precursor of scientific knowledge is again and again manifest:
as, for example, in

"Hints and previsions of which faculties
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last."[10]

[Footnote 10: Readers interested in Browning's inspiration from, and
treatment of, Science, should consult the excellent essay on him as "A
Scientific Poet" by Mr. Edward Berdoe, F.R.C.S., and, in particular,
compare with the originals the references given by Mr. Berdoe to the
numerous passages bearing upon Evolution and the several sciences, from
Astronomy to Physiology.]

There are lines, again, which have a magic that cannot be defined. If it
be not felt, no sense of it can be conveyed through another's words.

"Whose memories were a solace to me oft,
As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight."

"Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss,
What full-grown power informs her from the first,
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky."

There is one passage, beautiful in itself, which has a pathetic
significance henceforth. Gordon, our most revered hero, was wont to
declare that nothing in all nonscriptural literature was so dear to him,
nothing had so often inspired him in moments of gloom:--

"I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time."

As for the much misused 'Shaksperian' comparison, so often mistakenly
applied to Browning, there is nothing in "Paracelsus" in the least way
derivative. Because Shakspere is the greatest genius evolved from our
race, it does not follow that every lofty intellect, every great
objective poet, should be labelled "Shaksperian." But there is a certain
quality in poetic expression which we so specify, because the intense
humanity throbbing in it finds highest utterance in the greatest of our
poets: and there is at least one instance of such poignant speech in
"Paracelsus," worthy almost to be ranked wi