In short, the Bishop's is a figure claiming the interest of his contemporaries in that his position is one not readily definable: he may be a saint and a whole-hearted churchman; it is yet more probable, so says the world, that his conventional orthodoxy may be but the cloak of an underlying scepticism. The identity of Bishop Blougram with Cardinal Wiseman was, as every one knows, established from the first. That this should have been so was inevitable from the various external indications introduced with obvious intention into the poem; to the unprejudiced student it does not, however, appear equally inevitable that the character sketch thus outlined should be commonly estimated as conceived in a spirit hostile to the original. Yet such would seem to be the case. In his _Browning Cyclopaedia_, Dr. Berdoe quotes from a review contributed to _The Rambler_ of January, 1856, "which," he adds, "is credibly supposed to have been written by the Cardinal himself." This article referred to the Bishop's portrait as "that of an arch-hypocrite and the frankest of fools." Apparently accepting this criticism, the author of the _Cyclopaedia_ not unnaturally observes that "it is necessary to say that the description is to the last degree untrue, as must have been obvious to any one personally acquainted with the Cardinal." A similar opinion is expressed by no less an authority than Mr. Wilfrid Ward, who characterizes the portrait as "quite unlike all that Wiseman's letters and the recollections of his friends show him to have been. Subtle and true as the sketch is in itself, it really depicts someone else."[52] Is this so? May it not rather be the case that the true character of Browning's prelate has not been fairly estimated? Does the Bishop occupy the position assigned him by Mr. Ward when he continues, "Blougram acquiesces in the judgment that Catholicism and Christianity are doubtful, and yet that they are no more provable as false than as true; that in one mood they seem true, in another false; that either the moods of faith or the moods of doubt may prove to correspond with the truth, and that in this state of things circumstances and external advantage may be allowed to decide his vocation, and to justify him in professing consistently as true, what in his heart of hearts he only regards as possible?"[53] Again, "The sceptical element which had tried Wiseman in his early years was something wholly different from Blougram's scepticism."[54] Is there not something more than this to be said for the Bishop's Apology? It is, indeed, the main difficulty of the poem to decide to what extent the speaker is, or is not, serious in his assertions; but if we come to the conclusion that he is either "an arch-hypocrite," or "the frankest of fools," we shall assuredly be very far from having read the defence aright. Browning himself has, according to report, had something to say on this subject.[55] When accused by Sir Charles Gavin Duffy and Mr.