you, sir!
And neighbours complain it's no joke, sir!
You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!'"--

this after-part, overflowing with jolly humour and comic scorn, a besom
wielded by a laughing giant, is calculated to put the victims in better
humour with their executioner than with themselves. Browning has had to
endure more than most men at the hands of the critics, and he takes in
this volume, not in this poem only, a full and a characteristically
good-humoured revenge. The _Epilogue_ follows up the pendant to
_Pacchiarotto_. There is the same jolly humour, the same combative
self-assertiveness, the same retort _Tu quoque_, with a yet more earnest
and pungent enforcement.

"Wine, pulse in might from me!
It may never emerge in must from vat,
Never fill cask nor furnish can,
Never end sweet, which strong began--
God's gift to gladden the heart of man;
But spirit's at proof, I promise that!
No sparing of juice spoils what should be
Fit brewage--wine for me.

Man's thoughts and loves and hates!
Earth is my vineyard, these grow there:
From grape of the ground, I made or marred
My vintage; easy the task or hard,
Who set it--his praise be my reward!
Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's
Let them 'lay, pray, bray'[51]--the addle-pates!
Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!"

Despite its humorous expression, the view of poetic art contained in
these verses is both serious and significant. It is a frank (if defiant)
confession of faith.

_At the "Mermaid"_, a poem of characteristic energy and directness, is a
protest against the supposition or assumption that the personality and
personal views and opinions of a poet are necessarily reflected in his
dramatic work. It protests, at the same time, against the sham
melancholy and pseudo-despair which Byron made fashionable in poetry:--

"Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.

Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.

* * * * *

I find earth not gray but rosy,
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I sta