very nature of man; he denounces them as hollow imitations of him whom they are supposed to create:  as mere phantoms to which he imparts the light and warmth of his own life.  Then rising from denunciation to prophecy, he bids his fellow-men take heart.  “Let them struggle and fall!  Let them press on the limits of their own existence, to find only human passions and human pettiness in the sphere beyond; let them expiate their striving in hell!  The end is not yet come.  Of his vapourized flesh, of the ‘tears, sweat, and blood’ of his agony, is born a rainbow of hope; of the whirling wreck of his existence, the pale light of a coming joy.  Beyond the weakness of the god his tormenter he descries a Power, unobstructed, all-pure.

       “Thither I rise, whilst thou—­Zeus, keep the godship and sink!”

If any doubt were still possible as to Mr. Browning’s attitude towards the doctrine of eternal punishment, this poem must dispel it.

“JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH” relates how a certain Rabbi was enabled to extend his life for a year and three months beyond its appointed term, and what knowledge came to him through the extension.  Mr. Browning professes to rest his narrative on a Rabbinical work, of which the title, given by him in Hebrew, means “Collection of many lies;” and he adds, by way of supplement, three sonnets, supposed to fantastically illustrate the old Hebrew proverb, “From Moses to Moses[116] never was one like Moses,” and embodying as many fables of wildly increasing audacity.  The main story is nevertheless justified by traditional Jewish belief; and Mr. Browning has made it the vehicle of some poetical imagery and much serious thought.

Jochanan Hakkadosh was at the point of death.  He had completed his seventy-ninth year.  But his faculties were unimpaired; and his pupils had gathered round him to receive the last lessons of his experience; and to know with what feelings he regarded the impending change.  Jochanan Hakkadosh had but one answer to give:  his life had been a failure.  He had loved, learned, and fought; and in every case his object had been ill-chosen, his energies ill-bestowed.  He had shared the common lot, which gives power into the hand of folly, and places wisdom in command when no power is left to be commanded.  With this desponding utterance he bade his “children” farewell.

But here a hubbub of protestation arose.  “This must not be the Rabbi’s last word.  It need not be so;” for, as Tsaddik, one of the disciples, reminded his fellows, there existed a resource against such a case.  Their “Targums” (commentaries) assured them that when one thus combining the Nine Points of perfection was overtaken by years before the fruits of his knowledge had been matured, respite might be gained for him by a gift from another man’s life:  the giver being rewarded for the wisdom to which he ministered by a corresponding remission of ill-spent time.  The sacrifice was small, viewed side by side with the martyrdoms endured in Rome for