ality. It means that he wears the garb befitting his peculiar stature and complexion, and does not affect the passing fashions which uniform the undistinguished multitudes. If he is a writer or orator, it means that he stamps with vigorous clearness his own image and superscription on his word-mintage; affirming thus his true sovereign prerogative, instead of issuing the common currency with the common image and superscription half-effaced by multitudinous usage, not to speak of debasement by sweating and clipping—the demonetised, vulgarised vocabulary of the newspapers. .
Browning himself expresses just as much esteem for the public that accuses him of harshness as for the critics who accuse him of obscurity. In the Epilogue to the Pacchiarotto volume (1876), written in the same spirit as a certain famous high-minded Ode to Himself by Ben Jonson, he bursts out with jolly scorn:—
But the deuce a flavour of grape is there.
Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick?
Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste.
My Thirty-four Port—no need to waste
On a tongue that's fur, and a palate paste!
A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick—
I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth,
Henceforward with nettle-broth!"
Yet he could write in the Preface to the "Selections," dated May, 1872: "Nor do I apprehend any more charges of being wilfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh."
