Had the mother lived, an hour's memory would have been intolerable torture.
Nevertheless, if Browning, in his desire to represent the whole of humanity, chose to treat these lower forms of human nature, I suppose we must accept them as an integral part of his work; and, at least, there can be no doubt of their ability, and of the brilliancy of their psychological surprises.

_Ned Bratts_ is a monument of cleverness, as well as of fine characterisation of a momentary outburst of conscience in a man who had none before; and who would have lost it in an hour, had he not been hanged on the spot.

The quick, agile, unpremeditated turns of wit in this poem, as in some of the others, are admirably easy, and happily expressed.

Indeed, in these later poems of character and event, ingenuity or nimbleness of intellect is the chief element, and it is accompanied by a facile power which is sometimes rude, often careless, always inventive, fully fantastical, and rarely imaginative in the highest sense of the word.

Moreover, as was not the case of old, they have, beyond the story, a direct teaching aim, which, while it lowers them as art, is very agreeable to the ethical psychologist.
_Jocoseria_ has poems of a higher quality, some of which, like the lovely _Never the Time and Place_, I have been already quoted.