R350906A. Paracelsus.
The Examiner, 6 September 1835, pp. 563–565.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 350–352.
Since the publication of Philip Van Artevelde, we have met with no such evidences of poetical genius, and of general intellectual power, as are contained in this volume. It is a philosophical view of the mind of Paracelsus, its workings and misworkings, its tendencies and efforts and results, worked out through the pure medium of poetry. Mr. Browning, as his preface intimates, reverses the method usually adopted by writers whose aim it is to set forth any phenomenon of the mind, or passions, by the operation of persons and events; and, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incident, to create and evolve the crisis he desires to produce, prefers to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and to suffer the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate, if not altogether excluded. The effect of this mode of treatment is necessarily severe, and the reader who takes up the volume must be prepared accordingly. He will find enough of beauty to compensate him for the tedious passages, were they ten times as obscure and tedious. A rich vein of internal sentiment, a deep knowledge of humanity, an intellect subtle and inquisitive, will soon fix his interest, and call forth his warmest admiration. He will probably, before laying the book down, read it twice—as we have done.
Paracelsus is a fine subject for the poetical treatment. Born amidst the new and tumultuous influences which attended the general emancipation of mind in the famous 16th century, possessed with singular powers of thought, and with aspirations of the loftiest order, it was his destiny, while during life he shook the very world of intellect and letters in his country, to fail in accomplishing for himself, in the esteem of posterity, the possession of an inch of philosophical ground. His richly-gifted nature was never wisely guided. With such originality of genius as should have won for him a place among the teachers of the earth, the immortal guides to truth, he has realized only an empiric’s glory. He heaved the ground from under the feet of the old and slavish opinion of his time, demolished the errors of past centuries, and struck out a road for the learning of after ages—and yet, now that these ages are come, the men of learning for whom he toiled, when they wish to be charitable, tell us Paracelsus was a madman! To show how it is that it has thus gone with him in that matter, to reconcile such a fate nevertheless with the sweet and sacred hopes of humanity, and still “vindicate the ways of God to man,” is a task worthy of a true poet. Knowledge was the aim of Paracelsus; but it is not sufficient, even with such genius as his, that we merely propose to ourselves to Know. There may be a plague-spot upon the very conception of that desire. Intemperance of imagination, and incontinence of tongue, at least travel ill in company with great aims; and the mere pride of the understanding, or the sternness of the will, may never, and should never, avail against the affections of the heart. The friend of the youth of Paracelsus warns him before he quits Würzburg:—
Had I been chosen like you
I should encircle me with love—should raise
A rampart of kind wishes; it should seem
Impossible for me to fail, so watch’d [p. 564→]
By gentle friends who made my cause their own;
They should ward off Fate’s envy—the great boon,
Extravagant when claim’d by me alone,
Being a gift to them as well as me.
If ease seduced or danger daunted me,
How calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach!
With this interview the poem opens. Paracelsus is on the eve of quitting his quiet studies. Festus, his dear friend, his more than brother, and Michal, the betrothed of Festus, are passing with him the last evening of his residence in Würzburg. Nothing can be better imagined. It’s contrasts nobly prepare us for the scenes to follow. In vain does Michal weep, and Festus strive to withhold his friend. Paracelsus tells them that they “shall be very proud” of all he will accomplish; and when his friend prays of him that he will at least not disregard the light of previous learning, that he will not refuse to tread the path—
Distinct with footprints yet
Of many a mighty spirit gone that way,
—Paracelsus reassures him of the sufficiency of the strength he feels within himself, for all the purposes of his ambition. Finely he says—
Be sure that God
Ne’er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.
Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss!
What fullgrown power informs her from the first!
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky!
Be sure they sleep not whom God needs.
Subsequently, in a happily characteristic speech, the ardent, proud, and intrepid student, even now secure in his great wish—already, in anticipation, the emancipator of a grateful world—repels their thanks and sympathy. The very source of his strength we see, in this, destined to be the secret of his failure—!
Once the feat achieved,
I would withdraw from their officious praise,
Would gently put aside their profuse thanks,
Like some knight traversing a wilderness,
Who, on his way, may chance to free a tribe
Of desert people from their dragon-foe;
When all the swarthy race press round to kiss
His feet, and choose him for their king, and yield
Their poor tents, pitch’d among the sand-hills, for
His realm; and he points, smiling, to his scarf,
Heavy with rivel’d gold—his burgonet,
Gay set with twinkling stones....
