bling, in the midst of the venerable God-fearing men and women of the Church in Bedford. He had seen the big tears falling, as he spoke, from eyes which never wept for trifles. He had seen the rigid hands of many a stern old saint clasped in a rapture of gratitude that God had blessed His young servant. He had heard the groan of repentance from lips which had been seldom parted but with oaths. There arose before his imagination the prospect of addressing the same burning words to hearts which his feeble voice could never reach. He would make a book! He would publish abroad the intense longings of his soul, that light from the other world might meet, as it had himself, the roysterers whom the Holy-Day now found at bellringing, or playing at hockey on the village-green. He would thunder against vice in a voice that should start the drunkard from his cups, and the lecher from his night's debauch. Perhaps his little book might reach the eye of the thoughtless king. If so, his pleasureloving majesty, whether he would hear or forbear, should at least hear plainer names for his sins, and plainer warnings to forsake them, than were wont to be uttered by time-serving bishops and velvet-fingered deans.

As Bunyan's character was partly moulded by the Baptists, so his exertions in the sacred desk were mainly confined to them. Nor is it probable that, but for his imprisonment, his labors would ever have been extended beyond their little community. But, though by that disgraceful procedure his own generation was robbed of twelve of the most valuable years of his life, some of those years were given to posterity. We have no reason to complain. But for the certain place where was a den,' the dreamer would never have lain down to sleep.'

But it was not in vain that he spent so many years of his life as he did among the Baptists. Before he entered into Bedford jail and gave himself to future generations, his brethren had given him half his spiritual training. Their discipline was needful for the education of his heart. They lived in constant view of the life to come, and had trained their souls to a proud contempt for the interests of time. Their only schools for learning were meditation and prayer. Their only library was the Bible. The only end of their ambition was a golden harp and crown; the only object of their terror an angry glance from the great Eye, which, they felt sure, was beaming in kindness above them. They had learned to despise the splendid rites of the Establishment. They looked with supreme contempt on the lofty and magnificent cathedrals, where hireling prelates led the pompous homage of unhumbled worshipers. They remembered those of old, who wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy. Conscious that the world was as little worthy of themselves, they turned without reluctance to the solemn shades of a temple not made with hands. They were content to be driven from the haunts of men, while they might be admitted to the immediate presence of the Most High. In the sacred seclusion of the forests they were wont to gather their little company,

and there they reverently listened to the Deity speaking in His own works. They knew that a contrite heart is a worthier abode for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, than the most imposing structure that men have ever reared. They worshiped Him in spirit and in truth.'

From such a nursery did Bunyan go forth to his work. We have hinted that the school of the Baptists was inadequate to the complete training of his character. It was so, because they could not comprehend, and of course made little allowance for, the wild vagaries of an almost omnipotent imagination. It never entered their minds that, under the rough exterior of their brother, there lay a faculty which was ever extending before him a gorgeous panorama, crowded with all forms of life and beauty, of death and deformity. They saw in the Christian dispensation merely what any humble believer sees in it, a gracious scheme for the salvation of a ruined race. But to Bunyan the whole scene glowed under a new light. The change was like that wrought in Pygmalion's lovely statue by the transformation. If they took delight in contemplation, he was in raptures. If they were in raptures, he was already in the Beautiful City, among the Shining Ones. His sorrow was their agony. His agony they might thank Heaven they never endured. If they felt an inclination to do evil, he could distinctly see the malignant glance of his arch-enemy, gleaming through the beautiful mask: he could feel that iron grasp dragging him down to perdition. If they caught faint glimpses of future bliss, he was in the very midst of Beulah. The dark river shrank to a rill. He heard the voices of the inhabitants of the City: he even walked with them; for in this land the Shining Ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of Heaven.'

