's soul, occasioning a want of

correspondency between his work and the verities of nature,--issuing in

poetry, false under whatever form, which shows a thing, not as it is

to mankind generally, nor as it is to the particular describer, but as

it is supposed to be for some unreal neutral mood, midway between both

and of value to neither, and living its brief minute simply through the

indolence of whoever accepts it or his incapacity to denounce a cheat.

Although of such depths of failure there can be no question here, we

must in every case betake ourselves to the review of a poet's life ere

we determine some of the nicer questions concerning his poetry,--more

especially if the performance we seek to estimate aright has been

obstructed and cut short of completion by circumstances,--a disastrous

youth or a premature death. We may learn from the biography whether

his spirit invariably saw and spoke from the last height to which it

had attained. An absolute vision is not for this world, but we are

permitted a continual approximation to it, every degree of which in

the individual, provided it exceed the attainment of the masses, must

procure him a clear advantage. Did the poet ever attain to a higher

platform than where he rested and exhibited a result? Did he know more

than he spoke of?

I concede, however, in respect to this subject of our study as well

as some few other illustrious examples, that the unmistakable quality

of the verse would be evidence enough, under usual circumstances,

not only of the kind and degree of the intellectual but of the moral

constitution of Shelley; the whole personality of the poet shining

forward from the poems, without much need of going further to seek

it. The "Remains"--produced within a period of ten years, and at a

season of life when other men of at all comparable genius have hardly

done more than prepare the eye for future sight and the tongue for

speech--present us with the complete enginery of a poet, as signal

in the excellence of its several aptitudes as transcendent in the

combination of effects,--examples, in fact, of the whole poet's

function of beholding with an understanding keenness the universe,

nature and man, in their actual state of perfection in imperfection;

of the whole poet's virtue of being untempted, by the manifold

partial developments of beauty and good on every side, into leaving

them the ultimates he found them,--induced by the facility of the

gratification of his own sense of those qualities, or by the pleasure

of acquiescence in the shortcomings of his predecessors in art, and

the pain of disturbing their conventionalisms,--the whole poet's

virtue, I repeat, of looking higher than any manifestation yet made of

both beauty and good, in order to suggest from the utmost realization

of the one a corresponding capability in the other, and out of the

calm, purity, and energy of nature to reconstitute and store up, for

the forthcoming stage of man's being, a gift in repayment of that

former gift in which man's own thought and passion had been lavished

by the poet on the else-incompleted magnificence of the sunrise, the

else-uninterpreted mystery of the lake,--so drawing out, lifting up,

and assimilating this ideal of a future man, thus descried as possible,

to the present reality of the poet's soul already arrived at the higher

state of development, and still aspirant to elevate and extend itself

in conformity with its still-improving perceptions of, no longer the

eventual Human, but the actual Divine. In conjunction with which noble

and rare powers came the subordinate power of delivering these attained

results to the world in an embodiment of verse more closely answering

to and indicative of the process of the informing spirit, (failing, as

it occasionally does, in art, only to succeed in highest art),--with a

diction more adequate to the task in its natural and acquired richness,

its material color and spiritual transparency,--the whole being moved

by and suffused with a music at once of the soul and the sense,

expressive both of an external might of sincere passion and an internal

fitness and consonancy,--than can be attributed to any other writer

whose record is among us. Such was the spheric poetical faculty of

Shelley, as its own self-sacrificing central light, radiating equally

through immaturity and accomplishment, through many fragments and

occasional completion, reveals it to a competent judgment.

But the acceptance of this truth by the public has been retarded by

certain objections which cast us back on the evidence of biography,

even with Shelley's poetry in our hands. Except for the particular

character of these objections, indeed, the non-appreciation of his

contemporaries would simply class, now that it is over, with a series

of experiences which have necessarily happened, and needlessly

been wondered at, ever since the world began, and concerning which

any present anger may well be moderated, no less in justice to our

forerunners than in policy to ourselves. For the misapprehensiveness

of his age is exactly what a poet is sent to remedy; and the interval

between his operation and the generally perceptible effect of it is no

greater, less indeed, than in many other departments of great human

effort. The "E pur si muove" of the astronomer was as bitter a word as

any uttered before or since by a poet over his rejected living work, in

that depth of conviction which is so like despair.

But in this respect was the experience of Shelley peculiarly

unfortunate,--that the disbelief in him as a man even preceded the

disbelief in him as a writer; the misconstruction of his moral nature

preparing the way for the misappreciation of his intellectual

labors. There existed from the beginning--simultaneous with, indeed

anterior to, his earliest noticeable works, and not brought forward

to counteract any impression they had succeeded in making--certain

charges against his private character and life, which, if substantiated

to their whole breadth, would materially disturb, I do not attempt to

deny, our reception and enjoyment of his works, however wonderful the

artistic qualities of these. For we are not sufficiently supplied with

instances of genius of his order to be able to pronounce certainly how

many of its constituent parts have been tasked and strained to the

production of a given lie, and how high and pure a mood of the creative

mind may be dramatically simulated as the poet's habitual and exclusive

one. The doubts, therefore, arising from such a question, required to

be set at rest, as they were effectually, by those early authentic

notices of Shelley's career and the corroborative accompaniment of his

letters, in which not only the main tenor and principal result of his

life, but the purity and beauty of many of the processes which had

conduced to them, were made apparent enough for the general reader's

purpose,--whoever lightly condemned Shelley first, on the evidence of

reviews and gossip, as lightly acquitting him now, on that of memoirs

and correspondence. Still, it is advisable to lose no opportunity of

strengthening and completing the chain of biographical testimony; much

more, of course, for the sake of the poet's original lovers, whose

volunteered sacrifice of particular principle in favor of absorbing

sympathy we might desire to dispense with, than for the sake of his

foolish haters, who have long since diverted upon other objects their

obtuseness or malignancy. A full life of Shelley should be written at

once, while the materials for it continue in reach; not to minister

to the curiosity of the public, but to obliterate the last stain of

that false life which was forced on the public's attention before it

had any curiosity on the matter,--a biography composed in harmony

with the present general disposition to have faith in him, yet not

shrinking from a candid statement of all ambiguous passages, through

a reasonable confidence that the most doubtful of them will be found

consistent with a belief in the eventual perfection of his character,

according to the poor limits of our humanity. Nor will men persist in

confounding, any more than God confounds, with genuine infidelity and

atheism of the heart those passionate, impatient struggles of a boy

towards distant truth and love, made in the dark, and ended by one

sweep of the natural seas before the full moral sunrise could shine

out on him. Crude convictions of boyhood, conveyed in imperfect and

inapt forms of speech,--for such things all boys have been pardoned.

There are growing-pains, accompanied by temporary distortion, of the

soul also. And it would be hard indeed upon this young Titan of genius,

murmuring in divine music his human ignorances through his very thirst

for knowledge, and his rebellion in mere aspiration to law, if the

melody itself substantiated the error, and the tragic cutting short of

life perpetuated into sins such faults as, under happier circumstances,

would have been left behind by the consent of the most arrogant

moralist, forgotten on the lowest steps of youth.

The responsibility of presenting to the public a biography of Shelley

does not, however, lie with me: I have only to make it a little easier

by arranging these few supplementary letters, with a recognition of the

value of the whole collection. This value I take to consist in a most

truthful conformity of the Correspondence, in its limited degree, with

the moral and intellectual character of the writer as displayed in the

highest manifestations of his genius. Letters and poems are obviously

an act of the same mind, produced by the same law, only differing in

the application to the individual or collective understanding. Letters

and poems may be used indifferently as the basement of our opinion

upon the writer's character; the finished expression of a sentiment in

the poems giving light and significance to the rudiments of the same

in the letters, and these again, in their incipiency and unripeness,

authenticating the exalted mood and reattaching it to the personality

of the writer. The musician speaks on the note he sings with; there

is no change in the scale as he diminishes the volume into familiar

intercourse. There is nothing of that jarring between the man and the

author, which has been found so amusing or so melancholy; no dropping

of the tragic mask as the crowd melts away; no mean discovery of

the real motives of a life's achievement, often in other lives laid

bare as pitifully as when, at the close of a holiday, we catch sight

of the internal lead-pipes and wood-valves to which, and not to the

ostensible conch and dominant Triton of the fountain, we have owed our

admired water-work. No breaking out, in household privacy, of hatred,

anger, and scorn, incongruous with the higher mood, and suppressed

artistically in the book; no brutal return to self-delighting, when

the audience of philanthropic schemes is out of hearing; no indecent

stripping off the grander feeling and rule of life as too costly and

cumbrous for every-day wear. Whatever Shelley was, he was with an

admirable sincerity. It was not always truth that he thought and spoke;

but in the purity of truth he spoke and thought always. Everywhere

is apparent his belief in the existence of Good, to which Evil is an

accident; his faithful holding by what he assumed to be the former

going everywhere in company with the tenderest pity for those acting

or suffering on the opposite hypothesis. For he was tender, though

tenderness is not always the characteristic of very sincere natures;

he was eminently both tender and sincere. And not only do the same

affection and yearning after the well-being of his kind appear in

the letters as in the poems, but they express themselves by the same

theories and plans, however crude and unsound. There is no reservation

of a subtler, less costly, more serviceable remedy for his own ill

than he has proposed for the general one; nor does he ever contemplate

an object on his own account from a less elevation than he uses in

exhibiting it to the world. How shall we help believing Shelley to have

been, in his ultimate attainment, the splendid spirit of his own best

poetry, when we find even his carnal speech to agree faithfully, at

faintest as at strongest, with the tone and rhythm of his most oracular

utterances?

For the rest, these new letters are not offered as presenting any new

feature of the poet's character. Regarded in themselves, and as the

substantive productions of a man, their importance would be slight.

But they possess interest beyond their limits, in confirming the

evidence just dwelt on, of the poetical mood of Shelley being only the

intensification of his habitual mood; the same tongue only speaking,

for want of the special excitement to sing. The very first letter,

as one instance for all, strikes the key-note of the predominating

sentiment of Shelley throughout his whole life--his sympathy with the

oppressed. And when we see him at so early an age, casting out, under

the influence of such a sympathy, letters and pamphlets on every side,

we accept it as the simple exemplification of the sincerity, with

which, at the close of his life, he spoke of himself, as--

"One whose heart a stranger's tear might wear

As water-drops the sandy fountain stone;

Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan

For woes which others hear not, and could see

The absent with the glass of phantasy,

And near the poor and trampled sit and weep,

Following the captive to his dungeon deep--

One who was as a nerve o'er which do creep

The else-unfelt oppressions of this earth."

Such sympathy with his kind was evidently developed in him to an

extraordinary and even morbid degree, at a period when the general

intellectual powers it was impatient to put in motion were immature or

deficient.

I conjecture, from a review of the various publications of Shelley's

youth, that one of the causes of his failure at the outset was

the peculiar _practicalness_ of his mind, which was not without a

determinate effect on his progress in theorizing. An ordinary youth,

who turns his attention to similar subjects, discovers falsities,

incongruities, and various points for amendment, and, in the natural

advance of the purely critical spirit unchecked by considerations

of remedy, keeps up before his young eyes so many instances of the

same error and wrong, that he finds himself unawares arrived at the

startling conclusion, that all must be changed--or nothing: in the face

of which plainly impossible achievement, he is apt (looking perhaps

a little more serious by the time he touches at the decisive issue)

to feel, either carelessly or considerately, that his own attempting

a single piece of service would be worse than useless even, and to

refer the whole task to another age and person--safe in proportion to

his incapacity. Wanting words to speak, he has never made a fool of

himself by speaking. But, in Shelley's case, the early fervor and power

to _see_ was accompanied by as precocious a fertility to _contrive:_

he endeavored to realize as he went on idealizing; every wrong had

simultaneously its remedy, and, out of the strength of his hatred for

the former, he took the strength of his confidence in the latter--till

suddenly he stood pledged to the defence of a set of miserable little

expedients, just as if they represented great principles, and to an

attack upon various great principles, really so, without leaving

himself time to examine whether because they were antagonistical to

the remedy he had suggested, they must therefore be identical or even

essentially connected with the wrong he sought to cure,--playing with

blind passion into the hands of his enemies, and dashing at whatever

red cloak was held forth to him, as the cause of the fireball he had

last been stung with--mistaking Churchdom for Christianity, and for

marriage, "the sale of love" and the law of sexual oppression.

