struggle to bring the objects within the comprehension of the uncultivated minds. to which the work was addressed. Above all there is visible, in the rude woodcut of the old German artist, as in the hardly less rude narrative morality of the English tinker, the unmistakable and inimitable originality of genius.-SHAW, THOMAS B., 1847, Outlines of English Literature, p. 194.

The more we study the "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Holy War, " in connection with his own history and times, the more will we see reason to believe that their numerous characters directly and broadly reflect both the outer and inner characteristics of the religious world familiar to him. . There is also everywhere, in his allegories, the evidence of a rare power of actual observation,—of sharp insight into the living characteristics around him, and great fulness of artistic skill in drawing these from the life as he knew and saw them.

It is, above all, this realistic element that gives to Bunyan's great allegory its special interest. It is because he draws so much from outward fact that we find his pages so living and linger over them and return to them and find them not only instructive, but entertaining. Spenser in his great allegory is richer, but he has nowhere caught life and mirrored it, as Bunyan has done. Puritanism lives in his pages-spiritually and socially-in forms and in colouring which must ever command the sympathy and enlist the love of all good Christians. -TULLOCH, JOHN, 1861, English Puritanism and Its Leaders, pp. 478, 480, 487.

He is the prince of dreamers, as Homer is the prince of poets. The scenery of his vision has become familiar as the scenery which surrounds our homes. We know the whole course of the journeyfrom the City of Destruction to the Slough of Despond; past the House of the Interpreter; up Hill Difficulty; the meeting of Christian with the Maidens, Piety, Prudence, and Charity; Christian's rest in the "large upper chamber whose window opened towards the sun-rising," the name of which chamber was Peace; the journey down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death: the combat which took place there; Vanity Fair and the burning of Faithful; the imprisonment of Hopeful

and Christian by the Giant, and their escape; the Delectable Mountains, with the Golden City seen in the distance shining like a star; the Land of Beulah; the passage across the dark river, with troops of angels, and melody of hymns. and trumpets, waiting the pilgrims on the further bank;-all this every boy knows as he knows the way to schoolwith this every man is familiar as with his personal experience and the curious thing is, that the incidents and the scenery which we accept with such belief are but the dark conceits and shadows of things; in all there is more than meets the eye. Under everything lies the most solemn meanings. "The Pilgrim's Progress" is not only the most enchanting story in the world, it is one of the best manuals of theology.-SMITH, ALEXANDER, 1867? ed., Divine Emblems by John Bunyan, p. v.

These two men were living together at the same time. There are no such men living now as they were; no such religious genius as Bunyan; no spirit so deeply absorbed in philosophy as Spinoza. They had probably never heard of one another's names; but if they had, one would have devoted the other to eternal flames, and that other would have regarded him as an ignorant fellow and a madman. Such awful misunderstandings there have been in this world. If we could imagine them knowing one another intimately (for all persons think differently of those whom they know), then perhaps a feeling of surprise might have arisen at so much. good being united with so much evil. They might have wondered to see how by different roads they had arrived, if not quite, yet nearly, at a common end. They might have learned partly to understand one another, and the calmness and wisdom of the one might have tempered the fire and enthusiasm of the other. JOWETT, BENJAMIN, 1871, Bunyan and Spinoza, Sermons, ed. Fremantle, p. 55.

We are apt to view him too exclusively as the author of the "Pilgrim's Progress, and to search there, and there only, for the signs of his intellectual power. Imaginative power and knowledge of men (which may be said to be different aspects of the constructive faculty) are the main secrets of his success as a writer. Perhaps too much has been made of his style,

viewed merely as written composition. His language is simple and often forcible, and, particularly in "Grace Abounding, has a soft melodious flow. The most pleasing element is the graphic force of the similitudes. And this is almost all that can be said. As for the "old unpolluted English language," it needs no microscopical eye to detect in the "Pilgrim's Progress" a considerable sprinkling of vulgar provincialisms, and even of such Latin idioms as are to be found in his favourite old martyrologist Fox.MINTO, WILLIAM, 1872-80, A Manual of English Prose Literature, pp. 300, 301.

The immortal "Dreamer" of Bedford had a miniature successor in the dreamer of Salem; and there was not a wide divergence, in some respects, in the character of the genius of the two men.-SMITH, GEORGE BARNETT, 1875, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Poets and Novelists, p. 159.

