(December 1831) _The Pilgrim’s Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan.
By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., LL. D., Poet Laureate. Illustrated with
Engravings. 8vo. London: 1831._
|THIS is an eminently beautiful and splendid edition of a book which
well deserves all that the printer and the engraver can do for it. The
Life of Bunyan is, of course, not a performance which can add much
to the literary reputation of such a writer as Mr. Southey. But it is
written in excellent English, and, for the most part, in an excellent
spirit. Mr. Southey propounds, we need not say, many opinions from which
we altogether dissent; and his attempts to excuse the odious persecution
to which Bunyan was subjected have sometimes moved our indignation. But
we will avoid this topic. We are at present much more inclined to join
in paying homage to, the genius of a great man than to engage in a
controversy concerning church-government and toleration.
We must not pass without notice the engravings with which this volume
is decorated. Some of Mr. Harvey’s woodcuts are admirably designed and
executed. Mr. Martin’s illustrations do not please us quite so well. His
Valley of the Shadow of Death is not that Valley of the Shadow of Death
which Bunyan imagined. At all events, it is not that dark and horrible
glen which has from childhood been in our mind’s eye. The valley is
a cavern: the quagmire is a lake: the straight path runs zigzag: and
Christian appears like a speck in the darkness of the immense vault.
We miss, too, those hideous forms which make so striking a part of the
description of Bunyan, and which Salvator Rosa would have loved to
draw. It is with unfeigned diffidence that we pronounce judgment on any
question relating to the art of painting. But it appears to us that
Mr. Martin has not of late been fortunate in his choice of subjects. He
should never have attempted to illustrate the Paradise Lost. There can
be no two manners more directly opposed to each other than the manner of
his painting and the manner of Milton’s poetry. Those things which are
mere accessories in the descriptions become the principal objects in the
pictures; and those figures which are most prominent in the descriptions
can be detected in the pictures only by a very close scrutiny.
Mr. Martin has succeeded perfectly in representing the pillars and
candelabras of Pandaemonium. But he has forgotten that Milton’s
Pandaemonium is merely the background to Satan. In the picture, the
Archangel is scarcely visible amidst the endless colonnades of his
infernal palace. Milton’s Paradise, again, is merely the background
to his Adam and Eve. But in Mr. Martin’s picture the landscape is
everything. Adam, Eve, and Raphael attract much less notice than the
lake and the mountains, the gigantic flowers, and the giraffes which
feed upon them. We read that James the Second sat to Varelst, the great
flower-painter. When the performance was finished, his Majesty appeared
in the midst of a bower of sun-flowers and tulips, which completely
drew away all attention from the central figure. All who looked at the
portrait took it for a flower-piece. Mr. Martin, we think, introduces
his immeasurable spaces, his innumerable multitudes, his gorgeous
prodigies of architecture and landscape, almost as unseasonably as
Varelst introduced his flower-pots and nosegays. If Mr. Martin were to
paint Lear in the storm, we suspect that the blazing sky, the sheets of
rain, the swollen torrents, and the tossing forest, would draw away all
attention from the agonies of the insulted king and father. If he were
to paint the death of Lear, the old man, asking the bystanders to undo
his button, would be thrown into the shade by a vast blaze of pavilions,
standards, armour, and heralds’ coats. Mr. Martin would illustrate the
Orlando Furioso well, the Orlando Innamorato still better, the Arabian
Nights best of all. Fairy palaces and gardens, porticoes of agate, and
groves flowering with emeralds and rubies, inhabited by people for whom
nobody cares, these are his proper domain. He would succeed admirably in
the enchanted ground of Alcina, or the mansion of Aladdin. But he should
avoid Milton and Bunyan.
The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim’s Progress is that it is
the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other
allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by
many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson’s
works, and some of still higher merit by Addison. In these performances
there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the Progress, But
the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of Mirza, the Vision of
Theodore, the Genealogy of Wit, or the Contest between Rest and Labour,
is exactly similar to the pleasure which we derive from one of Cowley’s
odes, or from a canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly
to the understanding, and in which the feelings have no part whatever.
Nay, even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets
that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory
interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on
the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault,
the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We
become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the
society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first canto,
not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a
hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are
those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six
books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been
preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a
commentator would have held out to the end.
