So, as John called now, through the fire amain, On the Name, he had cursed with, all his life-- To the Person, he bought and sold again-- For the Face, with his daily buffets rife-- Feature by feature It took its place: And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark, At the steady whole of the Judge's face-- Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark." None of these dramatic studies of Christianity attracted so lively an interest as _Bishop Blougram's Apology._ It was "actual" beyond anything he had yet done; it portrayed under the thinnest of veils an illustrious Catholic prelate familiar in London society; it could be enjoyed with little or no feeling for poetry; and it was amazingly clever. Even Tennyson, his loyal friend but unwilling reader, excepted it, on the last ground, from his slighting judgment upon _Men and Women_ at large. The figure of Blougram, no less than his discourse, was virtually new in Browning, and could have come from him at no earlier time. He is foreshadowed, no doubt, by a series of those accomplished mundane ecclesiastics whom Browning at all times drew with so keen a zest,--by Ogniben, the bishop in _Pippa Passes_, the bishop of St Praxed's. But mundane as he is, he bears the mark of that sense of the urgency of the Christian problem which since _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ had so largely and variously coloured Browning's work. It occurred to none of those worldly bishops to justify their worldliness,--it was far too deeply ingrained for that. But Blougram's brilliant defence, enormously disproportioned as it is to the insignificance of the attack, marks his tacit recognition of loftier ideals than he professes. Like Cleon, he bears involuntary witness to what he repudiates. But there is much more in Blougram than this. The imposing personality of Wiseman contained much to attract and conciliate a poet like Browning, whose visionary idealism went along with so unaffected a relish for the world and the talents which succeed there. A great spiritual ruler, performing with congenial ease the enormous and varied functions of his office, and with intellectual resources, when they were discharged, to win distinction in scholarship, at chess, in society, appealed powerfully to Browning's congenital delight in all strong and vivid life. He was a great athlete, who had completely mastered his circumstances and shaped his life to his will. Opposed to a man of this varied and brilliant achievement, an ineffectual dilettante appeared a sorry creature enough; and Browning, far from taking his part and putting in his craven mouth the burning retorts which the reader in vain expects, makes him play helplessly with olive-stones while the great bishop rolls him out his mind, and then, as one cured and confuted, betake himself to the life of humbler practical activity and social service.