gth of these masterpieces. What books do _you_ wish
longer? I wish Homer had written a continuation of the Odyssey, and told
us what Odysseus did among the far-off men who never tasted salt nor
heard of the sea. A land epic after the sea epic, how good it would have
been--from Homer! But it would have taxed the imagination of Dante to
continue the adventures of Christian and his wife after they had once
crossed the river and reached the city.

John Bunyan has been more fortunate than most authors in one of his
biographies.

His life has been written by the Rev. Dr. Brown, who is now minister of
his old congregation at Bedford; and an excellent life it is. Dr. Brown
is neither Roundhead nor Cavalier; for though he is, of course, on
Bunyan's side, he does not throw stones at the beautiful Church of
England.

Probably most of us are on Bunyan's side now. It might be a good thing
that we should all dwell together in religious unity, but history shows
that people cannot be bribed into brotherhood. They tried to bully
Bunyan; they arrested and imprisoned him--unfairly even in law, according
to Dr. Brown, not unfairly, Mr. Froude thinks--and he would not be
bullied.

What was much more extraordinary, he would not be embittered. In spite
of all, he still called Charles II. "a gracious Prince." When a subject
is in conscience at variance with the law, Bunyan said, he has but one
course--to accept peaceably the punishment which the law awards. He was
never soured, never angered by twelve years of durance, not exactly in a
loathsome dungeon, but in very uncomfortable quarters. When there came a
brief interval of toleration, he did not occupy himself in brawling, but
in preaching, and looking after the manners and morals of the little
"church," including one woman who brought disagreeable charges against
"Brother Honeylove." The church decided that there was nothing in the
charges, but somehow the name of Brother Honeylove does not inspire
confidence.

Almost everybody knows the main facts of Bunyan's life. They may not
know that he was of Norman descent (as Dr. Brown seems to succeed in
proving), nor that the Bunyans came over with the Conqueror, nor that he
was a gipsy, as others hold. On Dr. Brown's showing, Bunyan's ancestors
lost their lands in process of time and change, and Bunyan's father was a
tinker. He preferred to call himself a brazier--his was the rather
unexpected trade to which Mr. Dick proposed