It is not so with the Pilgrim’s Progress. That wonderful book, while it
obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those
who are too simple to admire it. Dr. Johnson, all whose studies were
desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an
exception in favour of the Pilgrim’s Progress. That work was one of the
two or three works which he wished longer. It was by no common merit
that the illiterate sectary extracted praise like this from the most
pedantic of critics and the most bigoted of Tories. In the wildest parts
of Scotland the Pilgrim’s Progress is the delight of the peasantry. In
every nursery the Pilgrim’s Progress is a greater favourite than Jack
the Giant-killer. Every reader knows the straight and narrow path as
well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a
hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which
are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind
should become the personal recollections of another. And this
miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity,
no resting-place, no turn-stile, with which we are not perfectly
acquainted. The wicket-gate, and the desolate swamp which separates it
from the City of Destruction, the long line of road, as straight as a
rule can make it, the Interpreter’s house and all its fair shows, the
prisoner in the iron cage, the palace, at the doors of which armed men
kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all
in gold, the cross, and the sepulchre, the steep hill and the pleasant
arbour, the stately front of the House Beautiful by the wayside,
the chained lions crouching in the porch, the low green valley of
Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks, all are as well
known to us as the sights of our own street. Then we come to the narrow
place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth of the way,
to stop the journey of Christian, and where, afterwards, the pillar was
set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight.
As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the
precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather
overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rush of
many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly
discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which
sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes
to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, amidst the snares and
pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in
the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark valley he passes the
dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones of those whom they
had slain.
Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length
the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller; and soon he is
in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the
jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. There are Italian
Row, and French Row, and Spanish Row, and British Row, with their crowds
of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the
earth.
Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through
the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is
bordered on both sides by fruit-trees. On the left branches off the path
leading to the horrible castle, the courtyard of which is paved with the
skulls of pilgrims; and right onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of
the Delectable Mountains.
From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies through the fogs and briars
of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there a bed of soft cushions
spread under a green arbour. And beyond is the land of Beulah, where the
flowers, the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, and where the
sun shines night and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements
and streets of pearl, on the other side of that black and cold river
over which there is no bridge.
All the stages of the journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the
pilgrims, giants, and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones, and shining ones,
the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her
side, and her fingers playing with the money, the black man in the
bright vesture, Mr. Wordly-Wise-man and my Lord Hategood, Mr. Talkative,
and Mrs. Timorous, all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the
travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior
to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie
Deans from Edinburgh to London. Bunyan is almost the only writer who
ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. In the works of
many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not a
jealous man, but jealousy; not a traitor, but perfidy; not a patriot,
but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative
that personifications, when he dealt with them, became men. A dialogue
between two qualities, in his dream, has more dramatic effect than a
dialogue between two human beings in most plays. In this respect the
genius of Bunyan bore a great resemblance to that of a man who had
very little else in common with him, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The strong
imagination of Shelley made him an idolater in his own despite. Out of
the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, metaphysical system,
he made a gorgeous Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and life-like
forms. He turned atheism itself into a mythology, rich with visions as
glorious as the gods that live in the marble of Phidias, or the virgin
saints that smile on us from the canvas of Murillo. The Spirit of
Beauty, the Principle of Good, the Principle of Evil, when he treated of
them, ceased to be abstractions. They took shape and colour. They were
no longer mere words; but intelligible forms, fair humanities, objects
of love, of adoration, or of fear. As there can be no stronger sign of
a mind destitute of the poetical faculty than that tendency which was
so common among the writers of the French school to turn images into
abstractions, Venus for example, into Love, Minerva into Wisdom, Mars
into War, and Bacchus into Festivity, so there can be no stronger sign
of a mind truly poetical than a disposition to reverse this abstracting
process, and to make individuals out of generalities. Some of the
metaphysical and ethical theories of Shelley were certainly most absurd
and pernicious. But we doubt whether any modern poet has possessed in an
equal degree some of the highest qualities of the great ancient masters.
The words bard and inspiration, which seem so cold and affected when
applied to other modern writers, have a perfect propriety when applied
to him. He was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have
been an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he
might not improbably have given to the world some great work of the very
highest rank in design and execution. But, alas!=
```O daphnis eba roon’ ekluse dina
```ton Mosais philon andra, ton ou Numphaisin apekhthi.=
But we must return to Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress undoubtedly is not
a perfect allegory. The types are often inconsistent with each other;
and sometimes the allegorical disguise is altogether thrown off. The
river, for example, is emblematic of death; and we are told that every
human being must pass through the river. But Faithful does not pass
through it. He is martyred, not in shadow, but in reality, at Vanity
Fair. Hopeful talks to Christian about Esau’s birthright and about his
own convictions of sin as Bunyan might have talked with one of his own
congregation. The damsels at the House Beautiful catechise Christiana’s
boys, as any good ladies might catechise any boys at a Sunday School.
