The first considerable production of a great writer must always claim attention from the student of his mind and art.
The poem is a study in what Browning in his _Fifine_ terms "mental analysis"; it attempts to shadow forth, through the fluctuating moods of the dying man, a series of spiritual states.

The psychology is sometimes crude; subtle, but clumsily subtle; it is, however, essentially the writer's own.

To construe clearly the states of mind which are adumbrated rather than depicted is difficult, for Browning had not yet learnt to manifest his generalised conceptions through concrete details, to plunge his abstractions in reality.

The speaker in the poem tells us that he "rudely shaped his life to his immediate wants"; this is intelligible, yet only vaguely intelligible, for we do not know what were these wants, and we do not see any rude shaping of his life.

We are told of "deeds for which remorse were vain"; what were these deeds?
did he, like Bunyan, play cat on Sunday, or join the ringers of the church bells?
"Instance, instance," we cry impatiently.