I must be content with a few words anent the more important or significant poems, and in due course attempt an estimate by a broad synthesis, and not by cumulative critical analyses.

In the selection of Paracelsus as the hero of his first mature poem, Browning was guided first of all by his keen sympathy with the scientific spirit—­the spirit of dauntless inquiry, of quenchless curiosity, of a searching enthusiasm.  Pietro of Abano, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, were heroes whom he regarded with an admiration which would have been boundless but for the wise sympathy which enabled him to apprehend and understand their weaknesses as well as their lofty qualities.  Once having come to the conclusion that Paracelsus was a great and much maligned man, it was natural for him to wish to portray aright the features he saw looming through the mists of legend and history.  But over and above this, he half unwittingly, half consciously, felt the fascination of that mysticism associated with the name of the celebrated German scientist—­a mysticism, in all its various phases, of which he is now acknowledged to be the subtlest poetic interpreter in our language, though, profound as its attraction always was for him, never was poet with a more exquisite balance of intellectual sanity.

Latest research has proved that whatsoever of a pretender Paracelsus may have been in certain respects, he was unquestionably a man of extraordinary powers:  and, as a pioneer in a science of the first magnitude of importance, deserving of high honour.  If ever the famous German attain a high place in the history of the modern intellectual movement in Europe, it will be primarily due to Browning’s championship.

But of course the extent or shallowness of Paracelsus’ claim is a matter of quite secondary interest.  We are concerned with the poet’s presentment of the man—­of that strange soul whom he conceived of as having anticipated so far, and as having focussed all the vagrant speculations of the day into one startling beam of light, now lambently pure, now lurid with gross constituents.[9]

[Footnote 9:  Paracelsus has two particular claims upon our regard.  He gave us laudanum, a discovery of incalculable blessing to mankind.  And from his fourth baptismal name, which he inherited from his father, we have our familiar term, ‘bombast.’  Readers interested in the known facts concerning the “master-mind, the thinker, the explorer, the creator,” the forerunner of Mesmer and even of Darwin and Wallace, who began life with the sounding appellation “Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus ab Hohenheim,” should consult Browning’s own learned appendical note, and Mr. Berdoe’s interesting essay in the Browning Society Papers, No. xlix.]