translated." The idiom of the work, however, is so purely and peculiarly English, that it must be next to impossible to preserve its genuine character in a foreign dress." The fervour of the Poet's soul," remarks the American Critic before cited, (nor is the descriptive appellation a misnomer,) "acting through the medium of such a language as he learned from our common translation of the Scriptures, has produced some of the most admirable specimens in existence of the manly power and familiar beauty of the English tongue!" Pages might be occupied with the encomiums with which poets and critics have of late delighted to honour this once obscure and despised religious writer. Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth, besides Southey and Montgomery, have re-echoed the tribute of admiration and affectionate sympathy, which Cowper was the first that ventured to offer to his memory, suppressing the as yet uncanonized name.

I name thee not,

Yet e'en in transitory life's late day,

That mingles all my brown with sober grey,
Revere the man whose PILGRIM marks the road,
And guides the PROGRESS of the soul to God."

THE

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

FROM

THIS WORLD TO THAT WHICH IS TO COME.

DELIVERED UNDER THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM.

PART I.

WHEREIN ARE DISCOVERED THE MANNER OF HIS SETTING OUT; HIS DANGEROUS JOURNEY; AND SAFE ARRIVAL AT THE DESIRED

COUNTRY.

· I have used similitudes," Hos. xii. 10.

THE

AUTHOR'S APOLOGY

FOR HIS BOOK.

WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand,
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode: nay, I had undertook
To make another; which when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.

And thus it was: I, writing of the way
And race of saints in this our gospel-day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory

About their journey, and the way to glory,
In more than twenty things, which I set down:
This done, I twenty more had in my crown;
And they again began to multiply,

Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.
Nay then, thought I, if that you breed so fast,
I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last
Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out
The book that I already am about.

Well, so I did; but yet I did not think
To show to all the world my pen and ink
In such a mode; I only thought to make
I knew not what; nor did I undertake