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Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour
Sylvester Blougram, styled

in partibus

Episcopus, nec non

–(the deuce knows what
It’s changed to by our novel hierarchy)
With Gigadibs the literary man,
Who played with spoons, explored his plate’s design,
And ranged the olive-stones about its edge,
While the great bishop rolled him out a mind
Long crumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth.

For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke. 980
The other portion, as he shaped it thus
For argumentatory purposes,
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute.
Some arbitrary accidental thoughts
That crossed his mind, amusing because new,
He chose to represent as fixtures there,
Invariable convictions (such they seemed
Beside his interlocutor’s loose cards
Flung daily down, and not the same way twice)
While certain hell-deep instincts, man’s weak tongue 990
Is never bold to utter in their truth
Because styled hell-deep (‘t is an old mistake
To place hell at the bottom of the earth)
He ignored these–not having in readiness
Their nomenclature and philosophy:
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
“On the whole,” he thought, “I justify myself
On every point where cavillers like this
Oppugn my life: he tries one kind of fence,
I close, he’s worsted, that’s enough for him. 1000
He’s on the ground: if ground should break away
I take my stand on, there’s a firmer yet
Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach.
His ground was over mine and broke the first:
So, let him sit with me this many a year!”

He did not sit five minutes. Just a week
Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence.
Something had struck him in the “Outward-bound”
Another way than Blougram’s purpose was:
And having bought, not cabin-furniture 1010
But settler’s-implements (enough for three)
And started for Australia–there, I hope,
By this time he has tested his first plough,
And studied his last chapter of St. John.

NOTES

“Bishop Blougram’s Apology” is made over the wine after dinner to defend himself from the criticisms of a doubting young literary man, who despises him because he considers that he cannot be true to his convictions in conforming to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. He builds up his defence from the proposition that the problem of life is not to conceive ideals which cannot be realized, but to find what is and make it as fair as possible. The bishop admits his unbelief, but being free to choose either belief or unbelief, since neither can be proved wholly true, chooses belief as his guiding principle, because he finds it the best for making his own life and that of others happy and comfortable in this world. Once having chosen faith on this ground, the more absolute the form of faith, the more potent the results; besides, the bishop has that desire of domination in his nature, which the authorization of the Church makes safer for him. To Gigadibs’ objection that were his nature nobler, he would not count this success, he replies he is as God made him, and can but make the best of himself as he is. To the objection that he addresses himself to grosser estimators than he ought, he replies that all the world is interested in the fact that a man of his sense and learning, too, still believes at this late hour. He points out the impossibility of his following an ideal like Napoleon’s, for, conceding the merest chance that doubt may be wrong, and judgment to follow this life, he would not dare to slaughter men as Napoleon had for such slight ends. As for Shakespeare’s ideal, he can’t write plays like his if he wanted to, but he has realized things in his life which Shakespeare only imagined, and which he presumes Shakespeare would not have scorned to have realized in his life, judging from his fulfilled ambition to be a gentleman of property at Stratford. He admits, however, that enthusiasm in belief, such as Luther’s, would be far preferable to his own way of living, and after this, enthusiasm in unbelief, which he might have if it were not for that plaguy chance that doubt may be wrong. Gigadibs interposes that the risk is as great for cool indifference as for bold doubt. Blougram disputes that point by declaring that doubts prove faith, and that man’s free will preferring to have faith true to having doubt true tips the balance in favor of faith, and shows that man’s instinct or aspiration is toward belief; that unquestioning belief, such as that of the Past, has no moral effect on man, but faith which knows itself through doubt is a moral spur. Thus the arguments from expediency, instinct, and consciousness, all bear on the side of faith, and convince the bishop that it is safer to keep his faith intact from his doubts. He then proves that Gigadibs, with all his assumption of superiority in his frankness of unbelief, is in about the same position as himself, since the moral law which he follows has no surer foundation than the religious law the bishop follows, both founded upon instinct. The bishop closes as he began, with the consciousness that rewards for his way of living are of a substantial nature, while Gigadibs has nothing to show for his frankness, and does not hesitate to say that Gigadibs will consider his conversation with the bishop the greatest honor ever conferred upon him. The poet adds some lines, somewhat apologetic for the bishop, intimating that his arguments were suited to the calibre of his critic, and that with a profounder critic he would have made a more serious defence. Speaking of a review of this poem by Cardinal Wiseman (1801-1865), Browning says in a letter to a friend, printed in

Poet-lore

, May, 1896: “The most curious notice I ever had was from Cardinal Wiseman on

Blougram

—

i.e.

, himself. It was in the

Rambler

, a Catholic journal of those days, and certified to be his by Father Prout, who said nobody else would have dared put it in.” This review praises the poem for its “fertility of illustration and felicity of argument,” and says that “though utterly mistaken in the very groundwork of religion, though starting from the most unworthy notions of the work of a Catholic bishop, and defending a self-indulgence every honest man must feel to be disgraceful, [it] is yet in its way triumphant.”