But we do not believe that any man, whatever might be his genius, and
whatever his good luck, could long continue a figurative history without
falling into many inconsistencies. We are sure that inconsistencies,
scarcely less gross than the worst into which Bunyan has fallen, may be
found in the shortest and most elaborate allegories of the Spectator and
the Rambler. The Tale of a Tub and the History of John Bull swarm with
similar errors, if the name of error can be properly applied to that
which is unavoidable. It is not easy to make a simile go on all-fours.
But we believe that no human ingenuity could produce such a centipede as
a long allegory in which the correspondence between the outward sign and
the thing signified should be exactly preserved. Certainly no writer,
ancient or modern, has yet achieved the adventure. The best thing, on
the whole, that an allegorist can do, is to present to his readers a
succession of analogies, each of which may separately be striking and
happy, without looking very nicely to see whether they harmonise with
each other. This Bunyan has done; and, though a minute scrutiny may
detect inconsistencies in every page of his tale, the general effect
which the tale produces on all persons, learned and unlearned, proves
that he has done well. The passages which it is most difficult to defend
are those in which he altogether drops the allegory, and puts into the
mouth of his pilgrims religious ejaculations and disquisitions better
suited to his own pulpit at Bedford or Reading than to the Enchanted
Ground or to the Interpreter’s Garden. Yet even these passages, though
we will not undertake to defend them against the objections of critics,
we feel that we could ill spare. We feel that the story owes much of
its charm to these occasional glimpses of solemn and affecting subjects,
which will not be hidden, which force themselves through the veil, and
appear before us in their native aspect. The effect is not unlike that
which is said to have been produced on the ancient stage, when the eyes
of the actor were seen flaming through his mask, and giving life and
expression to what would else have been an inanimate and uninteresting
disguise.
It is very amusing and very instructive to compare the Pilgrim’s
Progress with the Grace Abounding. The latter work is indeed one of the
most remarkable pieces of autobiography in the world. It is a full
and open confession of the fancies which passed through the mind of an
illiterate man, whose affections were warm, whose nerves were irritable,
whose imagination was ungovernable, and who was under the influence of
the strongest religious excitement. In whatever age Bunyan had lived,
the history of his feelings would, in all probability, have been very
curious. But the time in which his lot was cast was the time of a
great stirring of the human mind. A tremendous burst of public feeling,
produced by the tyranny of the hierarchy, menaced the old ecclesiastical
institutions with destruction. To the gloomy regularity of one
intolerant Church had succeeded the licence of innumerable sects,
drunk with the sweet and heady must of their new liberty. Fanaticism,
engendered by persecution, and destined to engender persecution in turn,
spread rapidly through society. Even the strongest and most commanding
minds were not proof against this strange taint. Any time might have
produced George Fox and James Naylor. But to one time alone belong the
fanatic delusions of such a statesman as Vane, and the hysterical tears
of such a soldier as Cromwell.
The history of Bunyan is the history of a most excitable mind in an age
of excitement. By most of his biographers he has been treated with gross
injustice. They have understood in a popular sense all those strong
terms of self-condemnation which he employed in a theological sense.
They have, therefore, represented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed
by means almost miraculous, or, to use their favourite metaphor, “as
a brand plucked from the burning.” Mr. Ivimey calls him the depraved
Bunyan and the wicked tinker of Elstow. Surely Mr. Ivimey ought to
have been too familiar with the bitter accusations which the most pious
people are in the habit of bringing against themselves, to understand
literally all the strong expressions which are to be found in the Grace
Abounding. It is quite clear, as Mr. Southey most justly remarks, that
Bunyan never was a vicious man. He married very early; and he solemnly
declares that he was strictly faithful to his wife. He does not appear
to have been a drunkard. He owns, indeed, that, when a boy, he never
spoke without an oath. But a single admonition cured him of this bad
habit for life; and the cure must have been wrought early; for at
eighteen he was in the army of the Parliament; and if he had carried the
vice of profaneness into that service, he would doubtless have
received something more than an admonition from
Serjeant Bind-their-kings-in-chains, or Captain
Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord. Bell-ringing and playing at hockey
on Sundays seem to have been the worst vices of this depraved tinker.
