Going out of her way to admire a peacock, Willekin steps in the dirt. Presently she must go see some calves at play; a cow bemires her with a whisk of its tail, and she must repair to the river and cleanse herself there again; Thank God for this river! says Dovekin. Poor thoughtless, incorrigible Willekin thus goes on from one mishap to another, and taking a by-path falls into a ditch, which the detector of Bunyan's plagiarism immediately supposed to be his Slough of Despond. She goes on committing follies at every occasion, and some crimes; and the end (for it must be needless to pursue the story) is that, when they come within sight of Jerusalem, she climbs a steep and dangerous place, notwithstanding her sister's entreaties, in order to obtain a better prospect; the wind blows her down, she falls into a deep pit full of noxious creatures, where no help can be given her, and there she is left with broken bones, to her fate. Dovekin proceeds, reaches the suburbs of Jerusalem, undergoes a purification in a tub, then makes a triumphant entrance into the City of Jerusalem in a lofty chariot, and is there with all honour and solemnity espoused to the Bridegroom. And this is the book from which Bunyan was said to have stolen the Pilgrim's Progress! If ever there was a work which carried with it the stamp of originality in all its parts, it is that of John Bunyan !* [* Mr. Southey has not mentioned a work in English, of Bunyan's own time, and from which, certainly, the general notion of his allegory might have been taken. The work we allude to is now before us, entitled 'The Parable of the Pilgrim, written to a friend by Symon Patrick, D.D., Dean of Peterborough ;'-the same learned person, well known by his theological writings, and successively bishop of Chichester and Ely. * * * * * * * If Dr. Patrick had seen the Pilgrim's Progress, he would probably, in the pride of academic learning, have scorned to adopt it as a model; but, at all events, as a man of worth, he would never have denied the obligation if he had incurred one. John Bunyan, on his part, would in all likelihood have scorned, "with his very heels," to borrow anything from a dean; and we are satisfied that he would have cut his hand off rather than written the introductory verses we have quoted (before The Holy War'), had not his Pilgrim been entirely his own. Indeed whosoever will take the trouble of comparing the two works which, turning upon nearly the same allegory, and bearing very similar titles, came into existence at or about the very same time, will plainly see their total dissimilarity. Bunyan's is a close and continued allegory, in which the_metaphorical fiction is sustained with all the minuteness of a real story. In Dr. Patrick's, the same plan is announced as arising from the earnest longing of Mr. D'Israeli, from whose works the best-informed reader may learn much, and who, in the temper of his writings as well as in the research which they display, may be a useful model for succeeding authors, calls Bunyan "the Spenser of the people." He is indeed the Prince of all allegorists in prose. The allegory is never lost sight of in the First Part: in the Second it is not so uniformly preserved; parties who begin their pilgrimage in childhood, grow up upon the way, pass through the stage of courtship, marry and are given in marriage, have children and dispose of their children. Yet to most readers this second part is as delightful as the first; and Bunyan had perhaps more pleasure in composing it, not only because he was chewing the cud of his old inventions, but because there can be no doubt that he complimented the friends whom he delighted to honour, by giving them a place among the persons of his tale. We may be sure that Mr. Valiant-for-the-Truth, Old Honest of the Town of Stupidity, Mr. Despondency and his daughter Much-afraid, and their companions, were well known in "Bishop Bunyan's" diocese; and if no real characters were designed by him in those who are less favourably introduced as turning back on their journey, striking into by-paths, or slumbering by the way, likenesses would be discovered where none were intended. None but those who have acquired the ill habit of always reading critically, can wish the Second Part had not been written, or feel it as a clog upon the first. There is a pleasure in travelling with another company over the same ground, a pleasure of reminiscence, neither inferior in kind nor in degree to that which is derived from a first impression. The author evidently felt this, and we are indebted to it for some beautiful passages of repose, such as that in the Valley of Humiliation. The manner a traveller, whom he calls Philotheus or Theophilus, whose desires are fixed on journeying to Jerusalem as a pilgrim. Yet Dr. Patrick had the applause of his own time. The first edition of his Parable appeared in 1678; and the sixth, which now lies before us, is dated 1678.-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Quart. Rev., vol. xliii. * The paper upon Bunyan, in the last Quarterly Review, is by Sir Walter. He has not observed, and I, when I wrote the Life, had forgotten, that the "Compleat design of a Pilgrim's Progress" is to be found in Lucian's Hermotimus. Not that Bunyan saw it there, but that the obvious allegory had presented itself to Lucian's mind as well as to many others.-Letter from Southey to Sir Egerton Brydges, Autobiography of Brydges,' vol. ii. p. 285.] in which Christian's battle is referred to, and the traces of it pointed out, reminds me of what is perhaps the best imagined scene in Palmerin of England, where Palmerin enters a chapel, and is shown the tombs of some of the knights of King Lisuarte's court. Bunyan concludes with something like a promise of a Third Part.