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sus did start in life with an eager, pure, and elevated devotion to knowledge. He did spend many years in the East, making rich and varied acquisitions for the attainment of his purpose. In his re-appearance, and in his professorship at Basil, he did, by the success of his practice and the boldness of his speculations, first excite astonishment, then attract reverence, confidence, and fanatical regard, and eventually draw down upon himself a fierce and stormy persecution. In the circumstances of his exile and death, and in the peculiarities of his opinions, the poet has scarcely, if at all, deviated from fact, but made historical truth the germ of those higher truths of poetry and philosophy, of which, in this work, he conceived, and has, we think, realized the developement.

'Paracelsus' is not a drama; and although generally in form a dialogue, is often in spirit a monologue, the other speakers being introduced as subservient to the delineation, by Paracelsus himself, of the several states of his mental being, which in their succession make up the history of his character, both in its individuality and as the symbolic representation of human nature. There is no action, there is no direct exhibition of transition: results only are presented. Each of the five acts or parts into which the poem is distributed, is the delineation, or at least is intended to be so, of a mental and moral condition, every one of which is markedly distinguished from the rest, while yet there is a faithful preservation of individual identity, and sufficient indication of the necessary connexion of cause and effect, and of the various agencies and influences which had continued their powerful and ceaseless operations during the unrecorded intervals.

Part the First, entitled PARACELSUS ASPIRES,' is a conversation between Paracelsus and Festus, his fellow-student and bosom friend, and Michal the betrothed of Festus, in a garden in the environs of Würtzburgh, on an autumnal evening of the year 1507; Paracelsus being about to set forth the following morning on his long and strange pilgrimage. He believes himself destined to the acquisition of KNOWLEDGE, infinitely more precious to the human race than any treasured in the annals of learning; than any to be demonstrated by the logical apparatus of the geometer and the metaphysician; or to be extorted by the powers of magic from the meaner spirits of the invisible world. He maintains that truth is not to be found without us, but within us. That it emanates from the soul outwards, as some propitious influence, some happy chance, opens its way through the covering with which the gross flesh hems in perfect and true perception.' So his enterprise is to learn, by communicating with humanity under all the diversified modifications of various regions, the laws by which the light of our own spirits is shrouded from us, and by which it may be set free to shed its beams on our being and our destiny. The nature, the feasibility, the moral lawfulness, of the design are discussed between him and his friends, as they

seem oftentimes to have been discussed before; the argument not only winning the reader's interest in what is to follow, but eliciting a review of the youth and early impulses of Paracelsus; and being beautifully tempered by emotions of tenderness, of melancholy foreboding, and of bold hopefulness, in the several characters. The genius of Paracelsus prevails; his friends at last express, in answer to his appeal, their faith that he will realize his high purposes; and he departs strong and expectant.

Part Second,PARACELSUS ATTAINS.' Fourteen years have elapsed; years of ceaseless wandering, and toil, and observation, and inquiry, and multifarious attainment; Paracelsus is brought to a pause, and reviews his career, and estimates his condition, in a soliloquy which is nobly conceived, and not less nobly executed. He has learned much; but some deeply seated error makes his career essentially a failure. To the darkening melancholy of his retrospect there comes an harmonious interruption in the chauntings of APRILE, the poet, a human embodiment of the principle of love, as Paracelsus is of the desire for knowledge. He, too, has been an adventurer for the well-being of humanity; he has failed, and is the martyr of his own devotedness. From his death-song, which he breathes in the arms of Paracelsus, the latter learns the extent of his own mistake, in having hitherto looked exclusively to the merely intellectual powers as the agencies of man's exaltation and happiness, and attains the conviction that to love must, not less than to know, characterize the emancipator of the human race from the worst evils of their destiny.

Part Third, (1526,) Paracelsus has returned from the far East to Europe, determined, in the spirit of his last and great attainment, forthwith to disseminate whatever truths he has ascertained, and apply them to the purposes of philanthropy. The continent rings with his reputation. His cures are deemed miraculous. His doctrines are received as oracular. He is triumphantly installed as Professor of Medicine at Basil, and regarded as the herald of an advance in all that relates to man's physical condition, analogous to the great reformation in religion then achieving by Luther and his associates. A similar excitement prevails. The author presents him to us in the evening, after one of those ebullitions of popular admiration which generally attended his lectures. Only Festus is with him, in his chamber. It is the first time they have met since the aspirant left Würtzburgh to commence his career and fulfil his mission. Their conversation continues through the night. Paracelsus lays bare his heart, not with the scientific coolness of a demonstrator repeating a dissection, but in its living anatomy. Many parts of this dialogue are dramatic in a high degree, and remind us of those tones or looks by which Kean, as if by sudden inspiration, would burn into the very soul. Paracelsus is not what he purposed, and was

