"Look and tell me! Written, spoken, Here's my lifelong work: and where-- Where's your warrant or my token I'm the dead king's son and heir?
"Here's my work: does work discover-- What was rest from work--my life? Did I live man's hater, lover? Leave the world at peace, at strife?...
"Blank of such a record, truly, Here's the work I hand, this scroll, Yours to take or leave; as duly, Mine remains the unproffered soul. So much, no whit more, my debtors-- How should one like me lay claim To that largest elders, betters Sell you cheap their souls for--fame?...
"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....
"My experience being other, How should I contribute verse Worthy of your king and brother? Balaam-like I bless, not curse. I find earth not gray, but rosy, Heaven not grim, but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. Do I stand and stare? All's blue....
"Meanwhile greet me--'friend, good fellow, Gentle Will,' my merry men! As for making Envy yellow With 'Next Poet'--(Manners, Ben!)"
It is difficult to imagine any other situation, any other place, any other group of friends, chosen by Browning, that would have been more favorable to the frank unfolding by Shakespeare of the motives which underlie his work and his character. This any one may recognize, whatever his opinions may be regarding the success of this monologue.
The poem is meaningless without a grasp of the situation. "Manners, Ben!" at the close is a protest against Ben's drinking too soon. Is this a delicate hint at Ben's habits? Or was his beginning to drink a method by which Browning suggests a comment of Ben's to the effect that Shakespeare talked too much?
Browning here brings out the true Shakespeare spirit, not, of course, to the satisfaction of those who have their hobbies and systems and consider Shakespeare the only poet, but to others who wish to comprehend the real man.
Douglas Jerrold has indicated the situation of his series of monologues in the title, "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures." The mind easily pictures an old-fashioned bed, the draperies drawn around it, with Mr. and Mrs. Caudle retired to rest. Mrs. Caudle seizes this moment when she has her busy spouse at her mercy. Before she falls asleep, she refers to his various shortcomings and fully discusses future contingencies or consequences of his evil deeds as a kind of slumber song for poor Caudle. The imagination distinctly sees Caudle holding himself still, trying to go to sleep. No word can relieve the tension of his mind, and Mrs. Caudle monopolizes all the conversation. Caudle is exercising those powers which Epictetus says that "God has given us by which we can keep ourselves calm and reposeful, as Socrates did, without change of face under the most trying circumstances."