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To the vigor of his imagination was, doubtless, partly owing his fondness for the Apocalypse. By most Christians that wonderful vision, with the exceptions of a few brief portions, is read only as a study, with commentaries and Biblical lexicons. Bunyan wanted no assistance but the magic wand of his imagination. While his brethren were quietly reading of the many mansions,' described with such beautiful simplicity by the Great Teacher, he was almost carried away in spirit,' and shown that great city the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.' Death was to them the thief in the night-to him the grim monster who sat on the pale horse. They thought of the Judgment as the division of the sheep and the goats; he, as the giving up by Death and Hell of the dead that were in them, and the judging of the dead, before the Great White Throne, out of the things written in the books. Let us observe, in passing, that there is a benevolent wisdom exhibited in these various descriptions of the same scenes. As the Scriptures were intended for the refined and the coarse, the wise and the foolish, the learned and the unlearned, so are their sacred teachings presented in a multitude of varied forms, sublime and simple, majestic and familiar. Archbishop Whately has remarked that the framers of the English liturgy paired together words of Latin and Saxon derivation, expressing the same idea,

that they might meet the understanding and the taste of every worshiper. On the same principle are those wonderfully diverse styles occurring in the Scriptures.

Some of Bunyan's brethren were learned. A late biographer has an anecdote of one, who, when put on trial as a dissenter, escaped by pleading in Greek, and again, probably, when requested to employ some other language, in Hebrew. Some among the brethren were gifted in preaching. Many, doubtless, had various accomplishments of which Bunyan was devoid. But there was no imagination which could cope or sympathize with his. They marveled at him, as boys marvel at the feats of an adventurous comrade. To the intense vividness of that imagination must be attributed the lively interest which we feel in every step of the Pilgrim's Progress. That was a vision rather than a dream. The relator casts a strange spell about us when we enter his magic circle. We forget all outward things while the wonderful revelation is made to pass before us.

In almost every other branch of his art Bunyan has had his superiors. But we must claim for him, in this respect, an absolute supremacy. We are amused, as we peruse Thompson's Castle of Indolence; but we feel no trembling solicitude for the success of the Knight of Arms and Industry. We are instructed by the visions of Maraton and Mirza; but there is little impression of reality about the important scenes presented. We marvel as we read that strange and frightful episode about Death and Sin and the Portress of Hell with her loathsome brood; but we feel no earnest anxiety for the prevention of the contest between Death and Satan, nor very much about which conquers, if they fight. Far otherwise is it with the Pilgrim. Every little girl fears for his safety when Apollyon gets him down, as intensely as if she were herself in that terrible grasp. She is as highly delighted, when Christian produces the key which will open any lock in doubting Castle, as though she had herself lain in the dungeon.

Another peculiar merit of the Pilgrim's Progress is the skill with which a certain dignity and sacredness is cast about things ordinary and almost farcical. Addison, in one of his ingenious criticisms on Milton, finds fault with his favorite for Belial's undignified triumph at the rout of the angels. If such mirthful sallies are improper in an epic poem, the fault must be laid exclusively to the charge of the author. The characters and scenes of that species of poetry generally are, and always may be, the most exalted which can be selected. For this reason Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton, have all introduced superior Intelligences and celestial scenery into their plots, but no one of them has gone below our species, nor even made remarkably prominent an undignified specimen of mankind. Hence no possible constraint can force the writers of heroic poetry to the introduction of ludicrous scenes. But it is not so with an allegory, at least with such an one as this of Bunyan. He professes to give us the history of a Christian's journey through the world. The nature of the subject is such that, even though treated allegorically, many familiar scenes

must be introduced, especially by a writer whose first great object is the good of the common people. An incontestable evidence of genius is, boldly to introduce such scenes, and still to maintain throughout an unbending dignity. This praise we claim for the Tinker.

