_Bishop Blougram's Apology_ a poem at all? some literary critics may ask. And the answer is that through it we make acquaintance with one of Browning's most genial inventions--the great Bishop himself, and that if Gigadibs were not present we could never have seen him at the particular angle at which he presents himself in his condescending play with truths and half-truths and quarter-truths, adapted to a smaller mind than his own. The sixteenth century gave us a Montaigne, and the seventeenth century a Pascal. Why should not the nineteenth century of mundane comforts, of doubt troubled by faith, and faith troubled by doubt, produce a new type--serious yet humorous--in an episcopal Pascal-Montaigne? Browning's moral sympathies, we may rest assured, do not go with one who like Blougram finds satisfaction in things realised on earth; one who declines--at least as he represents himself for the purposes of argument--to press forward to things which he cannot attain but might nobly follow after. But Browning's intellectual interest is great in seeing all that a Blougram can say for himself; and as a destructive piece of criticism directed against the position of a Gigadibs what he says may really be effective. The Bishop frankly admits that the unqualified believer, the enthusiast, is more fortunate than he; he, Sylvester Blougram, is what he is, and all that he can do is to make the most of the nature allotted to him. That there has been a divine revelation he cannot absolutely believe; but neither can he absolutely disbelieve. Unbelief is sterile; belief is fruitful, certainly for this world, probably for the next, and he elects to believe. Having chosen to believe, he cannot be too pronounced and decisive in his faith; he will never attempt to eliminate certain articles of the _credenda_, and so "decrassify" his faith, for to this process, if once begun, there is no end; having donned his uniform, he will wear it, laces and spangles and all. True, he has at times his chill fits of doubt; but is not this the probation of faith? Does not a life evince the ultimate reality that is within us? Are not acts the evidence of a final choice, of a deepest conviction? And has he not given his vote for the Christian religion? With me faith means perpetual unbelief Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot, Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe. When the time arrives for a beatific vision Blougram will be ready to adapt himself to the new state of things. Is not the best pledge of his capacity for future adaptation to a new environment this--that being in the world he is worldly? We must not lose the training of each successive stage of evolution by for ever projecting ourselves half way into the next. So rolls on the argument to its triumphant conclusion-- Fool or knave? Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave When there's a thousand diamond weights between?