REV. GEORGE BURDER,

AUTHOR OF VILLAGE SERMONS.

BEING

A METRICAL VERSION OF THE INIMITABLE ALLEGORY

BY

JOHN BUNYAN.

THE FIRST Ꮲ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭲ .

LONDON:

SAMUEL BAGSTER AND SONS,

15, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1845.

PREFACE.

THE reader may perhaps exclaim-What need of an edition in verse? Bunyan's prose is itself poetry! This is true-and innumerable hearts have responded to the genuine pathos of Bunyan's pen. But here is a little work that strews fresh flowers about even Bunyan's verdant recital, and wreaths his never-to-betoo-much admired allegory with additional grace and beauty.

Who was the author of this poetical version of the Pilgrim's Progress, is a matter of comparatively little importance. That he was a kindred spirit with him who wrote this master-piece is evident, and that is the point of real importance.

The Rev. GEORGE BURDER,* to whom we Owe this poem, was one who had tasted and felt that about which Bunyan has written-one who himself walked a Pilgrim's Progress, and could testify from personal experience to the truth of his account of the way.

*The author of the Village Sermons,' a work of high celebrity, of which above 100,000 copies have been printed.

Such a man only, without presumption, could venture upon a work like this.

Mr. Burder was not only a Christian man, but qualified by nature as a poet:-he could, and did, take up the Harp left so sweetly tuned by Bunyan, and has touched its strings with renewed melody.

"Mr. Bunyan," says Doctor Adam Clarke, "was divinely fitted for extraordinary usefulness, his name will live for ever: but I am of opinion that the Pilgrim's Progress would be more generally read, and more abundantly useful, were it turned into Verse. The work has the complete form of an Epic Poem, the versification alone excepted. But, a Poetand a Poet only-can do this work; and such a Poet too-as is experimentally acquainted with the work of God on his own soul. Even a Laureate, if unconverted, would miscarry here."

The wish of the learned Doctor is in this poetical version sweetly realised, and Bunyan and Burder may be well compared in their spirit to the sweet harmony of sentiment with which Christian and Hopeful travelled lovingly together to the Celestial City.