Reviews

R420900A.  Paracelsus.

The Monthly Magazine, September 1842, pp. 284–285.

As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 380–381.

It will be said that my writings are inconclusive. It is not my desire that they should be otherwise. I wish my readers to follow me in my inquiries. I am an inquirer—a searcher; I am digging in the earth, diving in the water, after Truth—

Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,

Two points in the adventure of the diver,—

One, when a beggar, he prepares to plunge—

One, when a prince, he rises with the pearl?

Festus, I plunge——

I plunge, and my pearl is Truth; God grant that I may rise with it.

I have lent my copy of Paracelsus to a young painter, so that I may have done Mr. Browning an injury by mis-quoting the words of his poem. When Dr. Johnson asked Hannah More what she esteemed the highest compliment that can be paid to an author, she presently made answer, “To quote him;” and Dr. Johnson said that she was right; but to mis-quote an author it is barbarous. I think that Robert Browning’s Paracelsus will be suffered to occupy a niche in the select [p. 285→] library of Prince Posterity. I know nothing more about the poem than that I have read it; and about the author no more than that he is a poet. It is nothing to me whether the book has found readers, or whether it has been praised by the critics. Whether the author be a Tory or a Radical, an Aristocrat or an Operative, I care not. I never saw him—I never heard of him before I read his name upon the title-page of his book; but now I know that he is a genuine poet; I am sure of it; I am not more certain that the sun giveth light when it shines.

Reviewed:

Paracelsus (RB), London: Effingham Wilson, 1835.

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