Gradually, however, he was leaving behind him this low practical

dexterity, unable to keep up with his widening intellectual perception;

and, in exact proportion as he did so, his true power strengthened

and proved itself. Gradually he was raised above the contemplation of

spots and the attempt at effacing them, to the great Abstract Light,

and through the discrepancy of the creation, to the sufficiency of the

First Cause. Gradually he was learning that the best way of removing

abuses is to stand fast by truth. Truth is one, as they are manifold;

and innumerable negative effects are produced by the upholding of

one positive principle. I shall say what I think,--had Shelley lived

he would have finally ranged himself with the Christians; his very

instinct for helping the weaker side (if numbers make strength), his

very "hate of hate," which at first mistranslated itself into delirious

Queen Mab notes and the like, would have got clear-sighted by exercise.

The preliminary step to following Christ, is the leaving the dead to

bury their dead--not clamoring on his doctrine for an especial solution

of difficulties which are referable to the general problem of the

universe. Already he had attained to a profession of "a worship to the

Spirit of good within, which requires (before it sends that inspiration

forth, which impresses its likeness upon all it creates) devoted and

disinterested homage," _as Coleridge says_,--and Paul likewise. And we

find in one of his last exquisite fragments, avowedly a record of one

of his own mornings and its experience, as it dawned on him at his soul

and body's best in his boat on the Serchio--that as surely as

"The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,

And the thin white moon lay withering there--

Day had kindled the dewy woods,

And the rocks above, and the stream below,

And the vapors in their multitudes,

And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow--

Day had awakened all things that be;"

just so surely, he tells us (stepping forward from this delicious

dance-music, choragus-like, into the grander measure befitting the

final enunciation),--

"All rose to do the task He set to each,

Who shaped us to His ends and not our own;

The million rose to learn, and One to teach

What none yet ever knew or can be known."

No more difference than this, from David's pregnant conclusion so long

ago!

Meantime, as I call Shelley a moral man, because he was true,

simple-hearted, and brave, and because what he acted corresponded

to what he knew, so I call him a man of religious mind, because

every audacious negative cast up by him against the Divine was

interpenetrated with a mood of reverence and adoration,--and because I

find him everywhere taking for granted some of the capital dogmas of

Christianity, while most vehemently denying their historical basement.

There is such a thing as an efficacious knowledge of and belief in the

politics of Junius, or the poetry of Rowley, though a man should at the

same time dispute the title of Chatterton to the one, and consider the

author of the other, as Byron wittily did, "really, truly, nobody at

all."[11]

There is even such a thing, we come to learn wonderingly in these

very letters, as a profound sensibility and adaptitude for art, while

the science of the percipient is so little advanced as to admit of

his stronger admiration for Guido (and Carlo Dolce!) than for Michael

Angelo. A Divine Being has Himself said, that "a word against the Son

of man shall be forgiven to a man," while "a word against the Spirit

of God" (implying a general deliberate preference of perceived evil to

perceived good) "shall not be forgiven to a man." Also, in religion,

one earnest and unextorted assertion of belief should outweigh, as a

matter of testimony, many assertions of unbelief. The fact that there

is a gold-region is established by finding one lump, though you miss

the vein never so often.

He died before his youth ended. In taking the measure of him as a

man, he must be considered on the whole and at his ultimate spiritual

stature, and not to be judged of at the immaturity and by the mistakes

of ten years before: that, indeed, would be to judge of the author of

"Julian and Maddalo by Zastrozzi." Let the whole truth be told of his

worst mistake. I believe, for my own part, that if anything could now

shame or grieve Shelley, it would be an attempt to vindicate him at the

expense of another.

In forming a judgment, I would, however, press on the reader the

simple justice of considering tenderly his constitution of body as

well as mind, and how unfavorable it was to the steady symmetries of

conventional life; the body, in the torture of incurable disease,

refusing to give repose to the bewildered soul, tossing in its hot

fever of the fancy,--and the laudanum-bottle making but a perilous and

pitiful truce between these two. He was constantly subject to "that

state of mind" (I quote his own note to _Hellas_) "in which ideas may

be supposed to assume the force of sensation, through the confusion of

thought, with the objects of thought, and excess of passion animating

the creations of the imagination:" in other words, he was liable to

remarkable delusions and hallucinations. The nocturnal attack in Wales,

for instance, was assuredly a delusion; and I venture to express my

own conviction, derived from a little attention to the circumstances

of either story, that the idea of the enamored lady following him to

Naples, and of the "man in the cloak" who struck him at the Pisan

post-office, were equally illusory, --the mere projection, in fact,

from himself, of the image of his own love and hate.

"To thirst and find no fill--to wail and wander

With short unsteady step--to pause and ponder--

To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle

When busy thought and blind sensation mingle,--

To nurse the image of _unfelt caresses_

Till dim imagination just possesses

The half-created shadow"--

of unfelt caresses,--and of unfelt blows as well: to such conditions

was his genius subject. It was not at Rome only (where he heard a

mystic voice exclaiming, "Cenci, Cenci," in reference to the tragic

theme which occupied him at the time),--it was not at Rome only that

he mistook the cry of "old rags." The habit of somnambulism is said to

have extended to the very last days of his life.

Let me conclude with a thought of Shelley as a poet. In the hierarchy

of creative minds, it is the presence of the highest faculty that gives

first rank, in virtue of its kind, not degree; no pretension of a

lower nature, whatever the completeness of development of, variety of

effect, impeding the precedency of the rarer endowment though only in

the germ. The contrary is sometimes maintained; it is attempted to make

the lower gifts (which are potentially included in the higher faculty)

of independent value, and equal to some exercise of the special

function. For instance, should not a poet possess common sense? Then

the possession of abundant common sense implies a step towards becoming

a poet. Yes; such a step as the lapidary's, when, strong in the fact of

carbon entering largely into the composition of the diamond, he heaps

up a sack of charcoal in order to compete with the Koh-i-noor. I pass

at once, therefore, from Shelley's minor excellences to his noblest and

predominating characteristic.

This I call his simultaneous perception of Power and Love in the

absolute, and of Beauty and Good in the concrete, while he throws, from

his poet's station between both, swifter, subtler, and more numerous

films for the connection of each with each, than have been thrown by

any modern artificer of whom I have knowledge; proving how, as he says,

"The spirit of the worm within the sod

In love and worship blends itself with God."

I would rather consider Shelley's poetry as a sublime fragmentary

essay towards a presentment of the correspondency of the universe

to Deity, of the natural to the spiritual, and of the actual to the

ideal, than I would isolate and separately appraise the worth of many

detachable portions which might be acknowledged as utterly perfect

in a lower moral point of view, under the mere conditions of art. It

would be easy to take my stand on successful instances of objectivity

in Shelley: there is the unrivalled _Cenci;_ there is the _Julian and

Maddalo_ too; there is the magnificent _Ode to Naples:_ why not regard,

it may be said, the less organized matter as the radiant elemental

foam and solution, out of which would have been evolved, eventually,

creations as perfect even as those? But I prefer to look for the

highest attainment, not simply the high,--and, seeing it, I hold by it.

There is surely enough of the work "Shelley" to be known enduringly

among men, and, I believe, to be accepted of God, as human work may;

and around the imperfect proportions of such, the most elaborated

productions of ordinary art must arrange themselves as inferior

illustrations.

It is because I have long held these opinions in assurance and

gratitude, that I catch at the opportunity offered to me of expressing

them here; knowing that the alacrity to fulfil an humble office conveys

more love than the acceptance of the honor of a higher one, and that

better, therefore, than the signal service it was the dream of my

boyhood to render to his fame and memory, may be the saying of a few

inadequate words upon these scarcely more important supplementary

letters of Shelley.

II. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Page 2. PAULINE. A translation of the passage from Cornelius

Agrippa may be found in Cooke, p. 285.

V. A. XX. _i. e._, Vixi annos viginti. I was twenty years old.

Page 3.

_Had not the glow I felt at his award_

. . . . . . . . .

_Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever_.

The whole passage refers to Shelley. Many annotations to the poem are

given in _Poet-Lore_, January and February, 1889.

Page 9. _O God, where does this tend--these struggling aims?_

Browning appends the following note, a translation of which may be

found in Cooke, p. 332.

"Je crains bien que mon pauvre ami ne soit pas toujours parfaitement

compris dans ce qui reste à lire de cet étrange fragment, mais il est

moins propre que tout autre à éclaircir ce qui de sa nature ne peut

jamais être que songe et confusion. D'ailleurs je ne sais trop si en

cherchant à mieux co-ordonner certaines parties l'on ne courrait pas

le risque de nuire au seul mérite auquel une production si singulière

peut prètendre, celui de donner une idée assez précise du genre qu'elle

n'a fait qu' ébaucher. Ce début sans prétention, ce remuement des

passions qui va d'abord en accroissant et puis s'appaise par degrés,

ces élans de l'âme, ce retour soudain sur soimême, et par-dessus

tout, la tournure d'esprit tout particulière de mon ami, rendent les

changemens presque impossibles. Les raisons qu'il fait valoir ailleurs,

et d'autres encore plus puissantes, ont fait trouver grâce à mes yeux

pour cet écrit qu'autrement je lui eusse conseillé de jeter au feu.

Je n'en crois pas moins au grand principe de toute composition--à ce

principe de Shakespeare, de Rafaelle, de Beethoven, d'où il suit que la

concentration des idées est dûe bien plus à leur conception qu'à leur

mise en exécution: j'ai tout lieu de craindre que la première de ces

qualités ne soit encore étrangere à mon ami, et je doute fort qu'un

redoublement de travail lui fasse acquerir la seconde. Le mieux serait

de brûler ceci; mais que faire?

"Je crois que dans ce qui suit il fait allusion à un certain examen

qu'il fit autrefois de l'âme ou plutôt de son âme, pour decouvrir

la suite des objets auxquels il lui serait possible d'attendre, et

dont chacun une fois obtenu devait former une espèce de plateau d'où

l'on pouvait aperçevoir d'autres buts, d'autres projets, d'autres

jouissances qui, à leur tour, devaient être surmontes. Il en resultait

que l'oubli et le sommeil devaient tout terminer. Cette idée, que je

ne saisis pas parfaitement, lui est peutêtre aussi inintelligible qu'à

moi."

PAULINE.

Page 12. PARACELSUS. The following historical note and comment

was provided by Browning to accompany the poem. The notes indicated

by the superior numbers in the text will be found at the end of the

article.

The liberties I have taken with my subject are very trifling; and

the reader may slip the foregoing scenes between the leaves of any

memoir of Paracelsus he pleases, by way of commentary. To prove

this, I subjoin a popular account, translated from the _Biographie

Universelle_, Paris, 1822, which I select, not as the best, certainly,

but as being at hand, and sufficiently concise for my purpose. I also

append a few notes, in order to correct those parts which do not bear

out my own view of the character of Paracelsus; and have incorporated

with them a notice or two, illustrative of the poem itself.