They would have passed for virtues with Archbishop Laud. It is quite
clear that, from a very early age, Bunyan was a man of a strict life and
of a tender conscience. “He had been,” says Mr. Southey, “a blackguard.”
Even this we think too hard a censure. Bunyan was not, we admit, so fine
a gentleman as Lord Digby; but he was a blackguard no otherwise than as
every labouring man that ever lived has been a blackguard. Indeed Mr.
Southey acknowledges this. “Such he might have been expected to be by
his birth, breeding, and vocation. Scarcely, indeed, by possibility,
could he have been otherwise.” A man whose manners and sentiments are
decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard.
But it is surely unfair to apply so strong a word of reproach to one who
is only what the great mass of every community must inevitably be.
Those horrible internal conflicts which Bunyan has described with so
much power of language prove, not that he was a worse man than his
neighbours, but that his mind was constantly occupied by religious
considerations, that his fervour exceeded his knowledge, and that his
imagination exercised despotic power over his body and mind. He heard
voices from heaven. He saw strange visions of distant hills, pleasant
and sunny as his own Delectable Mountains. From those abodes he was shut
out, and placed in a dark and horrible wilderness, where he wandered
through ice and snow, striving to make his way into the happy region of
light. At one time he was seized with an inclination to work miracles.
At another time he thought himself actually possessed by the devil. He
could distinguish the blasphemous whispers. He felt his infernal enemy
pulling at his clothes behind him. He spurned with his feet and struck
with his hands at the destroyer. Sometimes he was tempted to sell his
part in the salvation of mankind. Sometimes a violent impulse urged him
to start up from his food, to fall on his knees, and to break forth into
prayer. At length he fancied that he had committed the unpardonable
sin. His agony convulsed his robust frame. He was, he says, as if his
breastbone would split; and this he took for a sign that he was destined
to burst asunder like Judas. The agitation of his nerves made all his
movements tremulous; and this trembling, he supposed, was a visible mark
of his reprobation, like that which had been set on Cain. At one time,
indeed, an encouraging voice seemed to rush in at the window, like the
noise of wind, but very pleasant, and commanded, as he says, a great
calm in his soul. At another time, a word of comfort “was spoke
loud unto him; it showed a great word; it seemed to be writ in great
letters.” But these intervals of case were short. His state, during two
years and a half, was generally the most horrible that the human mind
can imagine. “I walked,” says he, with his own peculiar eloquence, “to
a neighbouring town; and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell
into a very deep pause about the most fearful state my sin had brought
me to; and, after long musing, I lifted up my head; but methought I saw
as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give me light;
and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did
band themselves against me. Methought that they all combined together to
banish me out of the world. I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell
among them, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Oh, how happy now
was every creature for they stood fast, and kept their station. But I
was gone and lost.” Scarcely any madhouse could produce an instance of
delusion so strong, or of misery so acute.
It was through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, overhung by darkness,
peopled with devils, resounding with blasphemy and lamentation, and
passing amidst quagmires, snares, and pitfalls, close by the very mouth
of hell, that Bunyan journeyed to that bright and fruitful land
of Beulah, in which he sojourned during the latter period of his
pilgrimage. The only trace which his cruel sufferings and temptations
seem to have left behind them was an affectionate compassion for those
who were still in the state in which he had once been. Religion has
scarcely ever worn a form so calm and soothing as in his allegory.
The feeling which predominates through the whole book is a feeling of
tenderness for weak, timid, and harassed minds. The character of Mr.
Fearing, of Mr. Feeble-Mind, of Mr. Despondency and his daughter Miss
Much-afraid, the account of poor Little-faith who was robbed by the
three thieves of his spending money, the description of Christian’s
terror in the dungeons of Giant Despair and in his passage through the
river, all clearly show how strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after his own
mind had become clear and cheerful, for persons afflicted with religious
melancholy.
