Similarly with the poem entitled _Ben Karshook’s Wisdom_. Who was “Ben Karshook”? I doubt whether the writer could have told. In the Tauchnitz copy of 1872, as well as in the English edition of 1889, as Mrs. Sutherland Orr points out, the name is spelt “Karshish.” Ben Karshook, seems a mere jumble of Ben Hyrkanos. But either way, there was no Rabbi of the name. Elsewhere, Browning employs the name Karshish to designate an Arabian physician. It was one of Browning’s foibles, to quote Dr. Jacobs again, to give an impression of recondite learning. Ben Karshook would seem to have been the poet’s first attempt at a Jewish, as distinct from a biblical subject. _Holy-Cross Day_ was the first to be published; it appeared in 1855. _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ came in 1864, _Filippo Baldinucci_ in 1876, _Johanan Hakkadosh_ (with other Jewish poems) in 1883. This list is not a complete summary, but (if one adds _Abt Vogler_) it includes the most important. _Ben Karshook’s Wisdom_ was not published until a year later than _Holy-Cross Day_, for it was printed in the _Keepsake_ for 1856. But it was written on April 27, 1854 (according to the statement of Berdoe). Browning himself omitted the poem, apparently by accident, from one of his own volumes, where it is included in the table of contents but not in the book. He never reprinted it. The result has been that it has often been reproduced by others for that very reason; and now, though it has been given a place in the Oxford Browning, let it be printed again! I. “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.” II. 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.