sentiment, new method, and generally unique quality, is a new voice
audible in these two poems. They are very remarkable as the work of so
young a poet, and are interesting as showing how rapidly he had outgrown
the influence of any other of his poetic kindred. "Johannes Agricola" is
significant as being the first of those dramatic studies of warped
religiosity, of strange self-sophistication, which have afforded so much
matter for thought. In its dramatic concision, its complex psychological
significance, and its unique, if to unaccustomed ears somewhat barbaric,
poetic beauty, "Porphyria" is still more remarkable.

It may be of this time, though possibly some years later, that Mrs.
Bridell-Fox writes:--"I remember him as looking in often in the
evenings, having just returned from his first visit to Venice. I cannot
tell the date for certain. He was full of enthusiasm for that Queen of
Cities. He used to illustrate his glowing descriptions of its beauties,
the palaces, the sunsets, the moonrises, by a most original kind of
etching. Taking up a bit of stray notepaper, he would hold it over a
lighted candle, moving the paper about gently till it was cloudily
smoked over, and then utilising the darker smears for clouds, shadows,
water, or what not, would etch with a dry pen the forms of lights on
cloud and palace, on bridge or gondola on the vague and dreamy surface
he had produced. My own passionate longing to see Venice dates from
those delightful, well-remembered evenings of my childhood."

"Paracelsus," begun about the close of October or early in November
1834, was published in the summer of the following year. It is a poem in
blank verse, about four times the length of "Pauline," with interspersed
songs. The author divided it into five sections of unequal length, of
which the third is the most extensive: "Paracelsus Aspires"; "Paracelsus
Attains"; "Paracelsus"; "Paracelsus Aspires"; "Paracelsus Attains." In