Mr. Southey, who has no love for the Calvinists, admits that, if
Calvinism had never worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan’s works,
it would never have become a term of reproach. In fact, those works of
Bunyan with which we are acquainted are by no means more Calvinistic
than the articles and homilies of the Church of England. The moderation
of his opinions on the subject of predestination gave offence to some
zealous persons. We have seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of which
is named Hephzibah, written by some raving supralapsarian preacher who
was dissatisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim’s Progress. In
this foolish book, if we recollect rightly, the Interpreter is called
the Enlightener, and the House Beautiful is Castle Strength. Mr. Southey
tells us that the Catholics had also their Pilgrim’s Progress, without
a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is the Director, and the House
Beautiful Grace’s Hall. It is surely a remarkable proof of the power of
Bunyan’s genius, that two religious parties, both of which regarded his
opinions as heterodox, should have had recourse to him for assistance.
There are, we think, some characters and scenes in the Pilgrim’s
Progress, which can be fully comprehended and enjoyed only by persons
familiar with the history of the times through which Bunyan lived. The
character of Mr. Greatheart, the guide, is an example. His fighting is,
of course, allegorical; but the allegory is not strictly preserved. He
delivers a sermon on imputed righteousness to his companions; and, soon
after, he gives battle to Giant Grim, who had taken upon him to back the
lions. He expounds the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah to the household
and guests of Gaius; and then he sallies out to attack Slay-good,
who was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in his den. These are
inconsistencies; but they are inconsistencies which add, we think, to
the interest of the narrative. We have not the least doubt that Bunyan
had in view some stout old Great-heart of Naseby and Worcester, who
prayed with his men before he drilled them, who knew the spiritual state
of every dragoon in his troop, and who, with the praises of God in his
mouth, and a two-edged sword in his hand, had turned to flight, on many
fields of battle, the swearing, drunken bravoes of Rupert and Lunsford.
Every age produces such men as By-ends. But the middle of the
seventeenth century was eminently prolific of such men. Mr. Southey
thinks that the satire was aimed at some particular individual; and this
seems by no means improbable. At all events Bunyan must have known many
of those hypocrites who followed religion only when religion walked
in silver slippers, when the sun shone, and when the people applauded.
Indeed he might have easily found all the kindred of By-ends among the
public men of his time. He might have found among the peers my Lord
Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, and my Lord Fair-speech; in the House
of Commons, Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Anything, and Mr. Facing-both-ways; nor
would “the parson of the parish, Mr. Two-tongues,” have been wanting.
The town of Bedford probably contained more than one politician who,
after contriving to raise an estate by seeking the Lord during the reign
of the saints, contrived to keep what he had got by persecuting the
saints during the reign of the strumpets, and more than one priest who,
during repeated changes in the discipline and doctrines of the Church,
had remained constant to nothing but his benefice.
One of the most remarkable passages in the Pilgrim’s Progress is that in
which the proceedings against Faithful are described. It is impossible
to doubt that Bunyan intended to satirise the mode in which state
trials were conducted under Charles the Second. The licence given to the
witnesses for the prosecution, the shameless partiality and ferocious
insolence of the judge, the precipitancy and the blind rancour of the
jury, remind us of those odious mummeries which, from the Restoration to
the Revolution, were merely forms preliminary to hanging, drawing,
and quartering. Lord Hate-good performs the office of counsel for the
prisoners as well as Scroggs himself could have performed it.
“JUDGE. Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these
honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee?
“FAITHFUL. May I speak a few words in my own defence?
“JUDGE. Sirrah, sirrah! thou deservest to live no longer, but to
be slain immediately upon the place; yet, that all men may see our
gentleness towards thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to
say.”
No person who knows the state trials can be at a loss for parallel
cases. Indeed, write what Bunyan would, the baseness and cruelty of the
lawyers of those times “sinned up to it still,” and even went beyond it.
The imaginary trial of Faithful, before a jury composed of personified
vices, was just and merciful, when compared with the real trial of Alice
Lisle before that tribunal where all the vices sat in the person of
Jeffreys.
The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as
a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the
English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people.
There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of
theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed
several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two
syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say.
For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle
disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine,
this homely dialect, the dialect of plain working men, was perfectly
sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so
readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book
which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth,
and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed.
Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John
Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. To our refined
forefathers, we suppose, Lord Roscommon’s Essay on Translated Verse,
and the Duke of Buckinghamshire’s Essay on Poetry, appeared to be
compositions infinitely superior to the allegory of the preaching
tinker. We live in better times; and we are not afraid to say, that,
though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of
the seventeenth century, there were only two minds which possessed
the imaginative faculty in a very eminent degree. One of those minds
produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim’s Progress.