200-210. Setebos hates and favors human beings without discoverable reason. 211-285. It is impossible to discover a way to please Setebos. His favor goes by caprice as does Caliban's with the daring squirrel and the terrified urchin, who please one day, and, doing the same things the next, would bring down vengeance. The only philosophy at which Caliban can arrive is that it is best not to be too happy. Simulated misery is more likely to escape than any show of happiness. MAY AND DEATH In memory of Browning's cousin, James Silverthorne, the "Charles" of the poem. The "one plant" of the last two stanzas is supposed to be the _Spotted Persicaria_, "a common weed with purple stains upon its rather large leaves." According to popular tradition this plant grew beneath the Cross, and the stains were made by drops of blood from the Savior's wounds. (Berdoe, _Browning Cyclopaedia_, page 268, quoting from Rev. H. Friend, _Flowers and Flower Lore_.) PROSPICE "Prospice" ("Look forward") was written in the autumn following Mrs. Browning's death. "It ends with the expression of his triumphant certainty of meeting her, and breaks forth at last into so great a cry of pure passion that ear and heart alike rejoice. Browning at his best, Browning in the central fire of his character, is in it." (Brooke, _The Poetry of Browning_, page 251.) A FACE "No poem in the volume of _Dramatis Personae_ is connected with pictorial art, unless it be the few lines entitled 'A Face,' lines of which Emily Patmore, the poet's wife, was the subject, and written, as Browning seldom wrote, for the mere record of beauty. That 'little head of hers' is transferred to Browning's panel in the manner of an early Tuscan piece of ideal loveliness." (Dowden, _Life of Browning_.) 14. _Correggio._ A famous Italian painter of the Lombard school. These lines well describe his style. O LYRIC LOVE These are the closing lines of the first book of _The Ring and the Book_. The passage is generally and probably rightly interpreted as an invocation to the spirit of his wife. A WALL This poem was written and printed as the Prologue to _Pacchiarotto and How he Worked in Distemper_, published in 1876. It was, however, given the title "A Wall" when published in 1880 in _Selections from Robert Browning's Poems, Second Series_. The last two stanzas express one of the fundamental ideas of Browning's poetry. Under the figure of the wall with its pulsating robe of vines and the eagerness of the lover to penetrate to the life within the house, he sets forth his thought of the barrier between himself and a longed-for future life in heaven. The "forth to thee" is to be interpreted as referring to his wife. HOUSE AND SHOP