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.
I
"Would a man 'scape the rod?"
Rabbi Ben Karshook saith,
"See that he turn to God
The day before his death."