he man also, who has preserved his
simplicity--naturally personifies objects, and takes pleasure in giving
them powers of thinking and speaking like himself. Bunyan was the first
writer to appeal to this pleasant and natural inclination in a way that all
could understand. Add to this the fact that _Pilgrim's Progress_ was the
only book having any story interest in the great majority of English and
American homes for a full century, and we have found the real reason for
its wide reading.

_The Holy War_, published in 1665, is the first important work of Bunyan.
It is a prose _Paradise Lost_, and would undoubtedly be known as a
remarkable allegory were it not overshadowed by its great rival. _Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_, published in 1666, twelve years before
_Pilgrim's Progress_, is the work from which we obtain the clearest insight
into Bunyan's remarkable life, and to a man with historical or antiquarian
tastes it is still excellent reading. In 1682 appeared _The Life and Death
of Mr. Badman_, a realistic character study which is a precursor of the
modern novel; and in 1684 the second part of _Pilgrim's Progress_, showing
the journey of Christiana and her children to the city of All Delight.
Besides these Bunyan published a multitude of treatises and sermons, all in
the same style,--direct, simple, convincing, expressing every thought and
emotion perfectly in words that even a child can understand. Many of these
are masterpieces, admired by workingmen and scholars alike for their
thought and expression. Take, for instance, "The Heavenly Footman," put it
side by side with the best work of Latimer, and the resemblance in style is
startling. It is difficult to realize that one work came from an ignorant
tinker and the other from a great scholar, both engaged in the same general
work. As Bunyan's one book was the Bible, we have here a suggestion of its
influence in all our prose literature.

MINOR PROSE WRITERS

The Puritan Period is generally regarded as one destitute of literary
interest; but that was certainly not the result of any lack of books or
writers. Says Burton in his _Anatomy of Melancholy:_

I have ... new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole
catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms,
heresies, controversies in philosophy and religion. Now come tidings of
weddings, maskings, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, sports, plays;
then again, as in a ne