"PARACELSUS (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus ab

Hohenheim) was born in 1493 at Einsiedeln,[12] a little town in the

canton of Schwyz, some leagues distant from Zurich. His father, who

exercised the profession of medicine at Villach in Carinthia, was

nearly related to George Bombast de Hohenheim, who became afterward

Grand Prior of the Order of Malta: consequently Paracelsus could not

spring from the dregs of the people, as Thomas Erastus, his sworn

enemy, pretends.[A] It appears that his elementary education was much

neglected, and that he spent part of his youth in pursuing the life

common to the travelling _literati_ of the age; that is to say, in

wandering from country to country, predicting the future by astrology

and cheiromancy, evoking apparitions, and practising the different

operations of magic and alchemy, in which he had been initiated whether

by his father or by various ecclesiastics, among the number of whom he

particularizes the Abbot Tritheim,[13] and many German bishops.

"As Paracelsus displays everywhere an ignorance of the rudiments of

the most ordinary knowledge, it is not probable that he ever studied

seriously in the schools: he contented himself with visiting the

universities of Germany, France, and Italy; and in spite of his

boasting himself to have been the ornament of those institutions, there

is no proof of his having legally acquired the title of Doctor, which

he assumes. It is only known that he applied himself long, under the

direction of the wealthy Sigismond Fugger of Schwatz, to the discovery

of the Magnum Opus.

"Paracelsus travelled among the mountains of Bohemia, in the east,

and in Sweden, in order to inspect the labors of the miners, to be

initiated in the mysteries of the oriental adepts, and to observe

the secrets of nature and the famous mountain of loadstone.[14] He

professes also to have visited Spain, Portugal, Prussia, Poland, and

Transylvania; everywhere communicating freely, not merely with the

physicians, but the old women, charlatans, and conjurers of these

several lands. It is even believed that he extended his journeyings as

far as Egypt and Tartary, and that he accompanied the son of the Khan

of the Tartars to Constantinople, for the purpose of obtaining the

secret of the tincture of Trismegistus from a Greek who inhabited that

capital.

"The period of his return to Germany is unknown: it is only certain

that, at about the age of thirty-three, many astonishing cures which

he wrought on eminent personages procured him such a celebrity, that

he was called in 1526, on the recommendation of Œcolampadius,[16]

to fill a chair of physic and surgery at the University of Basle.

There Paracelsus began by burning publicly in the amphitheatre the

works of Avicenna and Galen, assuring his auditors that the latchets

of his shoes were more instructed than those two physicians; that all

universities, all writers put together, were less gifted than the

hairs of his beard and of the crown of his head; and that, in a word,

he was to be regarded as the legitimate monarch of medicine, 'You

shall follow me,' cried he, 'you, Avicenna, Galen, Rhasis, Montagnana,

Mesues, you, gentlemen of Paris, Montpellier, Germany, Cologne,

Vienna,[B] and whomsoever the Rhine and Danube nourish; you who inhabit

the isles of the sea; you, likewise, Dalmatians, Athenians: thou, Arab;

thou, Greek; thou, Jew: all shall follow me, and the monarchy shall be

mine.'[C]

"But at Basle it was speedily perceived that the new Professor was no

better than an egregious quack. Scarcely a year elapsed before his

lectures had fairly driven away an audience incapable of comprehending

their emphatic jargon. That which above all contributed to sully his

reputation was the debauched life he led. According to the testimony of

Oporinus, who lived two years in his intimacy, Paracelsus scarcely ever

ascended the lecture-desk unless half drunk, and only dictated to his

secretaries when in a state of intoxication: if summoned to attend the

sick, he rarely proceeded thither without previously drenching himself

with wine. He was accustomed to retire to bed without changing his

clothes; sometimes he spent the night in pot-houses with peasants, and

in the morning knew no longer what he was about; and, nevertheless, up

to the age of twenty-five his only drink had been water.[17]

"At length, fearful of being punished for a serious outrage on a

magistrate,[15] he fled from Basle towards the end of the year 1527,

and took refuge in Alsatia, whither he caused Oporinus to follow with

his chemical apparatus.

"He then entered once more upon the career of ambulatory

theosophist.[D] Accordingly we find him at Colmar in 1528; at Nuremberg

in 1529; at St. Gall in 1531; at Pfeffers in 1535; and at Augsburg

in 1536: he next made some stay in Moravia, where he still further

compromised his reputation by the loss of many distinguished patients,

which compelled him to betake himself to Vienna; from thence he

passed into Hungary; and in 1538 was at Villach, where he dedicated

his _Chronicle_ to the States of Carinthia, in gratitude for the many

kindnesses with which they had honored his father. Finally, from

Mindelheim, which he visited in 1540, Paracelsus proceeded to Salzburg,

where he died in the hospital of St. Stephen (_Sebastian_ is meant),

Sept. 24, 1541."--(Here follows a criticism on his writings, which I

omit.)

Page 52. Act I. sc. 2. LADY CARLISLE and WENTWORTH.

Lady Carlisle, whose part was taken by Helen Faucit, afterward Lady

Martin, was in history daughter to the ninth Earl of Northumberland. In

1639 she had been for three years a widow.

Page 71.

... _Consign_

_To the low ground once more the ignoble Term,_

_And raise the Genius on his orb again._

The _term_ was a statue representing the Roman term, the god who

presides over boundaries. The _genius_ was the image that represented

the guardian spirit. Mr. Browning commenting on this passage has

said: "Suppose the enemies of a man to have thrown down the image and

replaced it by a mere _Term_, and you have what I put into Stratford's

head." "Putting the Genius on the pedestal usurped by the Term

means--or tries to mean--substituting eventually the true notion of

Strafford's endeavor and performance in the world for what he conceives

to be the ignoble and distorted conception of these by his contemporary

judge."

Page 90. BOCAFOLI and PLARA.

"Purely supposititious poets. Browning chooses to invent them as types

of two opposite poetic defects; Bocafoli as the writer of stark-naked

or totally jejune and inartistic psalms: Plara as the writer of petted

and over-finikin sonnets." [W. M. ROSSETTI.]

Page 101. _Patron-friend_. Walter Savage Landor.

Page 101. _Eyebright_.

"Stands for 'Euphrasia,' its Greek equivalent, and refers to one of Mr.

Browning's oldest friends," Miss Euphrasia Fanny Haworth. [MRS. ORR.]

Page 129. _Asolo_.

It is interesting to note the choice of scene for _Pippa Passes_ in

view of the dedicatory letter of Browning's latest volume _Asolando_.

In a letter written on his first journey to Italy he speaks of

"delicious Asolo."

Page 137.

_Kate? The Cornaro doubtless, who renounced_

_The crown of Cyprus to be lady here_

_At Asolo_.

Caterina Cornaro, the daughter of a wealthy and noble citizen of

Venice, was born in 1454. In 1471 she married the king of Cyprus. He

died the next year and for seven years Caterina was nominal queen, but

Venice compelled her at the end of that time to resign, and gave her

for residence Castle Asolo.

Page 138. BLUPHOCKS.

The curious Biblical scholia on this character is Browning's own. It

is said that the name was simply another way of spelling Blue Fox, a

slang-phrase for the Edinburgh Review.

Page 168. THE LABORATORY.

_Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?_

D. G. Rossetti's first water-color was an illustration of this poem,

and bore beneath it this line.

Page 169. CRISTINA.

The Cristina of this poem is fashioned after Cristina Maria, daughter

of Francis I., King of the Two Sicilies. She was born in 1806; was

married in 1829 to Ferdinand VII. King of Spain; became Regent in

1833, on the death of the king; and in 1843 her daughter ascended the

throne as Isabel II. Her life was given to intrigue, and to the use of

tyrannical power. She was hated by those she ruled, and despised by

them because of her personal character.

Page 175. A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S.

Baldassere Galuppi was born near Venice in 1706, and died in Venice in

1785. He was in London for three or four years, and was a most prolific

composer.

Page 176. _You're wroth--can you slay your snake like Apollo?_

In a volume of selections from his poem, revised by Browning himself,

occurs the following note on this line, by the poet.

"A word on the line about Apollo the snake-slayer, which my friend

Professor Colvin condemns, believing that the god of the Belvedere

grasps no bow, but the ægis, as described in the 15th Iliad. Surely the

text represents that portentous object (θοῦριν, δεινήν,

ἀμφιδάσειαν, ἀριπρεπέ'--μαρμαρέην) as 'shaken

violently' or 'held immovably' by both hands, not a single one,

and that the left hand:--

ἀλλὰ σύ γ' ἐν χείρεσσι λάβ' αἰγίδα

θυσανόεσσαν

τὴν μάλ' ἐπίσσείων φοβέειν ἤρωας

Ἀχαιούς.

and so on, τὴν ἄρ' ὃ γ' ἐν χείρεσσιν

ἔχων--χερσὶν ἔχ' ἀτρέμα, κ.τ.λ. Moreover,

while he shook it he 'shouted enormously,' σεῖσ',

ἐπὶ δ' αὐτὸς αὔσε μαλά μέγα, which the

statue does not. Presently when Teukros, on the other side, plies the

bow, it is τόξον ἔχων ἐν χειρὶ παλίντονον.

Besides, by the act of discharging an arrow, the right arm and hand

are thrown back as we see,--a quite gratuitous and theatrical display

in the case supposed. The conjecture of Flaxman that the statue was

suggested by the bronze Apollo Alexikakos of Kalamis, mentioned by

Pausanias, remains probable; though the 'hardness' which Cicero

considers to distinguish the artist's workmanship from that of Muron is

not by any means apparent in our marble copy, if it be one.--Feb. 16,

1880."

Page 181.

The last four lines of the ninth section of _Saul_ which ended the

first part in _Bells and Pomegranates_, were as follows, 1845:--

"On one head the joy and the pride, even rage like the throe

That opes the rock, helps its glad labor, and lets the gold go--

And ambition that sees a man lead it--oh, all of these--all

Combine to unite in one creature--Saul!"

Page 191. RESPECTABILITY.

"These two unconventional Bohemian lovers," says Professor Corson,

"strolling together at night, at their own sweet will, see down the

court along which they are strolling, three lampions flare, which

indicate some big place or other where the respectables do congregate;

and the woman says to the companion, with a humorous sarcasm, Put

forward your best foot! that is, we must be very correct passing

along here in this brilliant light. By the lovers are evidently meant

George Sand (the speaker) and Jules Sandeau, with whom she lived in

Paris, after she left her husband, M. Dudevant. They took just such

unconventional night-strolls together, in the streets of Paris."

Page 194. THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

The picture which Browning describes, called _L' Angelo Custode_, is

in the church of St. Augustine at Fano; and it "represents an angel

standing with outstretched wings by a little child. The child is

half-kneeling on a kind of pedestal, while the angel joins its hands

in prayer; its gaze is directed upwards towards the sky, from which

cherubs are looking down." It is not regarded as one of his chief

pictures, but it interested Browning because of the subject, and its

simple pathos.

Page 194. _Alfred, dear friend._

Alfred Domett, the hero of _Waring_, an early friend of Browning, and

at the time living in New Zealand. Mrs. Orr writes: "When he read the

apostrophe to 'Alfred, dear friend,' he had reached the last line

before it occurred to him that the person invoked could be he."

Page 254. INSTANS TYRANNUS.

The title of this poem was suggested by Horace's ode, III. iii. 1.

beginning

Justum et tenacem propositi virum,

Non civium ardor prava jubentium

Non vultus instantis tyranni.

Page 264. WARING.

Alfred Domett, son of Nathaniel Domett, was born at Camberwell Grove,

Surrey, May 20, 1811. His father was a seaman under Nelson, and a

gallant sailor. Alfred entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1829;

but after a residence of three years he left without graduation. His

attention was early turned to literature, and in 1832 he published

a volume of poems. He also contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_

various lyrics which attracted attention to him as a rising poet. One

of these was _A Christmas Hymn_, which is the best known of all his

poems, and has been highly praised. It may be found in several poetical

collections, and among them _Festival Poems_. In 1839, in the same

magazine, he published a poem on _Venice_.

