If a man comes to tell us that he has discovered perpetual motion, or been swallowed by the sea-serpent, there will yet be some point in the story where he will tell us about himself almost all that we require to know.
If any one wishes to test the truth, or to see the best examples of this general idea in Browning's monologues, he may be recommended to notice one peculiarity of these poems which is rather striking.

As a whole, these apologies are written in a particularly burly and even brutal English.

Browning's love of what is called the ugly is nowhere else so fully and extravagantly indulged.

This, like a great many other things for which Browning as an artist is blamed, is perfectly appropriate to the theme.

A vain, ill-mannered, and untrustworthy egotist, defending his own sordid doings with his own cheap and weather-beaten philosophy, is very likely to express himself best in a language flexible and pungent, but indelicate and without dignity.