parentheses, throughout the poem, is addressed
by the speaker directly to his companions.

57. Actual life comes next: do you say? No. I have more to do first.

86. Calculus: the stone.

88. Tussis: a cough.

95. hydroptic: hydropic, dropsical.

129. Hoti: the Greek particle `/Oti, conj. that, etc.

130. Oun: Greek particle Ou^'n, then, now then, etc.

131. the enclitic De: Greek De {Delta epsilon}; in regard to this,
the following letter by Browning appeared in the London `Daily News'
of Nov. 21, 1874: "To the Editor of `The Daily News'. Sir,--
In a clever article this morning you speak of `the doctrine of
the enclitic De'--`which, with all deference to Mr. Browning,
in point of fact does not exist.' No, not to Mr. Browning:
but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose fifth list of `enclitics'
ends `with the inseparable De'--or to Curtius,
whose fifth list ends also with `De (meaning `towards'
and as a demonstrative appendage)'. That this is not to be confounded
with the accentuated `De, meaning BUT', was the `doctrine'
which the Grammarian bequeathed to those capable of receiving it.--
I am, sir, yours obediently, R. B."--`Browning Soc. Papers',
Part I., p. 56.

An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician.

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,
The not-incurious in God's handiwork
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,
To coop up and keep down on earth a space
That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul)
--To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,
Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,
Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks
Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, {10}
Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip
Back and rejoin its source before the term,--
And aptest in contrivance (under God)
To baffle it by deftly stopping such:--
The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home
Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)
Three samples of true snake-stone--rarer still,
One of the other sort, the melon-shaped
(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs),
And writeth now the twenty-second time. {20}

My journeyings were brought to Jericho:
Thus I resume. Who, studious in our art,
Shall count a little labor unrepaid?
I have shed s