Domett was called to the bar in 1841, and lived in the Middle Temple

with Joseph Arnold, who became Chief Justice of Bombay. He was handsome

and attractive, well received in society, and a favorite with his

literary friends. Before this, however, he had spent two years in

travelling in America, including a winter in the backwoods of Canada;

and then two years more in Switzerland, Italy, and other Continental

countries. In 1842 he was persuaded to go to New Zealand by his cousin,

William Young, whose father was a large land owner there, in connection

with the New Zealand Company. In May, 1842, he went out to that colony

among the earliest settlers. It was immediately after his departure

that Browning wrote his _Waring_, which describes his friend very

accurately, and the circumstances of his sudden absence from London.

On arriving in New Zealand, Domett found that his cousin had just been

drowned. He settled in the county of Wairoa, on the North Island. In

_The Guardian Angel_ Browning addressed him:--

"Where are you, dear old friend?

How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?"

Soon after his arrival Domett was made a magistrate with a salary of

£700 a year. Before leaving England Domett was permanently lamed by

an accident to one of his legs, which saved his life soon after he

reached the colony, for it prevented his accepting the invitation of

some treacherous native chiefs to a banquet at which all the English

guests were killed. In his _Narrative of the Wairou Massacre_, 1843, he

described this event.

In 1848 he was made the Colonial Secretary for the southern part of the

North Island; and in 1851 he was also appointed the Civil Secretary for

the whole of New Zealand, holding both offices until the introduction

of the new constitution, in 1853. Having resigned these offices, he

accepted one of more work and less remuneration, as Commissioner of

Crown Lands, and Resident Magistrate at Hawke's Bay; and of this

district he had virtually the sole official management. In 1859 he

represented the town of Nelson in the House of Representatives, and he

was reëlected the following year.

In 1862, at a critical moment in the affairs of New Zealand, Domett

was called upon to form a new government, which he successfully

accomplished, becoming the Prime Minister.

In 1871, Domett returned to London, and took up his residence at

Phillimore Terrace, Kensington; and afterwards at St. Charles's

Square, North Kensington. He had married a handsome English lady

while yet a resident in New Zealand. He saw much of Browning; he

became an interested member of the Browning Society, and one of its

vice-presidents. "His grand white head," says Mr. F. J. Furnivall,

"was to be seen at all the Society's performances and at several of

its meetings. He naturally preferred Mr. Browning's early works to

the later ones. He could not be persuaded to write any account of his

early London days. Mr. Domett produced with pride his sea-stained copy

of Browning's _Bells and Pomegranates_. A sterling, manly, independent

nature was Alfred Domett's. He impressed every one with whom he came in

contact, and is deeply regretted by his remaining friends."

In 1872 Domett published in London his _Ranolf and Amohia, a South-Sea

Day Dream_, a poem descriptive of New Zealand, its scenery, and the

legends and habits of the Maori inhabitants. This poem was afterwards

revised, enlarged, and published in two volumes. In 1877 appeared a

volume of his short poems, including those published before he went to

New Zealand, under the title of _Flotsam and Jetsam, Rhymes Old and

New_. [G. W. COOKE.]

Page 280.

_He settled Hoti's business--let it be!_

_Properly based Oun--,_

_Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De._

--_Hoti_ is the Greek particle ὅτι, that, etc.--_Oun_ is the Greek

particle οὖν, then, now then, etc.--_The enclitic De_ is the Greek

δε, which Browning refers to in a letter to the London _Daily News_

of Nov. 21, 1874: "To the Editor: Sir,--In a clever article this

morning you speak of 'the doctrine of enclitic De'--'which, with all

deference to Mr. Browning, in point of fact does not exist.' No,

not to Mr. Browning: but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose fifth

list of 'enclitics' ends with 'the inseparable _De_'--or to Curtius,

whose fifth list ends also with '_De_ (meaning "_towards_" and as a

demonstrative appendage).' That this is not to be confounded with the

accentuated 'De, meaning _but_' was the 'doctrine' which the Grammarian

bequeathed to those capable of receiving it.--I am, sir, yours

obediently, R. B."

Page 287. CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME.

In an article describing a visit to the poet, Rev. John W. Chadwick

speaks of this tapestry and Mr. Browning's comments on the poem:--

"Upon the lengthwise wall of the room, above the Italian furniture,

sombre and richly carved, was a long, wide band of tapestry, on

which I thought I recognized the miserable horse of Childe Roland's

pilgrimage:--

"'One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he came there:

Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!'

I asked Mr. Browning if the beast of the tapestry was the beast of the

poem; and he said yes, and descanted somewhat on his lean monstrosity.

But only a Browning could have evolved the stanzas of the poem from

the woven image. I further asked him if he had said that he only

wrote _Childe Roland_ for its realistic imagery, without any moral

purpose,--a notion to which Mrs. Sutherland Orr has given currency;

and he protested that he never had. When I asked him if constancy to

an ideal--'He that endureth to the end shall be saved'--was not a

sufficient understanding of the central purpose of the poem, he said,

'Yes, just about that.'"

Page 337. ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES.

Mrs. Orr prints in her _Handbook_ a note from Browning with reference

to the attacks upon him for the form he adopted in the printing of

Greek names. It is in reply to an article in the _Nineteenth Century_,

for January, 1886, written by Mr. Frederick Harrison. "I have just

noticed," wrote Browning, "in this month's _Nineteenth Century_ that

it is inquired by a humorous objector to the practice of spelling

(under exceptional conditions) Greek proper names as they are spelled

in Greek literature, why the same principle should not be adopted by

Ægyptologists, Hebraists, Sanscrittists, Aceadians, Moabites, Hittites,

and Cuneiformists? Adopt it by all means whenever the particular

language enjoyed by any fortunate possessor of these shall, like Greek,

have been for about three hundred years insisted upon in England, as

an acquisition of paramount importance at school and college, for

every aspirant to distinction in learning, even at the cost of six

or seven years' study--a sacrifice considered well worth making for

even an imperfect acquaintance with the most perfect language in the

world. Further, it will be adopted whenever the letters substituted

for those in ordinary English use shall do no more than represent to

the unscholarly what the scholar accepts without scruple, when, for

the hundredth time, he reads the word which, for once, he has occasion

to write in English, and which he concludes must be as euphonic as the

rest of a language renowned for euphony. And finally, the practice

will be adopted whenever the substituted letters effect no sort of

organic change, so as to jostle the word from its pride of place in

English verse or prose. 'Themistokles' fits in quietly everywhere, with

or without the 'k;' but in a certain poetical translation I remember

by a young friend, of the _Anabasis_, beginning thus felicitously,

'_Cyrus the Great and Artaxerxes (Whose temper bloodier than a Turk's

is) Were children both of the mild, pious, And happy monarch King

Darius;_ who fails to see that, although a correct 'Kuraush' may pass,

yet 'Darayavash' disturbs the metre as well as the rhyme? It seems,

however, that 'Themistokles' may be winked at; not so the 'harsh

and subversive "Kirke."' But let the objector ask somebody with no

knowledge to subvert, how he supposes 'Circe' is spelled in Greek, and

the answer will be, 'With a soft _c_.' Inform him that no such letter

exists, and he guesses, 'Then with _s_, if there be anything like it.'

Tell him that to eye and ear equally, his own _k_ answers the purpose,

and you have at all events taught him that much, if little enough--and

why does he live unless to learn a little!" This note is signed "R. B."

Its date is January 4, 1886.

Page 341. JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION.

"'Antinomians, so denominated for rejecting the Law as a thing of no

use under the Gospel dispensation: they say, that good works do not

further, nor evil works hinder salvation; that the child of God cannot

sin, that God never chastiseth him, that murder, drunkenness, etc., are

sins in the wicked but not in him, that the child of grace being once

assured of salvation, afterwards never doubteth, ... that God doth not

love any man for his holiness, that sanctification is no evidence of

justification, etc. Pontanus, in his _Catalogue of Heresies_, says John

Agricola was the author of this sect, A. D. 1535.' _Dictionary

of all Religions_, 1704."

"Browning," says Mr. Cooke, "does not correctly represent the teachings

of Agricola, though his poem is correct so far as many Antinomians are

concerned. Agricola held that the Law and the Gospel are incompatible,

that the Law is only for the Jew, and that the spirit of Christ

abolishes it for the Christian. The moral obligations, however, he held

were for the Christian as much as for any other person. In the New

Testament he found all the principles and motives necessary to give

true impulse and guidance to the Christian. It was the use made of his

teachings by fanatics which cast an odium on the name of Antinomians;

and it is this fanatical and sentimental religion which Browning has

interpreted correctly in his poem. Many of the Antinomians taught what

is attributed to them in the _Dictionary of all Religions_, from which

Browning quoted when his poem was first published."

Page 348. THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB.

"I know no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in

which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance

spirit,--its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance

of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly

all that I said of the central Renaissance in thirty pages of the

_Stones of Venice_, put into as many lines, Browning's being also the

antecedent work. The worst of it is that this kind of concentrated

writing needs so much solution before the reader can fairly get the

good of it, that people's patience fails them, and they give the thing

up as insoluble; though, truly, it ought to be to the current of common

thought like Saladin's talisman, dipped in clear water, not soluble

altogether, but making the element medicinal." [JOHN RUSKIN.]

Page 387. _Is not his love at issue still with sin._

In the first edition there followed this line: _Closed with and cast

and conquered, crucified._

Page 602. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE.

Mr. Richard G. Moulton, in the _Transactions of the Browning Society_,

1890-1891, offers a detailed criticism of Browning's poem as a

reproduction of the thought of Euripides, especially in regard to the

character of Admetus. The chief points will be found in Berdoe's _The

Browning Cyclopaedia_.

Page 699. PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU.

Of the description of the succession of Roman high priests, Mrs.

Orr says: "Mr. Browning desires me to say that he has been wrong in

associating this custom with the little temple by the river Clitumnus,

which he describes from personal knowledge. That to which the tradition

refers stood by the lake of Nemi."

Page 736. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY.

The equivalents in point of fact of names are as follows.

The Firm Miranda = Mellerio Brothers.

St. Rambert = St. Aubin. Joyeux, Joyous-Gard = Lion, Lionesse.

Vire = Caen.

St. Rambertese = St. Aubinese.

Londres = Douvres.

London = Dover. La Roche = Courcelle. Moulieu = Bernières. Villeneuve =

Langrune. Pons = Luc. La Ravissante = La Délivrande.

Raimbaux = Bayeux. Morillon = Hugonin. Mirecourt = Bonnechose.

New York = Madrid.

Clairvaux = Tailleville. Gonthier = Bény. Rousseau = Voltaire. Léonce =

Antoine.

Of "Firm Miranda, London and New York" = "Mellerio Brothers;" Meller,

people say.

Rare Vissante = Dell Yvrande. Aldabert = Regnobert. Eldobert =

Ragnobert. Mailleville = Beaudoin. Chaumont = Quelen. Vertgalant =

Talleyrand.

Ravissantish = Délivrandish.

Clara de Millefleurs = Anna de Beaupré. Coliseum Street = Miromesnil

Street.

Steiner = Mayer. Commerey = Larocy. Sierck = Metz.

Muhlhausen = Debacker. Carlino Centofanti = Miranda di Mongino.

Portugal = Italy.

Vaillant = Mériel.

Thirty-three = Twenty-five.

Beaumont = Pasquier.

Sceaux = Garges.

The "guide" recommended to Miranda was M. Joseph Milsand, who was

always at St. Aubin during the bathing season, and who was an old

friend of Browning's.

Lac de la Maison Rouge = Jean de la Becquetière. Claise = Vire. Maude =

Anne.

Dionysius = Eliezer. Scholastica = Elizabeth.

Twentieth = Thirteenth.