The only other first-rate allegory in our language, of much length, is the Faerie Queen. An excellent writer, in comparing that great poem with the very work which we have under notice, complains of the tediousness of the former. We conceive that a single sentence, which that writer has dropped rather incidentally, contains the gist of the whole matter: "We become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain men and women." Both Spenser and Bunyan had two different and optional courses before them. They might confine their scenes to a purely ideal world, and, by avoiding all connection with ordinary daily affairs, avoid all risk of vulgar incidents; or they might descend to the common walks of life and take the accompanying hazard. Spenser chose the former course; and, owing to his continually straining after remoteness from common associations, which Mr. Leigh Hunt affirms is one of his chief attractions, he has lost that lively interest which is, perhaps, inseparable from such associations, unless we are compensated by the magnificent imagery and the imposing epithets of heroic poetry. Bunyan chose the latter course; and his success has been complete. He has not only risked the occurrence of scenes in themselves devoid of dignity; he has even deliberately introduced such scenes; and yet, under his hand, they appear stripped of all unworthy associations. There is, plainly, something very far from the romantic or the heroic about floundering and tumbling in the mud. Yet not one reader in a thousand finds his mirth excited by the adventure of Christian in the Slough of Despond. Most writers would have put Christian and Faithful somewhere else, at Vanity Fair, than in a cage. So ludicrous a specimen of persecution is hardly ever exhibited in real life. But the narration introduces no unworthy suggestions to the mind of the reader. Instead of smiling in the recollection of the animals cooped up at the last show, he is too deeply interested in the fate of the guiltless sufferers, to be amused by the method of their torture. It is the peculiar excellence of Bunyan, that, whatever is gained for the common people by this homeliness of incident, is pure gain, and by no means obtained by the sacrifice of dignity or good taste.

A great obstacle to the success of Allegory has been noticed by Mr. James Montgomery; the anticipation of the reader's judgment by the names of personified moral qualities. The most exquisite pleasure, of which the mind is capable, perhaps, is derived from discovery; as well of error as of truth. It is matter of common remark, that the most successful writers of fiction, whether in verse or prose, whom the world has ever seen, carefully avoid descriptive explanations of the characters which they introduce. The characters are brought forward, and the reader may enjoy the gratification of detecting from their conversation and actions, their individual peculiarities. Of this pleasure we are liable to be robbed by these unwelcome titles, to which we

have referred. Every reader can conjecture very nearly what Mr. By-Ends, and Mr. Hold-the-World, and Mr. Facing-both-Ways will say. Their names affect us like the officious kindness of a friend, who takes pains to inform us, when in the midst of an interesting tale, how it will terminate. This nomenclature must, necessarily, be introduced to some extent in Allegory. Even here, however, Bunyan has displayed his skill. To all his most prominent characters he has given general and comprehensive appellations. Christian, Evangelist, Goodwill, Faithful, Hopeful, and Talkative allow, without deviation from dramatic propriety, much more scope for the invention than Formalist, Save-All, and Money-Love. The former, therefore, appear frequently, and occupy much of the reader's attention, while the latter are soon removed from the stage.

But it is the crowning excellence of the Pilgrim's Progress, that it unites two qualities, indispensable indeed, but which most other writers of Allegory have found utterly incompatible; universality of application, and lively interest in the narrative.

The Pilgrim is a cosmopolite. He belongs alike to all nations and to all ages. The Record of his Progress has been translated into almost every language of Christendom. It no more belongs to an English Baptist than to a converted savage of the Fega Islands. It is read with equal interest by English firesides, in the literary coteries of the Metropolis, in the log-cabins of our own Western wilds, and by the scores of heathen tribes, to whom it has been transferred by our missionaries.

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Allegory has, in this respect, a great advantage over the Drama. is universal, while the Drama must be more or less local. Shakspeare called Othello Jealousy, Macbeth Ambition, and Shylock Revenge, he would have given us, we do not say very stupid plays, ! but no plays at all. We should have had most intolerable allegories. Shakspeare has never had his equal. But, notwithstanding the echanting scenery continually conjured up before us by that magnificent imagination, it is not to be denied that somewhat of interest is lost by the necessity of confining the attention to a particular period and locality. Whatever the Commentators may say about the masterly delineations of human nature, and the certainty that human nature must always interest human beings, it is quite clear that most Englishmen are much more interested in Ivanhoe than in Coriolanus, and most Scotchmen in Old Mortality than in the Winter's Tale. Not that Sir Walter is, in any wise, comparable to the Great Dramatist; but that the scenes of his own country, and the deeds of his own countrymen, must, from the nature of things, interest a man more than the characters and scenes of other lands. For the same reason, those plays of Shakspeare which are drawn from English history, are, at present, much more popular on the British stage than (to borrow a term from the artists) his mere compositions.

Nearly all allegories, on the contrary, are of universal application. It can hardly be otherwise. Personifications of Justice, Mercy, Hope, no more belong to a particular age or country, than do those qualities