made to be. Discoverer, philanthropist, reformer, he yet cannot help man as he would, and turns with loathing from the paltry honours which the world, and even his friend, thinks an amazing success and glory. He feels their hollowness; he foresees their speedy reversal. The anticipated misanthropy of baffled benevolence is upon him in its bitterness. He would look on men with the eyes of intelligent love, and be gladdened by a responsive gaze; but he cannot bear the blindness of his disciples' admiration, and of his foes' hostility. Festus departs, in sadness and sore perplexity, with the implied promise of being recalled should the spirit of Paracelsus ever recover its pristine trust, and hope, and energy.

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PARACELSUS ASPIRES.' Such is the title of the fourth part as of the first. Two short years, and Festus is summoned to his side. The tide has turned at Basil. The popular professor is hunted out as a disgraced quack, whom every reptile may insult, and every dunce despise. Paracelsus is in the world's martyrology of those whom society brands and blasts for their benevolence; whom it cannot forgive for advancing with a quicker pace, and for attempting to quicken its own march; on whose devoted heads it pours all the vials of envy, hatred, contempt, and deadly persecution. In the tumult of his soul there dimly shines the star of a renovated hope. Hitherto he has aimed at being something apart from humanity: he would be a benefactor, but not himself identified with the benefited. He has not realized men's feelings, noted how even their prejudices and hatreds belong to the working out of the capabilities of their nature, made himself as one of them, without intolerances and superiorities, and seen the great laws of physical and moral being evolving the progressive tendencies of the entire human race. This has he now to learn, and after it his spirit gropes and plunges, like a man in danger of drowning in a dark and stormy sea. However impressive in itself, and masterly in execution, we doubt whether the author's purpose be sufficiently distinct in this part. He rather describes the mind of his hero in its state of transition than in that of aspiration.

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Part Five, PARACELSUS ATTAINS.' Thirteen more years have passed away. Festus is by the deathbed of Paracelsus, in a cell in the hospital of St. Sebastian at Salzburgh, watching for a moment of consciousness, and wrestling with God on the destiny of his friend. The opening of this scene is deeply affecting; but we continue to abstain from extract that we may have room for a considerable portion of the conclusion. Paracelsus revives; he apprehends that the presence of Festus is an intimation to him of his last mission;' he calls for the robes in which he had been accustomed to lecture, rising with supernatural energy from his bed;

'This couch shall be my throne: I bid this cell

Be consecrate; this wretched bed become

A shrine; for here God speaks to men through me.'

Our quotation must commence with his delineation of the happiness of the Spirit of the Universe, in its harmonious modifications:

'Nay, dare I say,

In every pore of this fast-fading frame

I felt, I knew what God is, what we are,
What life is how God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways-one everlasting bliss,
From whom all being emanates, all power
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form
Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is He!
With still a flying point of bliss remote-
A happiness in store afar-a sphere
Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs
Pleasure its height for ever and for ever!
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks-
Winds into the stone's heart-outbranches bright
In hidden mines-spots barren river-beds—
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask-
God joys therein! The wroth sea's waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of Hate,
When in the solitary waste strange groups
Of young volcanoes come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame:
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride!
Then all is still earth is a wintry clod;
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it; rare verdure
Buds here and there upon rough banks, between
The wither'd tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;

The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms,
Like chrysalids impatient for the air;

The shining dorrs are busy; beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks-the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain; and God renews
His ancient rapture! Thus He dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To man-the consummation of this scheme
Of being the completion of this sphere

Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scatter'd o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combin'd-dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole-
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make—

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And man appears at last: so far the seal
Is put on life: one stage of being complete,
One scheme wound up; and from the grand result
A supplementary reflux of light,

Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains

Each back step in the circle: not alone

The clear dawn of those qualities shines out,

But the new glory mixes with the heaven

And earth. 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.'

After some varied and most poetical illustration, the author continues:

'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:
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attain'd, his genuine strength put fairly out,
While only here and there a star dispels
The darkness-here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its crawling fellows: when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind is perfected alike,

Equal in full-blown powers-then, not till then,
Begins the general infancy of man ;

For wherefore make account of feverish starts
Of restless members of a dormant whole-

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When all the race is perfected alike

As man, that is: all tended to mankind
And, man produced, all has its end thus far;
But in completed man begins anew

A tendency to God. Prognostics told
Man's near approach; so in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendour ever on before,
In the eternal circle life pursues :

For men begin to pass their nature's bound,
To have new hopes and cares which fast supplant

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