Fricquot = Picot.

Page 802. _My Kirkup_.

Baron Kirkup, a connoisseur in literature and art, who was numbered

among Browning's Florentine friends. He was ennobled by the King of

Italy, because of his literary and patriotic services to his country.

He discovered a portrait of Dante in the Bargello at Florence.

Page 827. EPILOGUE.

The poet referred to is Mrs. Browning in _Wine of Cyprus_.

Page 880. IVÀN IVÀNOVITCH.

Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole, the author of a _History of Russia_, and the

translator of Tolstoi and other Russian authors, furnishes for Mr.

Cooke's _Browning Guide Book_ the following notes:--

"A _verst_ is about .66 of a mile (3500 feet).--I take it the

_highway broad and straight from the Neva's mouth to Moscow's gates

of gold_ must refer to the legend that when the first railroad was

built from one city to the other, the Emperor Nicholas ordered that

it should run absolutely straight, himself marking it with a ruler

on the map. I do not think the old highway ran straight.--_Ivàn

Ivànovitch_ is equivalent to John Johnson, or more correctly Jack

Jackson, _Ivàn_ being the familiar of _Ioànn_, John. The ending

_vitch_, however, is not exactly an equivalent to son; it really means

father.--_Droug_, more correctly spelt _druk_ (pronounced drook), means

friend.--Browning's _motherkin_ corresponds to the Russian _màtushka_,

and is an endearing diminutive of _mat_, mother; it is always applied

to any old peasant woman; it is a familiar form of address, often

applied to any woman or even girl.--_Vàssili_ (accented by Browning

incorrectly on the first syllable) should be spelt _Vasìli:_ it is our

Basil.--_Lukeria_ is a colloquial form of _Glikeria_, _Glycera;_ the

proper diminutive is _Lusha_ and also _Lushka_.--Browning makes one

odd mistake in the poem; it would be impossible for the breath to go

up straight when the people were riding fast in a Russian sledge.--He

speaks of _twin pigeons;_ the most familiar term of endearment in

Russian is _golùbchik_, which is the diminutive of the word for

pigeon.--_Stòpka_ is the proper diminutive of _Stepàn_, Stephen; the

_io_ merely represents the sound of the _e_ (as in yelk) with which

it is written in Russian.--_Pope_ should not be with a capital; it

simply means priest.--_Marpha_ should be spelt _Marfa;_ it is our

Martha, but the Russians cannot pronounce _th;_ they represent it by

_f_.--_Pomeschìk_ should be _pomyèschik;_ it means merely a landed

proprietor.--_Stàrosta_ is correctly accented; it is the bailiff of

a village, also overseer, inspector; it merely means old man (from

_stàrost_, old age, _star_, old.)-- _Kremlin_ is better _kreml;_ it

is any fortress, but especially the fortress of Moscow.--_Kàtia_ is

the diminutive of _Yekaterìna_, Katherine.--_Kòlokol_ is pronounced as

though it were two syllables, accent on the first.--I am not certain

about the correctness of _Teriòscha_. It should have no c: nor should

_Stèscha_."

Page 899. PIETRO OF ABANO.

"Studiando le mie cifre col compasso,

Rilevo che sarò presto sotterra,

Perchè del mio saper si fa gran chiasso,

E gl' ignoranti m' hanno mosso guerra."

Said to have been found in a well at Abano in the last century. They

were extemporaneously Englished thus: not as Father Prout chose to

prefer them:--

Studying my ciphers with the compass,

I reckon--I soon shall be below-ground;

Because, of my lore folk make great rumpus,

And war on myself makes each dull rogue round.

R. B.

Page 914. CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI.

The subjects of this poem are Queen Christina of Sweden, daughter of

Gustavus Adolphus, and her master of horse.

Page 955. WITH DANIEL BARTOLI.

A learned and ingenious writer. "Fu Gesuita e Storico della Compagnia;

onde scrisse lunghissime storie, le quali sarebbero lette se non

fossero ripiene traboccanti di tutte le superstizioni.... Egli vi ha

ficcati dentro tanti miracoloni, che diviene una noia insopportabile

a chiunque voglia leggere quelle storie: e anche a me, non mi bastò

l'amimo di proseguire molto avanti."--ANGELO CERUTTI.

III. A LIST OF MR. BROWNING'S POEMS AND DRAMAS

ARRANGED IN THE ORDER OF FIRST PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM

The following list is drawn from the careful Bibliography, prepared by

Mr. Thomas J. Wise and published in _The Athenaeum_ for August 11, 25,

September 29, October 27, 1894.

1833. Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession.

1835. Paracelsus.

1837. Strafford: An Historical Tragedy.

1840. Sordello.

1841. Bells and Pomegranates. No. I. Pippa Passes.

1842. Bells and Pomegranates. No. II. King Victor and King Charles.

1843. Bells and Pomegranates. No. III. Dramatic Lyrics.

Contents

Cavalier Tunes:

(1) Marching Along.

(2) Give a Rouse.

(3) My Wife Gertrude.

Italy and France.

Camp and Cloister.

In a Gondola.

Artemis Prologizes.

Waring.

Queen-Worship.

(1) Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli.

(2) Cristina.

Madhouse Cells.

Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr. 1842.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

1843. Bells and Pomegranates. No. IV. The Return of the Druses. A

Tragedy in five Acts.

1843. Bells and Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. A

Tragedy in three Acts.

1844. Bells and Pomegranates. No. VI. Colombe's Birthday. A Play in

five Acts.

1845. Bells and Pomegranates. No. VII. Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.

Contents

"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix."

Pictor Ignotus.

Italy in England.

England in Italy.

The Lost Leader.

The Lost Mistress.

Home Thoughts from Abroad.

The Tomb at St. Praxed's.

Garden Fancies:

(1) The Flower's Name.

(2) Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis.

France and Spain:

(1) The Laboratory.

(2) The Confessional.

The Flight of the Duchess.

Earth's Immortalities.

Song: "Nay "but you, who do not love her."

The Boy and the Angel.

Night and Morning.

Claret and Tokay.

Saul.

Time's Revenges.

The Glove.

1846. Bells and Pomegranates. No. VIII. and last. Luria; and A

Soul's Tragedy.

1850. Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.

1855. Cleon.

1855. The Statue and the Bust.

1855. Men and Women. In two volumes.

Contents. I.

Love among the Ruins.

A Lovers' Quarrel.

Evelyn Hope.

Up at a Villa--down in the City. (As Distinguished by an

Italian Person of Quality.)

A Woman's Last Word.

Fra Lippo Lippi.

A Toccata of Galuppi's.

By the Fireside.

Any Wife to Any Husband.

An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of

Karshish, the Arab

Physician.

Mesmerism.

A Serenade at the Villa.

My Star.

Instans Tyrannus.

A Pretty Woman.

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

Respectability.

A Light Woman.

The Statue and the Bust.

Love in a Life.

Life in a Love.

How it strikes a Contemporary.

The Last Ride Together.

The Patriot--An Old Story.

Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha.

Bishop Blougram's Apology.

Memorabilia.

Contents. II.

Andrea del Sarto. (Called "The Faultless Painter.")

Before.

After.

In Three Days.

In a Year.

Old Pictures in Florence.

In a Balcony.--First Part.

In a Balcony.--Second Part.

In a Balcony.--Third Part.

Saul.

"De Gustibus--"

Women and Roses.

Protus.

Holy-Cross Day. (On which the Jews were forced to attend an

Annual Christian Sermon in Rome.)

The Guardian-Angel: A Picture at Fano.

Cleon.

The Twins.

Popularity.

The Heretic's Tragedy. A Middle-Age Interlude.

Two in the Campagna.

A Grammarian's Funeral.

One Way of Love.

Another Way of Love.

"Transcendentalism:" A Poem in Twelve Books.

Misconceptions.

One Word More. To E. B. B.

1864. Gold Hair: A Legend of Pornic.

Dramatis Personæ.

Contents

James Lee.

Gold Hair: A Legend of Pornic.

The Worst of it.

Bis Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de Nos Jours.

Too Late.

Abt Vogler.

Rabbi Ben Ezra.

A Death in the Desert.

Caliban upon Setebos; or Natural Theology in the Island.

Confessions.

May and Death.

Prospice.

Youth and Art.

A Face.

A Likeness.

Mr. Sludge, "The Medium."

Apparent Failure.

Epilogue.

1868. The Ring and the Book.

1871. Balaustion's Adventure: Including a Transcript from Euripides.

1871. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society.

1872. Fifine at the Fair.

1873. Red Cotton Night-cap Country, or Turf and Towers.

1875. Aristophanes' Apology: Including a Transcript from Euripides,

Being the Last Adventure of Balaustion.

1875. The Inn Album.

1876. Pacchiarotto, and How he Worked in Distemper: with other

Poems.

Contents

Prologue.

Of Pacchiarotto, and How he Worked in Distemper.

At the "Mermaid."

House.

Shop.

Pisgah-Sights. (1).

Pisgah-Sights. (2).

Fears and Scruples.

Natural Magic.

Magical Nature.

Bifurcation.

Numpholeptos.

Appearances.

St. Martin's Summer.

Hervé Riel.

A Forgiveness.

Cenciaja.

Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial.

Epilogue.

1877. The Agamemnon of Æschylus.

1878. La Saisiaz.

The Two Poets of Croisic.

1879. Dramatic Idyls.

Contents

Martin Relph.

Pheidippides.

Halbert and Hob.

Ivàn Ivànovitch.

Tray.

Ned Bratts.

1880. Dramatic Idyls; Second Series.

Contents

Echetlos.

Clive.

Muléykeh.

Pietro of Abano.

Doctor ----.

Pan and Luna.

1883. Jocoseria.

Contents

Wanting is--What?

Donald.

Solomon and Balkis.

Cristina and Monaldeschi.

Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli.

Adam, Lilith, and Eve.

Ixion.

Jochanan Hakkadosh.

Never the Time and the Place.

Pambo.

1884. Ferishtah's Fancies.

Contents

Prologue.

The Eagle.

The Melon-Seller.

Shah Abbas.

The Family.

The Sun.

Mihrab Shah.

A Camel-Driver.

Two Camels.

Cherries.

Plot Culture.

A Pillar at Sebzevar.

A Bean-Stripe: also Apple-Eating.

Epilogue.

1887. Parleyings with certain People of importance in their day:

To wit: Bernard de Mandeville, Daniel Bartoli, Christopher

Smart, George Bubb Dodington, Francis Furini, Gerard de

Lairesse, and Charles Avison. Introduced by A Dialogue

between Apollo and the Fates; concluded by another between

John Fust and his Friends.

1890. Asolando: Fancies and Facts.

Contents

Prologue.

Rosny.

Dubiety.

Now.

Humility.

Poetics.

Summum Bonum.

A Pearl, A. Girl.

Speculative.

White Witchcraft.

Bad Dreams: I.

" " II.

" " III.

" " IV.

Inapprehensiveness.

Which?

The Cardinal and the Dog.

The Pope and the Net.

The Bean-Feast.

Muckle-mouth Meg.

Arcades Ambo.

The Lady and the Painter.

Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice.

Beatrice Signorini.

Flute-Music, with an Accompaniment.

"Imperante Augusto natus est--"

Development.

Rephan.

Reverie.

Epilogue.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF POEMS

About that strangest, saddest, sweetest song, 602.

A certain neighbor lying sick to death, 932.

Ah, but--because you were struck blind, could bless, 970.

Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis! 914.

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, 195.

Ah, George Bubb Dodington Lord Melcombe,--no, 961.

Ah, Love, but a day, 373.

Ah, the bird-like fluting, 999.

A king lived long ago, 140.

All I believed is true, 255.

All I can say is--I saw it! 811.

All June I bound the rose in sheaves, 190.

All service ranks the same with God, 145.

