BEN KARSHOOK'S WISDOM

The eighth line of the fourteenth section of One Word More reads,

"Karshish, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty."

Originally it read,

"Karshook, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty."

The reference apparently was to the poem written in April, 1854, and printed in The Keepsake, an annual edited by Miss Power, a niece of Lady Blessington, in whom Dickens also took an interest. It may have been Browning's intention to include this poem in Men and Women, but he never did place it there, and finally dropped Karshook and substituted Karshish, who narrates his medical experience.

"Would a man 'scape the rod?"

Rabbi Ben Karshook saith,

"See that he turn to God

The day before his death."

"Ay, could a man inquire

When it shall come!" I say.

The Rabbi's eye shoots fire—

"Then let him turn to-day!"

Quoth a young Sadducee:

"Reader of many rolls,

Is it so certain we

Have, as they tell us, souls?"

"Son, there is no reply!"

The Rabbi bit his beard:

"Certain, a soul have I—

We may have none," he sneered.

Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer,

The Right-hand Temple-column,

Taught babes in grace their grammar,

And struck the simple, solemn.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

The volume bearing the title Dramatis Personæ was published in 1864 and the contents remained unchanged in subsequent editions except that two short poems were added in the edition of 1868. The first poem was however originally entitled James Lee. The first six stanzas of the sixth section of the poem were first printed in 1836 in Mr. Fox's The Monthly Repository, and bore the title merely Lines, with the signature Z.