The gentle friends are at last unable to resist his energy, and Michal, exalted to his own temper by the ardour of his eloquence, and Festus, persuading himself that
There would be
A monstrous spectacle upon the earth,
Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees,
A being knowing not what love is,
—they both yield to the hopes of Paracelsus, and he quits Würzburgh, not with their wishes only, but their belief in his success.
This opening is exquisitely managed, and illustrates what follows with striking beauty. This next scene is devoted to the progress of the mind of Paracelsus, to the results of his travels in search of wisdom and knowledge. His fate is here shadowed fully forth, in all its dreadful conflict of feeling, and desperate struggle with fortune. It fixes itself upon him, like the poisoned shirt of Nessus!
Another scene succeeds, and Festus is again introduced to us. Nineteen years have passed between him and his friend. Paracelsus is now famous. He holds the professorship of the first chair of chemistry founded in Europe. His adventurous ardour seems to have nobly triumphed. He is the “wondrous Paracelsus, the dispenser of life, the commissary of Fate, the idol of princes. To Festus he is still Aureole—
And Michal’s face
Still wears that quiet and peculiar light,
Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl?
Fest. Just so.
Par. And yet her calm sweet countenance,
Though saintly, was not sad; for she would sing
Alone … Does she still sing alone, bird-like,
Not dreaming you are near? Her carols dropt
In flakes through that old leafy bower built under
The sunny wall at Würzburg, from her lattice
Among the trees above, while I, unseen,
Sate conning some rare roll from Tritheim’s shelves,
Much wondering notes so simple could divert
My mind from study. Those were happy days!
Respect all such as sing when all alone.
Fest. Scarcely alone—her children, you may guess,
Are wild beside her …
Par. Ah, those children quite
Unsettle the pure picture in my mind:
A girl—she was so perfect, so distinct …
No change, no change!
Few finer conceptions have been formed than the conduct of this scene. The gradual unfolding of the discontent of the aspirer; the noble intimation of its cause; the reluctant wonder of the still gentle Festus—
My God! if he be wretched after all!
—the cold irony which Paracelsus suffers himself to indulge; while around them, as they converse, we can fancy we hear the roar and dashing of the old opinions that have just been loosened from their accustomed hold—for before us is the great Professor of Basil, who burnt Galen and Avicenna, and in the distance is the voice of Luther. We have throughout, borne down upon us, the feeling of the presence of wonderful intellect, great in its means, but strange and unsatisfactory in its end. It is the very destiny of Paracelsus. The result, no longer doubtful, is waited for with a fatal composure. Morning steals upon the conference of the friends—
Fest. Hark!
Par. ’Tis the melancholy wind astir
Within the trees; the embers too are grey,
Morn must be near.
Fest. Best ope the casement: see
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless! how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together! like an asp
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Par. Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree
By the hour, nor count time lost.
Fest. So you shall gaze:
Those happy times will come again …
Par. Gone! gone!
Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind
Seem to bewail that we have gain’d such gains
And barter’d sleep for them?
Fest. It is our trust
That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance …
Par. Another world!
Festus begs, before parting, that, should hope revisit Paracelsus, he will recall his friend to his side. He feels as if, in the seeming failure of that great mind, his own trust grows dim, and he prays for reassurance. Two years pass, and he is recalled. Paracelsus has a new hope, but it has risen only out of the utter and most wretched failure of the past. He has been disgraced, proclaimed as a quack, driven from Basil ignominiously, but is prepared, notwithstanding all, to struggle toughly still with fortune, and bend her to his knowledge or his will:—
I am a wanderer: I remember well
One journey, how I fear’d the track was miss’d—
So long the city I desired to reach
Lay hid, when suddenly its spires afar
Flash’d through the circling clouds; you may conceive
My transport: soon the vapours closed again,
But I had seen the city, and one such glance
No darkness could obscure: nor shall sad days
Destroy the vivid memories of the past:
I will fight the battle out!—a little spent,
Perhaps—but still an able combatant.