The very homeliness of Bunyan's names and the every dayness of his scenery, too, put us off our guard, and we soon find ourselves on as easy a footing with his allegorical beings as we might be with Adam or Socrates in a dream. Indeed, he has prepared us for such incongruities by telling us at setting out that the story was of a dream. The long nights of Bedford jail had so intensified his imaginaiton, and made the figures with which it peopled his solitude so real to him, that the creatures of his mind become things, as clear to the memory as if we had seen them. LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 1875, Spenser, Prose Works, Riverside ed., vol. IV, p. 322.

John Bunyan dipped his pen in the catholicism of Catholicity. He had no sympathy with any ism, however novel or specious or popular, which corrupted or darkened the simplicity of the Gospel. With him charity was not a mere claptrap sentiment for the platform, but a deep conviction, a strong principle, a fruit of the Holy Spirit.-ANDERSON. W., 1879, Selfmade Men.

His service to humanity was not that of massively grouping great truths into systematic form and opening the way to new realms of light. What he did, and did powerfully, was to make vital with the warm life-blood of his own strong heart truths and systems already in

existence around him. With the wealth of his own opulent imagination he places these in vivid and striking light, and in such fervid shape that at once they lay hold of the popular mind and heart. Beautiful images, vivid expressions, forcible arguments all aglow with passion, tender pleadings, solemn warnings, these, all through his writings as through his preaching, make those to whom he speaks all eye, all ear, all soul. To use a phrase which has come to have an equivocal significance, he was a popular preacher and writer, but only in a high and noble sense. He never panders to the mere love of excitement and novelty. His errand is much too serious, and men's need and peril much too urgent, for him to waste time and power in merely playing before them on a pleasant instrument. He would beseech them with tears, as Paul did, and like him, too, speak with authority as a messenger from heaven. To him the burning pit was a reality, from which he had himself barely escaped, and heaven a substantial verity he could all but see. BROWN, JOHN, 1885, John Bunyan, His Life, Times and Work, p. 451.

Read not Addison nor Johnson, read Bunyan, who employed direct and true English. The man who would speak good English should take for his company the authorized version of the Bible and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan's is chapel English, man's English, woman's English, the English spoken anywhere by the native sons and daughters of the soil.-DAWSON, GEORGE, 1886, Biograhical Lectures.

If by a "Great Writer" we understand one who combines the power of expressing thoughts of universal acceptability in a style of the most perfect clearness, with a high degree of imaginative genius, and a vivid descriptive faculty; whose works are equally attractive to readers of all ages and every variety of mental culture, which are among the first to be taken up in the nursery and among the last to be laid down when life is closing in on us, which have filled the memory with pictures and peopled it with characters of the most unforgetable reality, which have been probably translated into more languages, and attained popularity in more lands, than any books ever written-then the claim of the author of "The Pilgrim's

Progress," "The Holy War," and "Grace Abounding" to a place, and that a very high one, in the catalogue of "Great Writers," is undeniable.-VENABLES, EDMUND, 1888, Life of John Bunyan (Great Writers), p. 5.

The work of John Bunyan hardly finds its proper place in a history of prose fiction; he regarded it as anything but fictitious. Moreover, in form and outline it bears something the same relation to the novel proper that the "Morality" bears to the drama proper. Yet how rich are his works, not only the "Pilgrim's Progress" (1678), but the "Holy War" (1682), and the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman" (1680), in literary, as well as practical and moral lessons, in demonstrations whereby the novelists might profit to learn character-painting, admirable narrative, and the attainment of the illusion of reality. Where was the professed writer of fiction in the seventeenth century who could enthral the reader's imagination by his two opening sentences, and hold him spell-bound to the end?-RALEIGH, WALTER, 1894, The English Novel, p. 115.

While in all his writing there is abundant evidence of brain-power, and his skill in marshalling texts to defend his dogmatic positions is admirable, yet this general cleverness would not have raised him above the rank of the popular preacher whose performances in the next generation cumber the book-stalls, had it not been for that drop of precious elixir which nature infused into his eyes at birth, as into those of such different people as Geoffrey Chaucer and Jane Austen. It is this which divides Bunyan from one in other respects so like him as George Fox. Both were children of the people, both were intensely religious, both were given to hearing voices in their ears speaking the words of God or of Satan, both for their faith were "in prisons oft;' but the discriminating eye, and the sense of humour which accompanies it, were lacking to Fox, as his "Journal" makes abundantly conspicuous.-BEECHING, H. C., 1894, English Prose, ed. Craik, vol. III, p. 73.

The Bunyan literature now constitutes a library by itself, while every year new editions appear in still more elaborate forms. The book has been criticised and

sneered at as few writings ever were, but it has steadily risen to the highest level in the world of letters. Bunyan's place is beside Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante. His allegory is a worthy companion for the immortal work of Dante, with the difference that while the Englishman endeavors to delineate the growth of a soul on the earth, the Florentine seeks to follow its upward movement beyond death. -BRADFORD, ARMORY H., 1898, The Pilgrim's Progress, Outlook, vol. 60, p. 622.

