That Browning did not wholly escape its influence, even though removed from direct contact, is readily conceivable. And in spite of his own expressed surprise at the suggestion that he did not favourably regard the Roman Catholic creed, his natural sympathies would certainly appear to have inclined towards a Puritanic form of worship rather than to a more ornate ritual; setting aside questions of doctrine of which these may be the outward manifestations. This being the case, ample reason is at once discoverable for the resolve to examine the position more thoroughly, ascertaining how far it was possible to make out a case for the other side. For, whilst on the one hand, we have every right, despite his cosmopolitanism and his Italian sympathies to claim the author of the _Apology_ as a genuine Englishman, with a fair proportion of the Englishman's characteristics, on the other hand, we may exonerate him, if not wholly, yet to a very large extent, from insular prejudices and narrow-minded judgments. Had he designed to present Blougram either as fool or hypocrite, he might assuredly have attained his object with equal certainty by writing something less than the thousand and odd lines devoted to the work of psychological analysis: for, in making his defence, the Bishop is likewise revealing himself--to him who has eyes to see. Here, as elsewhere, it is Browning's intent to present to his readers not what man sees but "what _this_ man sees"; to lead them to judge of cause rather than of effect, of motive rather than of action, or of action by the recognition of motive. We may attempt to classify his characters, if we will: a Browning society may write and read papers on the "villains" or the "hypocrites" of Browning as distinguished from his saints. Such a classification is perhaps fairly possible in the case of a character delineator such as Dickens, whose lines of demarcation are stronger and broader, purposely so, than those of actual life; but it is questionable whether Browning himself could have thus labelled his people and separated them into distinct compartments. For if the complexity of human nature and character is fully recognized by any writer whether poet, novelist, or biographer, it has surely been so recognized by the author of _Paracelsus_, of _Sordello_, of _The Ring and the Book_. It has been so frequently remarked that it seems but reiterating a truism to repeat the assertion that he writes of the individual, not of the race, not of _man_ but of _men_; of men with much indeed which is common to the race, but with peculiar attention also to those idiosyncrasies which establish individuality. Hence the choice of soliloquists for the dramatic poems is most frequently made amongst those the interpretation of whose actions has presented special difficulty to the world at large. Thus to Browning was left the vindication of Paracelsus, and for the bombast, the quack, the