* There appeared one after his death, by some unknown hand, and it has had the fortune to be included in many editions of the original work. It is impossible to state through how many editions that work has passed; probably no other book in the English language has obtained so constant and so wide a sale. The prints which have been engraved to illustrate it would form a collection, not so extensive indeed, but almost as curious, as that which Mr. Duppa saw at Vallombrosa, where a monk had got together about eight thousand different engravings of the Virgin Mary. The worst specimens, both in wood and copper, would be found among them; as now some of the best are to be added. When the reader has seen Giant Slaygood with Mr. Feeble-mind in his hand, he will I think agree with me, that if a nation of Anakim existed at this day, the artist by whom that print was designed and executed would deserve to be appointed historical painter to his Highness the Prince of the Giants. The Pilgrim's Progress has more than once been "done into verse," but I have seen only one version, and that of only the First Part. It was printed by R. Tookey, and to be sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster; but if there be a date to this version, it has been torn off with the corner of the titlepage, from this well-thumbed and well-worn copy, for the use of which (as of other rare books that have been most useful on the present occasion) I am obliged to Mr. Alexander Chalmers. The versification is in the lowest Witherish strain, one degree "Should it be my lot to go that way again, I may give to those that desire it an account of what I am here silent about. Meantime I bid my readers adieu." The author hints, at the end of the second part, as if "it might be his lot to go this way again;" nor was his mind that light species of soil which could be exhausted by two crops. But he left to another and very inferior hand the task of composing a third part, containing the adventures of one Tender Conscience, far unworthy to be bound up, as it sometimes is, with John Bunyan's matchless parable.-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Quart. Rev. vol. xliii., p. 490. N only above Bunyan's own; yet here and there with indications of more power than the writer has thought proper to put forth. In general the version keeps close to the original. In one place a stroke of satire is put into Apollyon's mouth, against the occasional conformists "Come go with me occasionally back, Rather than a preferment lose or lack." And after the Pilgrims have crossed the river, this singular illustration occurs "Then on all sides the heavenly host enclose, Though the story certainly is not improved by versifying it, it is less injured than might have been supposed in the process; and perhaps most readers would read it with as much interest in the one dress as in the other. A stranger experiment was tried upon the Pilgrim's Progress, in translating it into other words, altering the names, and publishing it under the title of the Progress of the Pilgrim,* without any intimation that this version is not an original work. Evangelist is here called Good-news; Worldly Wiseman, Mr. Politic Worldly; Legality, Mr. Law-do; the Interpreter, Director; the Palace Beautiful, Graces' Hall; Vanity Town is Mundus; the Giant is Giant Desperation of Diffident Castle; and the prisoners released from it, instead of Mr. Despondency and his daughter Much-afraid, are "one Much-cast-down, and his kinsman Almost-Overcome." This would appear to have been merely the device of some knavish bookseller for evading the laws which protect literary property; but the person employed in disguising the stolen goods must have been a Roman Catholic, for he has omitted all mention of Giant Pope, and Fidelius suffers martyrdom by being hanged, drawn, and quartered. *"In two Parts compleat. Part I. His Pilgrimage from the present World to the World to come; discovering the difficulties of his setting forth, the hazards of his journey, and his safe arrival at the Heavenly Canaan. Part II. The Pilgrimage of Christiana, the wife of Christianus, with her four children; describing their dangerous journey, and safe arrival at the Land of the Blessed, written by way of dream. Adorned with several new Pictures. Hos. xii. 10. I have used similitudes.” London: printed by W. O. for J. Blare, at the Looking-Glass, on London-Bridge, 1705. The dialogues are much curtailed, and the book, as might be expected, very much worsened throughout; except that better verses are inserted. Bunyan could little have supposed that his book would ever be adapted for sale among the Romanists. Whether this was done in the earliest French translation I do not know; but in the second there is no Giant Pope; and lest the circumstances of the author should operate unfavourably for the reception of his work, he is designated as un Ministre Anglois, nommé Jean Bunian, Pasteur d'une Eglise dans la Ville de Bedfort en Angleterre. This contains only the First Part, but promises the Second, should it be well received. The First Part, under the title of 'le Pelerinage d'un nommé Chrétien,' forms one of the volumes of the Petite Bibliothèque du Catholique, and bears in the title-page a glorified head of the Virgin. A Portuguese translation (of the First Part also), and in like manner cut down to the opinions of the public for which it was designed, was published in 1782. Indeed I believe there is no European language into which the Pilgrim's Progress' has not been translated. The Holy War' has been little less popular;* and if the ‘Life and Death of Mr. Badman' has not been as generally read, it is because the subject is less agreeable, not that it has been treated with inferior ability. [* Bunyan added another work to those by which he was already distinguished: this was 'The Holy War made by King Shaddai upon Diabolus for the regaining of the metropolis of the World; or, the losing and retaking of Mansoul.' In this allegory the fall of man is figured under the type of a flourishing city, reduced under the tyranny of the giant Diabolus, or the Prince of Evil; and recovered, after a tedious siege, by Immanuel, the son of Shaddai, its founder and true lord. A late reverend editor of this work has said that "Mr. Bunyan was better qualified than most ministers to treat this subject with propriety, having been himself a soldier, and knowing by experience the evils and hardships of war. He displays throughout his accurate knowledge of the Bible and its distinguished doctrines; his deep acquaintance with the human heart, and its desperate wickedness; his knowledge of the devices of Satan, and of the prejudices of the carnal mind against the Gospel." To this panegyric we entirely subscribe, except that we do not see that Bunyan has made much use of any military knowledge which he might possess. Mansoul is attacked by mounts, slings, and battering-rams-weapons out of date at the time of our civil wars; and we can only trace the author's soldierly experience in his referring to the points of war then performed, as "Boot and saddle," "Horse and away," and so forth. Indeed, the greatest risk which he seems to have incurred, in his military capacity, was one somewhat resembling the escape of Sir Roger de Coverley's |