All's over then: does truth sound bitter, 170.

All that I know, 185.

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee, 988.

Among these latter busts we count by scores, 283.

And so, here happily we meet, fair friend, 736.

And so you found that poor room dull, 814.

"And what might that bold man's announcement be," 933.

Anyhow, once full Dervish, youngsters came, 930.

A Rabbi told me: On the day allowed, 906.

A simple ring with a single stone, 988.

As I ride, as I ride, 165.

Ask not one least word of praise! 941.

"As like as a Hand to another Hand!" 375.

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 1007.

"Ay, but, Ferishtah,"--a disciple smirked, 939.

Ay, this same midnight, by this chair of mine, 952.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! 171.

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 163.

But do not let us quarrel any more, 346.

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! 395.

Christ God, who savest man, save most, 252.

Cleon the poet, from the sprinkled isles, 358.

Come close to me, dear friends; still closer: thus! 12.

Crescenzio, the Pope's Legate at the High Council, Trent, 991.

Dared and done: at last I stand upon the summit, Dear and True! 849.

Dear and great Angel, would'st thou only leave, 194.

Dear, had the world in its caprice, 191.

Dervish--though yet un-dervished, call him so, 929.

Don, the divinest women that have walked, 955.

"Enter my palace," if a prince should say, 947.

Escape me? 191.

Eyes, calm beside thee (Lady, couldst thou know!) 11.

"Fame!" Yes, I said it and you read it. First, 859.

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, 395.

Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! 281.

Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes, 934.

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock, 877.

Flame at my footfall, Parnassus! Apollo, 948.

Flower--I never fancied, jewel--I profess you! 812.

Flower o' the broom, 342.

Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one, 260.

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: So, red-handed I catch thee? 993.

Give her but a least excuse to love me, 137.

Going his rounds one day in Ispahan, 920.

Goldoni--good, gay, sunniest of souls, 910.

Good, to forgive, 849.

Grand rough old Martin Luther, 266.

Grow old along with me! 383.

Gr-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence! 167.

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, 174.

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, 268.

Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes, 36.

"Heigho," yawned one day King Francis, 256.

Here is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead and gone,

892.

Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,

879.

Here's my case. Of old I used to love him, 811.

Here's the garden she walked across, 166.

Here's to Nelson's memory! 166.

Here was I with my arm and heart, 380.

He was the man--Pope Sixtus, that Fifth, that swineherd's son, 992.

High in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, behold us, 916.

Hist, but a word, fair and soft! 195.

How I lived, ere my human life began, 1004.

How of his fate, the Pilgrims' soldier-guide, 936.

How strange!--but, first of all, the little fact, 974.

How very hard it is to be, 327.

How well I know what I mean to do, 185.

I am a goddess of the ambrosial courts, 337.

I am a painter who cannot paint, 137.

I am indeed the personage you know, 817.

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! 342.

I and Clive were friends--and why not? 893.

I could have painted pictures like that youth's, 341.

I dream of a red-rose tree, 193.

If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried "A churl's!" 897.

If one could have that little head of hers, 396.

If you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be?

989.

I hear a voice, perchance I heard, 22.

I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives, 361.

I know there shall dawn a day, 1005.

I leaned on the turf, 374.

I--"Next Poet?" No, my hearties, 807.

I only knew one poet in my life, 336.

I said--Then, dearest, since 'tis so, 267.

Is all our fire of shipwreck wood, 373.

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart, 262.

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he, 164.

It happened thus: my slab, though new, 990.

It is a lie--their Priests, their Pope, 169.

It once might have been, once only, 396.

It seems as if ... or did the actual chance, 959.

It was roses, roses, all the way, 251.

I've a Friend, over the sea, 258.

I will be happy if but for once, 987.

I will be quiet and talk with you, 374.

I wish that when you died last May, 395.

I wonder do you feel to-day, 189.

John, Master of the Temple of God, 280.

June was not over, 190.

Just for a handful of silver he left us, 164.

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, 338.

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, 163.

King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 163.

"Knowledge deposed, then!"--groaned whom that most grieved, 940.

Last night I saw you in my sleep, 989.

Let's contend no more, Love, 171.

Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far, 193.

Let the watching lids wink! 130.

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 279.

"Look, I strew beans," 942.

Man I am and man would be, Love--merest man and nothing more, 933.

May I print, Shelley, how it came to pass, 821.

Morning, evening, noon and night, 253.

Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high, 927.

My father was a scholar and knew Greek, 1002.

My first thought was, he lied in every word, 287.

My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago,

875,

My heart sank with our Claret-flask, 166.

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou, 187.

Nay but you, who do not love her, 170.

Nay, _that_, Furini, never I at least, 964.

Never any more, 192.

Never the time and the place, 928.

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away, 179.

"No, boy, we must not"--so began, 823.

No, for I'll save it! Seven years since, 412.

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs, and talk, 349.

No protesting, dearest! 814.

Not with my Soul, Love!--bid no soul like mine, 940.

Now, don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once! 397.

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, 168.

O bell' andare, 70.

Of the million or two, more or less, 254.

Oh, but is it not hard, Dear? 916.

Oh Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find! 175.

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, 375.

Oh Love! Love, thou that from the eyes diffusest, 874.

Oh, Love--no, Love! All the noise below, Love, 946.

Oh, the beautiful girl, too white, 577.

Oh, to be in England, 179.

Oh, what a dawn of day! 172.

Oh worthy of belief I hold it was, 909.

Once I saw a chemist take a pinch of powder, 938.

One day, it thundered and lightened, 916.

Only the prism's obstruction shows aright, 395.

On the first of the Feast of Feasts, 413.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, 815.

O the old wall here! How I could pass, 802.

Others may need _new_ life in Heaven, 988.

O trip and skip, Elvire! Link arm in arm with me! 702.

Out of the little chapel I burst, 318.

Out of your whole life give but a moment! 988.

Overhead the treetops meet, 144.

Over the ball of it, 810.

Over the sea our galleys went, 38.

Past we glide, and past, and past! 262.

Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me--thy soft breast, 2.

_Petrus Aponensis_--there was a magician! 899.

Plague take all your pedants, say I! 167.

Pray, Reader, have you eaten ortolans, 929.

Query: was ever a quainter, 802.

Quoth an inquirer, Praise the Merciful! 934.

Quoth one: Sir, solve a scruple! No true sage, 937.

Room after room, 191.

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, 170.

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, 930.

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, 179.

Savage I was sitting in my house, late, lone, 735.

See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, 170.

Shakespeare!--to such name's sounding, what succeeds, 947.

Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself? 808.

She should never have looked at me, 169.

Sighed Rawdon Brown: Yes, I'm departing, Toni! 947.

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst, 887.

So far as our story approaches the end, 267.

So, friend, your shop was all your house! 809.

So, I shall see her in three days, 192.

Solomon King of the Jews and the Queen of Sheba, Balkis, 913.

Some people hang portraits up, 396.

"So say the foolish!" Say the foolish so, Love? 988.

So, the head aches and the limbs are faint! 936.

So, the three Court-ladies began, 991.

So, the year's done with! 170.

Stand still, true poet that you are! 195.

Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no? 374.

Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile! 812.

Stop, let me have the truth of that! 379.

Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak? 335.

Stop rowing! This one of our bye-canals, 994.

Such a starved bank of moss, 859.

Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene, 385.

Suppose that we part (work done, comes play), 928.

Take the cloak from his face, and at first, 194.

That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers, 190.

That oblong book's the Album; hand it here! 773.

That second time they hunted me, 258.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 252.

That was I, you heard last night, 189.

The bee with his comb, 144.

The blind man to the maiden said, 910.

The fancy I had to-day, 701.

The gods I ask deliverance from these labors, 831.

The gray sea and the long black land, 170.

The Lord, we look to once for all, 280.

The morn when first it thunders in March, 176.

The moth's kiss, first! 262.

The Poet's age is sad: for why? 987.

"The poets pour us wine--" 827.

The rain set early in to-night, 286.

There is nothing to remember in me, 376.

There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well, 283.

There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the purest,

220.

There's heaven above, and night by night, 341.

There they are, my fifty men and women, 361.

The swallow has set her six young on the rail, 373.

The year's at the spring, 133.

"They tell me, your carpenters," quoth I to my friend the Russ, 880.

This is a spray the Bird clung to, 189.

This now, this other story makes amends, 918.

This strange thing happened to a painter once, 996.

This was my dream; I saw a Forest, 990.

Thou, whom these eyes saw never! Say friends true, 948.

Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters, 910.

Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke, 910.

'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day, 887.

Up jumped Tokay on our table, 166.

Up, up, up--next step of the staircase, 979.

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! 348.

Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair, 939.

Wanting is--what? 911.

We two stood simply friend-like side by side, 991.

We were two lovers; let me lie by her, 812.

What are we two? 263.

What girl but, having gathered flowers, 988.

What, he on whom our voices unanimously ran, 992.

What, I disturb thee at thy morning meal, 938.

What is he buzzing in my ears? 394.

What it was struck the terror into me? 1001.

What's become of Waring, 264.

When I vexed, you and you chid me, 937.

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles, 171.

Who hears of Helen's Tower, may dream perchance, 601.

Who will, may hear Sordello's story told, 75.

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do, 948.

Why from the world, Ferishtah smiled, should thanks, 946.

Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, 392.

Will you hear my story also, 911.

Wind, wave, and bark, bear Euthukles and me, 628.

Wish no word unspoken, want no look away, 930.

Woe, he went galloping into the war, 987.

Would a man 'scape the rod? 372.

Would it were I had been false, not you! 378.

Would that the structure Wave, the manifold music I build, 382.

Yet womanhood you reverence, 993.

"You are sick, that's sure,"--they say, 892.

You blame me that I ran away? 993.

You groped your way across my room i' the drear dark dead of night,

932.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I, 682.

You in the flesh and here, 989.

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon, 251.

You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry, 142.

You're my friend, 271.

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, 178.

GENERAL INDEX OF TITLES

[_The titles of major works and general divisions are set in_ SMALL

CAPITALS.]

Abt Vogler, (after he has been Extemporizing upon the Musical

Instrument of his Invention), 382.

Adam, Lilith, and Eve, 916.

After, 194.

AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, THE, 830.

Andrea del Sarto, 346.

Another Way of Love, 190.

Any Wife to Any Husband, 187.

Apollo and the Fates, 948.

Apparent Failure, 412.

Appearances, 814.

Arcades Ambo, 993.

ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY, 628.

Artemis Prologizes, 337.

ASOLANDO, 986.

At the "Mermaid," 807.

Bad Dreams, 989.

BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE, 602.

Bean-Feast, The, 992.

Bean-Stripe, A: also Apple-Eating, 942.

Beatrice Signorini, 996.

Before, 193.

Ben Karshook's Wisdom, 372.

Bernard de Mandeville, Parleyings with, 952.

Bifurcation, 812.

Bishop Blougram's Apology, 349.

Bishop, The, orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church, 348.

Blind Man to the Maiden, The, 910.

BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON, A, 216.

Boot and Saddle, 163.

Boy and the Angel, The, 253.

By the Fireside, 185.

Caliban upon Setebos, 392.

Camel-Driver, A, 936.

Cardinal and the Dog, The, 991.

Cavalier Tunes, 163.

Cenciaja, 820.

Charles Avison, Parleyings with, 974.

Cherries, 938.

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came," 287.

CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY, 316.

Christopher Smart, Parleyings with, 959.

Cleon, 358.

Clive, 893.

COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY, 230.

Confessional, The, 169.

Confessions, 394.

Count Gismond, 252.

Cristina, 169.

Cristina and Monaldeschi, 914.

Daniel Bartoli, Parleyings with, 955.

Deaf and Dumb, 395.

Death in the Desert, A, 385.

"De Gustibus," 178.

Development, 1002.

