there must be behind him a divinity that "all it hath a mind to, doth."
Caliban is one of Browning's most consummate realists; he has the
remorselessly vivid perceptions of a Lippo Lippi and a Sludge.
Browning's wealth of recondite animal and plant lore is nowhere else so
amazingly displayed; the very character of beast or bird will be hit off
in a line,--as the pie with the long tongue

"That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,
And says a plain word when she finds her prize,"

or the lumpish sea-beast which he blinded and called Caliban (an
admirable trait)--

"A bitter heart that bides its time and bites."

And all this curious scrutiny is reflected in Caliban's god. The sudden
catastrophe at the close

("What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!")

is one of Browning's most superb surprises, breaking in upon the
leisured ease of theory with the suddenness of a horrible practical
emergency, and compelling Caliban, in the act of repudiating his
theology, to provide its most vivid illustration.

Shakespeare, with bitter irony, brought his half-taught savage into
touch with the scum of modern civilisation, and made them conspire
together against its benignity and wisdom. The reader is apt to remember
this conjunction when he passes from _Caliban_ to _Mr Sludge._ Stephano
and Trinculo, almost alone among Shakespeare's rascals, are drawn