He would not have disgraced the episcopal bench; he would have been dignified, courteous, and hospitable; a patron and promoter of learning, we may be sure.

His literary labours would probably have consisted of an edition of a Greek play or two, and certainly some treatise on the Evidences of Christianity.

But in that case we should not have had the _Decline and Fall_.
The "blind activity of idleness" to which he was exposed at Oxford, prevented any result of this kind.

For want of anything better to do, he was led to read Middleton's _Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are Supposed to have Subsisted in the Christian Church_.

Gibbon says that the effect of Middleton's "bold criticism" upon him was singular, and that instead of making him a sceptic, it made him more of a believer.