tive development of a soul colored by the purely sub. jective sensations of a young man with little knowledge of life and its vicissitudes at first hand. Any organic unity the poem has is given it through the fact that the aim of this struggling soul seems to be to discover God for himself after having had all the old grounds of faith swept from under his feet. Immaturity is shown in the exaggerated moods of exaltation and despair into which the young man of the poem alternately falls, and sometimes so rapidly as to take one's breath away. Nevertheless there is much that is intensely interesting in the study of the feelings and motives working within just such immature though latently powerful minds. Often the smouldering power flames forth in some finely turned phrase or brilliant thought. The picture

of Agamemnon,

"that king

Treading the purple calmly to his death,

While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk,
The giant shades of fate, silently flitting,

Pile the dim outline of the coming doom,"

puts even schylus into the shade, who makes the king say simply, "I go treading on purples to my

house.'

One of the outbursts in thought is the fine analysis of the artistic temperament in the passage where the poet describes to Pauline his own mental furnishings, the first part of which runs:

"I am made up of an intensest life,
Of a most clear idea of consciousness
Of self, distinct from all its qualities.

From all affections, passions, feelings, powers;
And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all:
But linked, in me, to self-supremacy,
Existing as a centre to all things,

Most potent to create and rule and call

Upon all things to minister to it;

And to a principle of restlessness

Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all-
This is myself; and I should thus have been
Though gifted lower than the meanest soul."

All artists (or rather people of artistic temperament), whether poets, musicians, actors, or painters, seem to possess this sort of over-consciousness by means of which they may control all emotions, passions, and thoughts, and direct them to artistic ends. Added to this is the love of beauty and the desire to go through, in one's own person, all possible experiences and sensations where beauty may be found, in order to supply material to this commanding over-consciousness.

Wiser than the class of critics who contend that poets must perforce write out of their own experience, this poet realizes the danger in such desires, which if literally carried out would lead to moral ruin,

such moral ruin, for example, as that seen in Nero as his character is interpreted in the novel "Quo Vadis" by Sienkiewicz, where the artistic tendencies are finally crushed out by the unbridled seeking for all experiences, however brutal and degraded. Fortunately for the poet in "Pauline,” he has a vivid and sympathetic imagination to serve him in place of actual experience, and through this he lives with the heroes and bards of old, marshalling them into the present in glowing pictures for Pauline's benefit.

A definite biographical touch is given in his admiration for Shelley. The story of Browning's first acquaintanceship with Shelley is too well known an incident of his biography to need repeating. All that Shelley meant to a young mind of liberal tendencies is reflected in the fine passages in the poem referring to

him as "Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever," and " My choice fell not so much on a system as a man." Shelley's iconoclasm and enthusiasm for liberty and freedom was an inspiration to many at a time when the ideals of the French Revolution had not yet ceased to burn in men's minds. The aspiration for social regeneration sung with such spirit and fervor by Shelley suggests little, however, in the way of definite plans for the carrying out of such ideals; and the transition to Plato, who had elaborated a plan for a perfect state, would be quite natural to the youth bubbling Iwith the fervor of reform.

The awakening from all these dreams when a closer view of life is obtained, and upon all sides loom up the insurmountable obstacles to be conquered before a perfect state of society can be reached, the despair following upon this awakening, plunging the young man into a vortex of dissipation, are well imagined, but the vagueness with which he refers to these life-experiences as contrasted with the definiteness of his knowledge in regard to book-lore indicates that at that time the poet had not seen enough of life even to portray it through his sympathies and imagination. One feels, too, a truth to reality in his statement that he can love nothing, sense only supplying him with an appreciation of that which he has never emotionally felt. That is a dull

truth" much more likely to be borne in upon one at the beginning of life than later, and there are marks which show that, though the poet of the poem finally loves, the poet outside is still unawakened on this point. A lover who begins by telling his beloved one that he can give her faith but not love, and who finally succeeds in whipping up his emotions to a declaration that now at last he loves her, has certainly not yet felt that over

whelming revelation of divine love through earthly love which Browning later describes as "flashes struck from midnights," "fire-flames noondays kindle." There is, besides, a somewhat false ring about his love for God, quite different from that which appears later in Browning's work. In fact, the signs are all present of an immature heart as well as an immature mind, though both are bound through aspiration to reach glorious fruition. In the mean time the boyish admiration for Shelley's intense and aspiring personality is the young Browning's guiding star, though later his philosophy was to veer to almost the opposite pole from that of Shelley's. Instead of looking to perfection as an inheritance of earth such as is pictured by Shelley in symbols, cosmic and spiritual, in the closing act of his "Prometheus Unbound," Browning's ideal grew to be eternal æons of struggle and growth, relative evil always holding its appointed place as a spur toward further effort.

While no one can read this poem without having the sensuous imagery of Keats and the visionary imaginativeness of Shelley suggested to him, there is even here the promise of greater power than either of these poets ever commanded. "Alastor" almost unconsciously comes to the mind in connection with Pauline." That distrait young man, occupied solely with his own sensations, seems to have come to life again. Upon a closer comparison of the two, it will be found that the thought in "Alastor" is very thin, the poem depending entirely for its success upon the series of beautiful word pictures, entrancing in themselves, but after all not very definitely suggestive of the progress of Alastor's soul in the search for the ideal of love. Conversely, Browning's Pauline" is rich in moods and

thoughts as well as beautiful images, but the poet was not sufficiently master of the situation to round them into a complete harmony, hence the lack of organic unity.

Whatever may be the admitted defects in "Pauline,” it is a poem which, in spite of Browning's wishing he might disclaim it, will always be cherished by three classes of persons, - those who admire Browning, and are interested to see in this the first fruits of his genius, the unmistakable signs of approaching originality and greatness; those who are interested in the psychology of the poetic mind, for nowhere will be found a better presentation of what might be called its double consciousness, the over-consciousness, standing off at arm's length, as it were, and viewing all moods, all passions, of the normal consciousness as so much material to be woven into artistic products; and lastly, by those who, like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, love good poetry wherever they find it. The passages in which classical allusions are introduced and the comparisons built upon nature-descriptions reach the high-water mark of beauty. Browning has done nothing finer of this sort, and if he had not been destined to strike out new paths for himself, he might have outrivalled Beauty's special devotees, a Keats or a Swinburne, in rare and lovely imagery, so crowning the past. But for him was reserved a greater fate.

"Paracelsus" appeared in less than three years after "Pauline," and showed in many respects an extraordinary gain in power. The poet could now present, with admirable dramatic similitude, a character consistently developing and learning through the lessons of life.

Even if it be admitted that in his final philosophical utterance he shows more of the nineteenth-century spirit than that of the sixteenth, Paracelsus stands out