The hero at last is brought tp recognise the value of his fellow-
creatures, whose shortcomings a too haughty disposition had led
him to despise : —

In my own heart, love had not been made wise
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill- success. To sympathize, be proud
,Of their half reasons, faint aspirings, dim
Struggles for half truths, their poor fallacies,
Their prejudices, fears and cares and doubts,
Which all touch upon nobleness, despite
Their error, all tend upwardly, though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him: —
All this I knew and failed.*

He does not expire, however, without a presentiment that his
name one day will be in the ascendant : —

If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp
Close to my heart ; it's splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom. I shall emerge one day !
' You understand me ? t •

The lesson taught by Paracelsus is what some of us learn,
like himself, too late : —

Let men
Regard me, and the poet dead long ago,
Who once loved rashly ; and shape forth a third,
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both.J

But these beauties hardly repay the reader for the laborious
effort of toiling through a performance in which there is no
incident to amuse and little philosophy to instruct him, where the

* Sc. v. f Sc. v. J Sc. v.