Dîs Aliter Visum, 379.

Doctor----, 906.

Donald, 911.

DRAMATIC IDYLS, 875.

DRAMATIC LYRICS, 163.

DRAMATIC ROMANCES, 251.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ, 373.

Dubiety, 987.

Eagle, The, 929.

Earth's Immortalities, 170.

Easter-Day, 327.

Echetlos, 892.

Englishman in Italy, The, 260.

Epilogue (to Asolando), 1007.

Epilogue (to Dramatis Personæ), 413.

Epilogue (to Ferishtah's Fancies), 946.

Epilogue (to Fifine at the Fair), 735.

Epilogue (to Pacchiarotto), 827.

Epistle, An, containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish,

the Arab Physician, 338.

Epitaph on Levi Lincoln Thaxter, 947.

Eurydice to Orpheus, 395.

Evelyn Hope, 171.

Face, A, 396.

Fame, 170.

Family, The, 922.

Fears and Scruples, 811.

FERISHTAH'S FANCIES, 929.

FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 701.

Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial, 823.

Flight of the Duchess, The, 271.

Flower's Name, The, 166.

Flute-Music, with an Accompaniment, 999.

Forgiveness, A, 817.

Founder of the Feast, The, 947.

Fra Lippo Lippi, 342.

Francis Furini, Parleyings with, 964.

Fust and his Friends, 979.

Garden Fancies, 166.

George Bubb Dodington, Parleyings with, 961.

Gerard de Lairesse, Parleyings with, 970.

Give a Rouse, 163.

Glove, The, 256.

Gold Hair, 376.

Goldoni, 910.

Grammarian's Funeral, A, 279.

Guardian Angel, The, 194.

Halbert and Hob, 879.

Helen's Tower, 601.

Herakles, 660.

Heretic's Tragedy, The, 280.

Hervé Riel, 815.

Holy-Cross Day, 281.

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad, 179.

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, 179.

House, 808.

How it strikes a Contemporary, 336.

"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," 164.

Humility, 938.

"Imperante Augusto Natus Est--" 1001.

IN A BALCONY, 364.

In a Gondola, 262.

Inapprehensiveness, 991.

In a Year, 192.

Incident of the French Camp, 251.

INN ALBUM, THE, 773.

Instans Tyrannus, 254.

In Three Days, 192.

Italian in England, The, 258.

Ivàn Ivànovitch, 880.

Ixion, 916.

James Lee's Wife, 373.

Jochanan Hakkadosh, 918.

JOCOSERIA, 911.

Johannes Agricola in Meditation, 341.

KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES, 145.

Laboratory, The, 168.

Lady and the Painter, The, 993.

LA SAISIAZ, 849.

Last Ride Together, The, 267.

Life in a Love, 191.

Light Woman, A, 267.

Likeness, A, 396.

Lost Leader, The, 164.

Lost Mistress, The, 170.

Love, 170.

Love among the Ruins, 171.

Love in a Life, 191.

Lovers' Quarrel, A, 172.

LURIA, 299.

Magical Nature, 812.

Marching Along, 163.

Martin Relph, 875.

Mary Wollstonecraft and Fuseli, 916.

Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha, 195.

May and Death, 395.

Meeting at Night, 170.

Melon-Seller, The, 930.

Memorabilia, 195.

MEN AND WOMEN, 335.

Mesmerism, 255.

Misconceptions, 189.

Mihrab Shah, 934.

Mr. Sludge, "the Medium," 397.

Muckle-Mouth Meg, 993.

Muléykeh, 897.

My Last Duchess, 252.

My Star, 184.

Names, The, 947.

Nationality in Drinks, 166.

Natural Magic, 811.

Ned Bratts, 887.

Never the Time and the Place, 928.

Now, 988.

Numpholeptos, 812.

Oh Love! Love, 874.

Old Pictures in Florence, 176.

One Way of Love, 190.

One Word More, 361.

PACCHIAROTTO, OF, AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER, 802.

Pambo, 928.

Pan and Luna, 909.

PARACELSUS, 12.

PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY, 948.

Parting at Morning, 170.

Patriot, The, 251.

PAULINE, 1.

Pearl, a Girl, A, 988.

Pheidippides, 877.

Pictor Ignotus, 341.

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The, 268.

Pietro of Abano, 899.

Pillar at Sebzevar, A, 940.

PIPPA PASSES, 128.

Pisgah-Sights, 810.

Plot-Culture, 739.

Poetics, 988.

Ponte Dell' Angelo, Venice, 994.

Pope and the Net, The, 992.

Popularity, 195.

Porphyria's Lover, 286.

Pretty Woman, A, 190.

PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 681.

Prologue (to Asolando), 987.

Prologue (to Ferishtah's Fancies), 929.

Prologue (to Fifine at the Fair), 701.

Prologue (to Pacchiarotto), 802.

Prospice, 395.

Protus, 283.

Rabbi Ben Ezra, 383.

Rawdon Brown, 947.

RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY; OR TURF AND TOWERS, 736.

Rephan, 1003.

Respectability, 191.

RETURN OF THE DRUSES, THE, 197.

Reverie, 1005.

RING AND THE BOOK, THE, 414.

Rosny, 987.

Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli, 361.

St. Martin's Summer, 814.

Saul, 179.

Serenade at the Villa, A, 189.

Shah Abbas, 930.

Shop, 809.

Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, 167.

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 167.

Solomon and Balkis, 913.

Song: "Nay but you, who do not love her," 170.

Sonnet: "Eyes, calm beside thee (Lady, couldst thou know!)," 11.

SORDELLO, 74.

SOUL'S TRAGEDY, A, 289.

Speculative, 988.

Statue and the Bust, The, 283.

STRAFFORD, 49.

Summum Bonum, 988.

Sun, The, 933.

Thaxter, Levi Lincoln, Epitaph on, 947.

Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, 165.

Time's Revenges, 258.

Toccata of Galuppi's, A, 175.

Too Late, 380.

"Touch him ne'er so lightly," 910.

"Transcendentalism: A Poem in Twelve Books," 335.

Tray, 887.

Twins, The, 266.

Two Camels, 937.

Two in the Campagna, 189.

TWO POETS OF CROISIC, THE, 859.

Up at a Villa--Down in the City, 174.

Wanting is--What? 911.

Waring, 264.

Which? 991.

White Witchcraft, 989.

Why I am a Liberal, 948.

Woman's Last Word, A, 171.

Women and Roses, 193.

Worst of It, The, 378.

Youth and Art, 396.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The materials for this sketch are drawn from Mrs.

Sutherland Orr's _Life and Letters of Robert Browning_, Mr. William

Sharp's _Life of Robert Browning_, and Mr. Edmund Gosse's _Robert

Browning: Personalia_.]

[Footnote 2: Citrinula (flammula) herba Paracelso multum

familiaris.--DORN.]

[Footnote 3: "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,

and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."]

[Footnote 4: Pope Gregory XVI. abolished this bad business of the

Sermon--R. B.]

[Footnote 5: No, please! For

"Who would be satirical

On a thing so very small?"--_Printer's Devil._

]

[Footnote 6: "Quis Æschylum possit affirmare Græce nunc scienti magis

patere explicabilem quam Evangelia aut Epistolas Apostolicas? Unus

ejus Agamemnon obscuritate superat quantum est librorum sacrorum cum

suis Hebraismis et Syriasmis et tota Hellenisticæ supellectili vel

farragine."--SALMASIUS _de Hellenstica_, Epist. Dedic.]

[Footnote 7: _Poems_ by MATTHEW ARNOLD, Preface.]

[Footnote 8: _Lettres à un jeune Prince_, traduites du Suédois.]

[Footnote 9:

They did not eat

His flesh, nor suck those oils which thence outstreat.

DONNE'S _Progress of the Soul_, line 344.

]

[Footnote 10: See note at end of volume.]

[Footnote 11: Or, to take our illustrations from the writings of

Shelley himself, there is such a thing as admirably appreciating a

work by Andrea Verochio,--and fancifully characterizing the Pisan

Torre Guelfa by the Ponte a Mare, black against the sunsets,--and

consummately painting the islet of San Clemente with its penitentiary

for rebellious priests, to the west between Venice and the Lido--while

you believe the first to be a fragment of an antique sarcophagus,--the

second, Ugolino's Tower of Famine (the vestiges of which should be

sought for in the Piazza de' Cavalieri)--and the third (as I convinced

myself last summer at Venice), San Servolo with its mad-house--which,

far from being "windowless," is as full of windows as a barrack.]

[Footnote 12: _Paracelsus_ would seem to be a fantastic version of

_Von Hohenheim;_ Einsiedeln is the Latinized Eremus, whence Paracelsus

is sometimes called, as in the correspondence of Erasmus, Eremita.

Bombast, his proper name, probably acquired, from the characteristic

phraseology of his lectures, that unlucky signification which it has

ever since retained.]

[Footnote A: I shall disguise M. Renauldin's next sentence a little.

"Hic (Erastus sc.) Paracelsum trimum a milite quodam, alii a sue

exectum ferunt: constat imberbem illum, mulierumque osorem fuisse." A

standing High-Dutch joke in those days at the expense of a number of

learned men, as may be seen by referring to such rubbish as Melander's

_Jocoseria_, etc. In the prints from his portrait by Tintoretto,

painted a year before his death, Paracelsus is _barbatulus_, at all

events. But Erastus was never without a good reason for his faith--_e.

g._, "Helvetium fuisse (Paracelsum) vix credo, vix enim ea regio tale

monstrum ediderit." (_De Medicina Nova._)]

[Footnote 13: Then Bishop of Spanheim, and residing at Würzburg in

Franconia; a town situated in a grassy fertile country, whence its

name, Herbipolis. He was much visited there by learned men, as may

be seen by his _Epistolæ Familiares_, Hag. 1536: among others, by his

stanch friend Cornelius Agrippa, to whom he dates thence, in 1510, a

letter in answer to the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the treatise _De

Occult. Philosoph._ which last contains the following ominous allusion

to Agrippa's sojourn: "Quum nuper tecum, R. P. in cœnobia tuo apud

Herbipolim aliquamdiu conversatus, multa de chymicis, multa de magicis,

multa de cabalisticis, cæterisque quæ adhuc in occulto delitescunt,

arcanis scientiis atque artibus una contulissemus," etc.]

[Footnote 14: "Inexplebilis illa aviditas naturæ perscrutandi secreta

et reconditarum supellectile scientiarum animum locupletandi, uno

eodemque loco diu persistere non patiebatur, sed Mercurii instar, omnes

terras, nationes et urbes perlustrandi igniculos supponebat, ut cum

viris naturæ scrutatoribus, chymicis præsertim, ore tenus conferret,

et quæ diurturnis laboribus nocturnisque vigiliis invenerant unavel

altera communicatione obtineret." (BITISKIUS in _Præfat_.)

"Patris auxilio primum, deinde propria industria doctissimos viros

in Germania, Italia, Gallia, Hispania, aliisque Europæ regionibus,

nactus est præceptores; quorum liberali doctrina, et potissimum propria

inquisitione ut qui esset ingenio acutissimo acfere divino, tantum

profecit, ut multi testati sint, in universa philosophia, tam ardua,

tam arcana et abdita eruisse mortalium neminem." (MELCH. ADAM,

in _Vit. Germ. Medic._) "Paracelsus qui in intima naturæ viscera sic

penitus introierit, metallorum stirpiumque vires et facultates tam

incredibili ingenii acumine exploraverit ac perviderit, ad morbos

omnes vel desperatos et opinione hominum insanabiles percurandum; ut

cum Theophrasto nata primum medicina perfectaque videtur." (PETRI

RAMI, _Orat. de Basilea_.) His passion for wandering is best

described in his own words: "Ecce amatorem adolescentem difficillimi

itineris haud piget, ut venustam saltem puellam vel fœminam

aspiciat: quanto minus nobilissimarum artium araore laboris ac

cujuslibet tædii pigebit?" etc. (_Defensiones Septem adversus æmulos

suos._ 1573. Def. 4ta "De peregrinationibus et exilio.")]

