The time is "shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe"; the place-- a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture!-- is imagined to suit the idea of the poem.

The dead scholar, borne to the summit for burial on the shoulders of his disciples, had been possessed by the aspiration of Paracelsus--to know; and, unlike Paracelsus, he had never sought on earth both to know and to enjoy.

He has been the saint and the martyr of Renaissance philology.

For the genius of such a writer as the author of _Hudibras_, with his positive intellect and dense common sense, there could hardly have been found a fitter object for mockery than this remorseless and indefatigable pedant.

Browning, through the singing voices of the dead master's disciples, exalts him to an eminence of honour and splendid fame.