Is the modern prelate portrayed in "Bishop Blougram's Apology," with
all his bland subtlety, complex culture, and ripened perceptions,
distant as the nineteenth century from the sixteenth, very different
at bottom from his Renaissance brother, in respect to his native
hankering for the pleasure of estimation above his fellows?
Gigadibs is his Gandolf, whom he would craftily overtop. He is the
one raised for the time above the commonalty by his criticism of the
bishop, to whom the prelate would fain show how little he was to be
despised, how far more honored and powerful he was among men. As
for Gigadibs, it is to be noticed that Browning quietly makes him do
more than leer enviously at his complacent competitor from a
tomb-top. The "sudden healthy vehemence" that struck him and made
him start to test his first plough in a new world, and read his last
chapter of St. John to better purpose than towards
self-glorification beyond his fellows, is a parable of the more
profitable life to be found in following the famous injunction of
that chapter in John's Gospel, "Feed my sheep!" than in causing
those sheep to motion one, as the bishop would have his obsequious
wethers of the flock motion him, to the choice places of the sward.

So, as vivid a picture of the materialism and monopolizing of the
present century sowing seeds of decay and self-destruction in the
movement of this age toward love of the truth, of the beauty of
genuineness in character and earnestness in aim, is portrayed
through the realistic personality of the great modern bishop, in his
easy-smiling after-dinner talk with Gigadibs, the literary man, as
is presented of the Central Renaissance period in the companion
picture of the Bishop of Saint Praxed's.