[Footnote B: Erastus, who relates this, here oddly remarks, "mirum

quod non et Garamantos, Indos et _Anglos_ adjunxit." Not so

wonderful neither, if we believe what another adversary "had heard

somewhere,"--that all Paracelsus' system came of his pillaging "Anglum

quendam, Rogerium Bacchonem."]

[Footnote C: See his works, _passim_. I must give one

specimen:--Somebody had been styling him "Luther alter." "And why not?"

(he asks, as he well might.) "Luther is abundantly learned, therefore

you hate him and me; but we are at least a match for you.--Nam

et contra vos et vestros universos principes Avicennam, Galenum,

Aristotelem, etc. me satis superque munitum esse novi. Et vertex iste

meus calvus ac depilis multo plura et sublimiora novit quam vester

vel Avicenna vel universæ academiæ. Prodite, et signum date, qui viri

sitis, quid roboris habeatis? quid autem sitis? Doctores et magistri,

pediculos pectentes et fricantes podicem." (_Frag. Med._)]

[Footnote 15: A disgraceful affair. One Liechtenfels, a canon,

having been rescued _in extremis_ by the "_laudanum_" of Paracelsus,

refused the stipulated fee, and was supported in his meanness by

the authorities, whose interference Paracelsus would not brook. His

own liberality was allowed by his bitterest foes, who found a ready

solution of his indifference to profit in the aforesaid sword-handle

and its guest. His freedom from the besetting sin of a profession he

abhorred--(as he curiously says somewhere, "Quis quæso deinceps honorem

deferat professione tali, quæ a tam facinorosis nebulonibus obitur et

administratur?")--is recorded in his epitaph, which affirms--"Bona

sua in pauperes distribuenda collocandaque erogavit," _honoravit_, or

_ordinavit_--for accounts differ.]

[Footnote D: "So migratory a life could afford Paracelsus but little

leisure for application to books, and accordingly he informs us that

for the space of ten years he never opened a single volume, and that

his whole medical library was not composed of six sheets: in effect,

the inventory drawn up after his death states that the only books

which he left were the Bible, the New Testament, the Commentaries of

St. Jerome on the Gospels, a printed volume on Medicine, and seven

manuscripts."]

[Footnote 16: The reader may remember that it was in conjunction with

Œcolampadius, then Divinity Professor at Basle, that Zuinglius

published in 1528 an answer to Luther's Confession of Faith; and that

both proceeded in company to the subsequent conference with Luther

and Melancthon at Marburg. Their letters fill a large volume.--_D.

D. Johannis Œcolampadii et Huldrichi Zuinglii Epistolarum lib.

quatuor._ Bas. 1536. It must be also observed that Zuinglius began to

preach in 1516, and at Zurich in 1519, and that in 1525 the Mass was

abolished in the cantons. The tenets of Œcolampadius were supposed

to be more evangelical than those up to that period maintained by the

glorious German, and our brave Bishop Fisher attacked them as the

fouler heresy:--"About this time arose out of Luther's school one

Œcolampadius, like a mighty and fierce giant; who, as his master

had gone beyond the Church, went beyond his master (or else it had

been impossible he could have been reputed the better scholar), who

denied the real presence; him, this worthy champion (the Bishop) sets

upon, and with five books (like so many smooth stones taken out of the

river that doth always run with living water) slays the Philistine;

which five books were written in the year of our Lord 1526, at which

time he had governed the See of Rochester twenty years." (_Life of

Bishop Fisher_, 1655.) Now, there is no doubt of the Protestantism of

Paracelsus, Erasmus, Agrippa, etc., but the nonconformity of Paracelsus

was always scandalous. L. Crasso (_Elogj. d'Huomini Letterati._ Ven.

1666) informs us that his books were excommunicated by the Church.

Quenstedt (_de Patr. Doct._) affirms "nec tantum novæ medicinæ, verum

etiam novæ theologiæ autor est." Delrio, in his _Disquisit Magicar._,

classes him among those "partim atheos, partim hæreticos" (lib. I. cap.

3). "Omnino tamen multa theologica in ejusdem scriptis plane atheismum

olent, ac duriuscule sonant in auribus vere Christiani." (D.

GABRIELIS CLAUDERI SCHEDIASMA, _de Tinct. Univ. Norimb._ 1736.)

I shall only add one more authority:--"Oporinus dicit se (Paracelsum)

aliquando Lutherum et Papam, non minus quam nune Galenum et Hippocratem

redacturum in ordinem minabatur, neque enim eorum qui hactenus in

scripturam sacram scripsissent, sive veteres, sive recentiores,

quenquam seripturæ nucleum recte eruisse, sed circa corticem et

quasi membranam tantum hærere." (TH. ERASTUS, _Disputant.

de Med. Nova_.) These and similar notions had their due effect on

Oporinus, who, says Zuingerus, in his _Theatrum_, "longum vale dixit

ei (Paracelso), ne ob præceptoris, alioqui amicissimi, horrendas

blasphemias, ipse quoque aliquando pœnas Deo Opt. Max. lueret."]

[Footnote 17: His defenders allow the drunkenness. Take a sample of

their excuses: "Gentis hoc, non viri vitiolum est, a Taciti seculo

ad nostrum usque non interrupto filo devolutum, sinceritati forte

Germanæ coævum, et nescio an aliquo eonsanguinitatas vinculojunctum."

(BITISKIUS.) The other charges were chiefly trumped up by Oporinus:

"Domi, quod Oporinus amanuensis ejus sæpe narravit, nunquam nisi

potus ad explicanda sua accessit, atque in medio conclavi ad columnam

τετυφωμένος adsistens, apprehenso manibus capulo ensis, cujus

κοίλωμα hospitium præbuit, ut aiunt, spiritui familiari,

imaginationes aut concepta sua protulit:--alii illud quod in capulo

habuit, ab ipso Azoth appellatum, medicinam fuisse præstantissimam aut

lapidem Philosophieum putant." (MELCH. ADAM.) This famous sword was no

laughing-matter in those days, and it is now a material feature in the

popular idea of Paracelsus. I recollect a couple of allusions to it in

our own literature, at the moment.

Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart,

Or Paracelsus with his long sword.

_Volpone_, Act ii. Sc. 2.

Bumbastus kept a devil's bird

Shut in the pummel of his sword,

That taught him all the cunning pranks

Of past and future mountebanks.

_Hudibras_, Part ii. Cant. 3.

This Azoth was simply "_laudanum suum_." But in his time he was

commonly believed to possess the double tincture--the power of curing

diseases and transmuting metals. Oporinus often witnessed, as he

declares, both these effects, as did also Franciscus, the servant

of Paracelsus, who describes, in a letter to Neander, a successful

projection at which he was present, and the results of which,

good golden ingots, were confided to his keeping. For the other

quality, let the following notice vouch among many others:--"Degebat

Theophrastus Norimbergæ procitus a medentibus illius urbis, et

vaniloquus deceptorque proclamatus, qui, ut laboranti famæ subveniat,

viros quosdam authoritatis summæ in Republica illa adit, et infamiæ

amoliendæ, artique suæ asserendæ, specimen ejus pollicetur editurum,

nullo stipendio vel accepto pretio, horum faciles præbentium aures

jussu elephantiacos aliquot, a communione hominum cæterorum segregatos,

et in valetudinarium detrusos, alieno arbitrio eliguntur, quos virtute

singulari remediorum suorum Theophrastus a fœda Græcorum lepra

mundat, pristinæque sanitati restituit; conservat illustre harum

curationum urbs in archivis suis testimonium." (BITISKIUS.)[E]

It is to be remarked that Oporinus afterwards repented of his

treachery: "Sed resipuit tandem, et quem vivum convitiis insectatus

fuerat defunctum veneratione prosequutus, infames famæ præceptoris

morsus in remorsus conscientiæ conversi pœnitentia, heu nimis tarda,

vulnera clausere exanimi quæ spiranti inflixerant." For these "bites"

of Oporinus, see Disputat. Erasti, and Andreæ Jocisci _Oratio de Vit.

ob Opor^i;_ for the "remorse," _Mic. Toxita in pref. Testamenti_,

and Conringius (otherwise an enemy of Paracelsus), who says it was

contained in a letter from Oporinus to Doctor Vegerus.[F]

Whatever the moderns may think of these marvellous attributes, the

title of Paracelsus to be considered the father of modern chemistry is

indisputable. Gerardus Vossius, _De Philos^a et Philos^{um} sectis_,

thus prefaces the ninth section of cap. 9, _De Chymia_--"Nobilem hanc

medicinæ partem, diu sepultam avorum ætate, quasi ab orco revocavit Th.

Paracelsus." I suppose many hints lie scattered in his neglected books,

which clever appropriators have since developed with applause. Thus, it

appears from his treatise _De Phlebotomia_, and elsewhere, that he had

discovered the circulation of the blood and the sanguinification of the

heart; as did after him Realdo Colombo, and still more perfectly Andrea

Cesalpino of Arezzo, as Bayle and Bartoli observe. Even Lavater quotes

a passage from his work _De Natura Rerum_, on practical Physiognomy, in

which the definitions and axioms are precise enough: he adds, "though

an astrological enthusiast, a man of prodigious genius." See Holcroft's

Translation, vol. iii. p. 179-- "The Eyes." While on the subject of

the writings of Paracelsus, I may explain a passage in the third part

of the Poem. He was, as I have said, unwilling to publish his works,

but in effect did publish a vast number. Valentius (_in Præfat in

Paramyr_.) declares "quod ad librorum Paracelsi copiam attinet, audio,

a Germanis prope trecentos recenseri." "O fœcunditas ingenii!"

adds he, appositely. Many of these were, however, spurious; and Fred.

Bitiskius gives his good edition (3 vols. fol. Gen. 1658) "rejectis

suppositis solo ipsius nomine superbientibus quorum ingens circumfertur

numerus." The rest were "charissimum et pretiosissimum authoris pignus,

extorsum potius ab illo quam obtentum." "Jam minime eo volente atque

jubente hæc ipsius scripta in lucem prodisse videntur; quippe quæ muro

inclusa ipso absente, servi cujusdam indicio, furto surrepta atque

sublata sunt," says Valentius. These have been the study of a host of

commentators, amongst whose labors are most notable, Petri Severini,

_Idea Medicinæ Philosophiæ_, Bas. 1571; Mic. Toxetis, _Onomastica_,

Arg. 1574; Dornei, _Dict. Parac._ Franc. 1584; and _P^i Philos^æ

Compendium cum scholiis auctore Leone Suavio_. Paris. (This last, a

good book.)]

[Footnote E: The premature death of Paracelsus casts no manner of

doubt on the fact of his having possessed the Elixir Vitæ: the

alchemists have abundant reasons to adduce, from which I select

the following, as explanatory of a property of the Tincture not

calculated on by its votaries:--"Objectionem illam, quod Paracelsus

non fuerit longævus, non nulli quoque solvunt per rationes physicas:

vitæ nimiarum abbreviationem fortasse talibus accidere posse, ab

Tincturam frequentiore ac largiore dosi sumtam, dum a summe efficaci

et penetrabili hujus virtute calor innatus quasi suffocatur."

(GABRIELIS CLAUDERI SCHEDIASMA.)]

[Footnote F: For a good defence of Paracelsus I refer the reader to

Olaus Borrichius' treatise--_Hermetis etc. Sapientia vindicata_, 1674.

Or, if he is no more learned than myself in such matters, I mention

simply that Paracelsus introduced the use of Mercury and Laudanum.]

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