The power of the present scene is not unequal to its precursor, and it has passages of surpassing tenderness:—
Par. You have felt sorrow, Festus? ’tis because
You love me. Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours!
Well thought on; never let her know this last
Dull winding-up of all: these miscreants dared
Insult me—me she loved; so grieve her not.
Fest. Your ill success can little grieve her now.
Par. Michal is dead! pray Christ we do not craze!
Fest. Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on me thus!
Fool, fool! this is the heart grown sorrow-proof—
I cannot bear those eyes.
Par. Nay, really dead?
Fest. ’Tis scarce a year …
Par. Stone dead! then you have laid her
Among the flowers ere this....
Thirteen years succeed, and we behold Festus hanging over the death-bed of Paracelsus at Salzburgh, in a cell in the hospital of St Sebastian! We never felt the image of friendship, stamped upon our hearts, with more noble or more touching power. Paracelsus awakes at last, to rave of knowledge and of love, and of the injustice of being made to die on the eve of all his glory!
We get so near—so very, very near.
’Tis an old tale: Joves strikes the Titans down
Not when they set about their mountain-piling.
But when another rock would crown their work!
And Phæton—doubtless his first radiant plunge
Astonish’d mortals; but the gods were calm,
And Jove prepared his thunder: all old tales.
But the madness moderates—he recognizes Festus, acknowledges extreme humility, tells him he will kneel, if he desires it, impart the meagre knowledge he possesses, and avow his insufficiency!—
Dear Festus, lay me,
When I shall die, within some narrow grave,
Not by itself, for that would be too proud,
But where such graves are thickest.
Then bursts forth a sublime effusion of tenderness from Festus, such as, in conception and feeling, no writer has ever excelled. He bids Paracelsus, on his death-bed, not despair, for that before him is an image of his power, of his glory, of the hopes of his youth, not all unaccomplished!—
Behold thy might in me! thou hast infused
Thy soul in mine; and I am grand as thou,
Seeing I comprehend thee—I so simple,
Thou so august! I recognize thee first;
I saw thee rise, and I have watch’d thee well,
And though no glance reveal that thou acceptest
My homage—thus no less I proffer it,
And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest!
Par. Festus!
Fest. I am for noble Aureole, God!
I am upon his side, come weal or woe!
His portion shall be mine! He has done well!
I would have sinn’d, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinn’d! Reward him or I waive
Reward! If thou canst find no place for him,
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be
His slave for ever! … There are two of us!
Par. Dear Festus!
Fest. Here, dear Aureole! ever by you!
Par. Nay, speak on, or I dream again. Speak on!
Some exquisite passages of pathos succeed, and the reason of Paracelsus returns, and all the memories of his youth, and the very [p. 565→] habits of long past years. In the progress of this there is most subtle truth and beauty. Festus remarks aside—
Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice
Complete with its old tones—that little laugh
Concluding every phrase; with up-turn’d eye,
As though one stoop’d above his head, to whom
He look’d for confirmation and approval:
Where was it gone so long, so well preserved?
And the fore-finger pointing as he speaks,
Like one who traces in an open book
The matter he declares; ’tis many a year
Since I remark’d it last: and this in him …
But now a ghastly wreck!
The dying philosopher now speaks to his friend with the earnestness, the subduement, and the final wisdom, of the grave. He retraces his life and points its moral. We will conclude our extracts with one passage of great poetical beauty. After describing the existence of the world before man’s creation, Paracelsus breaks forth with the following—
Man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things—the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing, or a shout,
A querulous mutter, or a quick gay laugh—
Never a senseless gust now man is born:
The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts,
A secret they assemble to discuss,
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head: no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch with small pucker’d mouth and mocking eye:
The morn has enterprise—deep quiet droops
With evening—triumph when the sun takes rest—
Voluptuous transport when the corn-fields ripen
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:
And this to fill us with regard for man,
Deep apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
To ascertain his rank and final place,
For all these things tend upward—progress is
The law of life—man is not man as yet …
It is some time since we read a work of more unequivocal power than this. We conclude that its author is a young man, as we do not recollect his having published before. If so, we may safely predict for him a brilliant career, if he continues true to the present promise of his genius. He possesses all the elements of a fine poet.
[John Forster]
Reviewed:
Paracelsus (RB), London: Effingham Wilson, 1835.
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