classic literature began. The allusion to Plato, at pages 19, 20, and
21, largely confirms this impression. The feeling for music asserts
itself also at page 18, though in a less spiritual form than it assumes
in his later works. But the most striking piece of true biography which
"Pauline" contains, is its evidence of the young writer's affectionate
reverence for Shelley, whom he idealizes under the name of Sun-treader.
An invocation to his memory occupies three pages, beginning with the
ninth; it is renewed at the end of the poem, and there can be no doubt
that the pathetic language in which it is couched came straight from the
young poet's own heart. We even fancy that Shelley's influence is
visible in the poem itself, which contains a profusion of natural
imagery, and some touches of naturalistic emotion, not at all in keeping
with Mr. Browning's picturesque, but habitually human genius. The
influence, if it existed, passed away with his earliest youth; not so
the admiration and sympathy which it implied; and this, considering the
wide difference which separated the two minds, is an interesting
fact.[10]


"PARACELSUS." (1835.)

"Paracelsus" is a summary of the life, as Mr. Browning conceives it, of
this well-known physicist of the sixteenth century; and is divided into
five scenes, or groups of scenes, each representing a critical moment in
his experience, and reviewing in his own words the circumstances by
which it has been prepared. The personages whom it includes are, besides
the principal one, Festus and Michal, early friends of Paracelsus, and
now man and wife; and the Italian poet Aprile. Michal appears only in
the first scene; Aprile in the second or third; but Festus accompanies
Paracelsus throughout the drama, in the constant character of judicious,