Jerusalem.'* The author was a true lover of his mother tongue, and more than once laments over the fashion of corrupting it with words borrowed from other languages. All the examples which he adduces of such adulterations are French. The book, though totally neglected now, was once very popular. My venerable friend, Bilderdijk, tells me that it was one of the delights of his childhood.' I am obliged to Mr. Major for a French+ translation of it, in which some intermediate possessor has drawn his pen through the name of Rousseau, that name appearing, upon comparing it with a facsimile in Rees's Cyclopædia, and with an autograph also, to be in the handwriting of Jean Jacques. The French translator, as might be expected, has carefully got rid of everything which relates to Flemish manners and feelings, and the raciness of the original is completely lost in his version.

The two sisters, Dovekin and Willekin, are invited in a dream by the Beloved, in the language of the Canticles, to arise and come away. Willekin, who is for a little more sleep, a little more slumber, is not inclined to accept the invitation, and disparages her lover, saying that he is no better than Joseph the Carpenter and Peter the Fisherman, with whom he used to keep company. Dovekin, however, persuades her to rise, and set off upon their pilgrimage to him; it is but a day's journey. They wash at their outset in a river of clear water, which has its source in Rome, and, taking the Netherlands in its way, flows to Jerusalem, and by this river they are to keep, or they will lose themselves. They gather flowers also at the beginning of their journey, for the purpose of presenting them to the bridegroom and his mother, whose favour, Dovekin says, it is of the utmost importance to obtain, and who, she assures her sister, dearly loves the Netherlanders. The wilful sister collects her flowers without any choice or care, loses them, over-eats herself, and is obliged to go to the river to wash herself after eating; she then finds her flowers again, and they proceed till they come to a village, where it happens to be fair-time, and Willekin will not be dissuaded by her prudent sister from stopping to look at some mountebanks. The print annexed is what was supposed to represent Vanity Fair, whereas the story relates merely to a Flemish Kermes, and the only adventure which befalls the idle sister there is, that she brings

* Duyfkens ende Willemynkens Pelgrimagie tot haren beminden binnen Jerusalem; haerlieder teghenspoet, belet ende eynde. Beschreven ende met sin-spelende beelden wtghegheven door Boetius a Bolswert. T' Antwerpen, by Hieronimus Verdussen, A°. 1627.

+ 'Voyage de Deux Sœurs: Colombelle et Volontairette, vers leur Bien-Aimé en la Cité de Jerusalem: contenant plusieurs incidens arrivez pendant leur voyage. Par Boece de Bolswert, Nouvelle Edition corrigée et chatiée selon le stile du tems, et enrichie de figures en taille douce, A Liege, 1734.

'THE SPENSER OF THE PEOPLE?

89

away from it certain living and loathsome parasites of humanity, who pass under a generic appellation in the French version, but in the honest Dutch original are called by their own name.

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. 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 pre

*

[Sir Walter Scott made a comparison of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' with the 'Parable of the Pilgrim' by Symon Patrick, D.D., Dean of Peterborough, 1st edition 1682. Sir Walter says, 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 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 generally announced as arising from the earliest longing of a traveller whose desires are fixed on journeying to Jerusalem. The Dean, no doubt, evinces considerable learning, but, compared to Bunyan, may rank with the dullest of all possible doctors; a worthy neighbour, indeed, and a marvellous good bowler-but for Alexander, you see how 'tis."-Quarterly Review, Oct. 1830.

66

Southey, in a letter to Sir Egerton Brydges, says: 'Sir Walter Scott has not ob. served, and I, when I wrote the Life of Bunyan, 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.']

served; 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 MuchAfraid, 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 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 Vallumbrosa, 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. Feeblemind 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' VERSIFIED.

91

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 from the corner of the title-page 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 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 hosts enclose,

As through the upper regions all arose ;
With mighty shouts and louder harmonies,
Heaven's Opera seem'd as glorious to the eyes
As if they had drawn up the curtain of the skies.'

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

* '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 severa! new Pictures. Hos. xii. 1o. I have used similitudes.' London: printed by W. O. for J. Blare, at the Looking Glass, on London-Bridge, 1705.

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. 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.

I have only now to express my thanks to Mr. Rodd, the bookseller, for the information with which he kindly assisted me; and to Mr. Major, who, in publishing the most beautiful edition that has ever appeared of this famous book, has, by sparing no zeal in the collection of materials for it, enabled me to say that it is also the most correct.

In one of the volumes collected from various quarters, which were sent me for this purpose, I observe the name of W. Hone, and notice it that I may take the opportunity of recommending his 'Every Day Book' and 'Table Book' to those who are interested in the preservation of our national and local customs. By these very curious publications their compiler has rendered good service in an important department of literature; and he may render yet more if he obtain the encouragement which he well deserves.

KESWICK, March 13, 1830.

[Upon the whole, though the "Holy War" be a work of great ingenuity, it wants the simplicity and interest which are the charm of the "Pilgrim's Progress."'-Sir Walter Scott, Quarterly Review, Oct. 1830.]