The sermons of Bunyan, a number of which have been preserved, are in keeping with the general style of preaching then in vogue. Compared with sermons of the present day, they are tediously long. They are designed to be comprehensive in treatment; and therefore, instead of leaving something to the intelligence of the hearer, they abound in the most obvious commonplaces. There is scarcely any end to the divisions and subdivisions. They are more concerned with thought than style; and instead of rhetorical grace, we find only simplicity and directness. Their remarkable effectiveness was due to the intellectual vigor and moving earnestness of the speaker-a fact that emphasizes for us the importance of the personal element in public discourse. PAINTER, F. V. N., 1899, A History of English Literature, p. 185.

In the first place, his style is simple. Secondly, rare earnestness is coupled with this simplicity. He had something to say, and in his inmost soul he felt that this something was of supreme importance for all time. Only a great man can tell such truths without a flourish of language, or without straining after effect. Thirdly, Bunyan has a rare combination of imagination and dramatic power. His abstractions become living persons. It would be difficult to find English prose more simple, earnest, strong, imaginative, and dramatic than this. Bunyan's style felt the shaping influence of the Bible more than of all other works combined. He knew the Scriptures almost by heart.HALLECK, REUBEN POST, 1900, History of English Literature, pp. 227, 228, 229.

Cromwell, Milton, Bunyan-what can non-Puritan England, of their day, show to match these three names?-ROOSEVELT, THEODORE, 1900, Oliver Cromwell, p. 232, note.

PHARONNIDA

This Poem tho' it hath nothing extraordinary to recommend it, yet appear'd abroad in Prose 1683, under the Title of a Novel called "Eromena, or The Noble Stranger."-LANGBAINE, GERALD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 57.

A poet to whom I am indebted for many hours of delight. A poet who has told an interesting story in uncouth rhymes, and mingles sublimity of thought and beauty of expression with the quaintest conceits and most awkward inversions. -SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1796, Joan of Arc, note.

His "Pharonnida," an heroic poem, in five books, which Langbaine says has nothing to recommend it, is one of the most interesting stories that was ever told in verse, and contained so much amusing matter as to be made into a prose novel in the reign of Charles II. What

Dr. Johnson said unjustly of Milton's "Comus," that it was like gold hid under a rock, may unfortunately be applied with too much propriety to "Pharonnida." Never perhaps was so much beautiful design in poetry marred by infelicity of execution his ruggedness of versification, abrupt transitions, and a style that is at once slovenly and quaint, perpetually interrupted in enjoying the splendid figures and spirited passions of this romantic tablet, and make us catch them only by glimpses.-CAMPBELL, THOMAS, THOMAS, 1819, Specimens of the British Poets.

Chamberlain's "Pharonnida" is a very noble work. The characters are drawn and supported with great truth and force; the action of the Poem is eventful and interesting, and the images bold, natural, and original. NEELE, HENRY, 1827-29, Lectures on English Poetry, p. 56.

The imagery is often very beautiful, and the emotions excited and described strong and passionate, but the style is slovenly and the whole piece wearisome. Among his excellences may be mentioned his keen perception of natural beauty. Indeed he has given several descriptions of the glories of the morning, in a manner not unworthy of Milton.-ANGUS, JOSEPH, 1865, The Handbook of English Literature, p. 178.

The poem is in rhymed heroics; there are five books and four cantos to each book. As the fourth book commences with fresh pagination and in different type, it has been conjectured that the printing was interrupted by the author's employment in the wars. In spite of its diffuseness and intricacy, the story is interesting; and much of the poetry is remarkable for happy imagery and rich expressions. Both in its faults and in its beauties "Pharonnida" bears considerable resemblance to "Endymion."-BULLEN, A. H., 1887, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. x, p. 10.

Though hardly deserving the high praise of Campbell, who styles it "one of the most interesting stories that ever was told in verse," the poem is seldom dull, and the metre is free from the monotony of the regular heroic couplet. . . Mr. Gosse has pointed out the close resemblance, in metrical form, between Chamberlayne's poem and Keats' "Endymion," and is inclined to regard the debt that Keats owed to the author of "Pharonnida" as larger than has generally been recognized.-MASTERMAN, J. HOWARD B., 1897, The Age of Milton, pp. 144, 145.

GENERAL

The play ["Love's Victory"] bears a very strong resemblance, both in the tone of feeling and in the sentiments, to his