e rarest and the richest
in all departments of thought or imagination which exists. Foxe's
'Martyrs,' if he had a complete edition of it, would have given him a
very adequate knowledge of history. With those two books he had no
cause to complain of intellectual destitution. He must have read more,
however. He knew George Herbert--perhaps Spenser--perhaps 'Paradise
Lost.' But of books, except of the Bible, he was at no time a great
student. Happily for himself, he had no other book of Divinity, and he
needed none. His real study was human life as he had seen it, and the
human heart as he had experienced the workings of it. Though he never
mastered successfully the art of verse, he had other gifts which
belong to a true poet. He had imagination, if not of the highest, yet
of a very high order. He had infinite inventive humour, tenderness,
and, better than all, powerful masculine sense. To obtain the use of
these faculties he needed only composure, and this his imprisonment
secured for him. He had published several theological compositions
before his arrest, which have relatively little value. Those which he
wrote in prison--even on theological subjects--would alone have made
him a reputation as a Nonconformist divine. In no other writings are
the peculiar views of Evangelical Calvinism brought out more clearly,
or with a more heartfelt conviction of their truth. They have
furnished an arsenal from which English Protestant divines have ever
since equipped themselves. The most beautiful of them, 'Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,' is his own spiritual biography,
which contains the account of his early history. The first part of the
'Pilgrim's Progress' was composed there as an amusement. To this, and
to his other works which belong to literature, I shall return in a
future chapter.

Visitors who saw him in the gaol found his manner and presence as
impressive as his writings. 'He was mild and affable in conversation,'
says one of them, 'not given to loquacity or to much discourse, unless
some urgent occasion required. It was observed he never spoke of
himself or of his talents, but seemed low in his own eyes. He was
never heard to reproach or revile any, whatever injury he received,
but rather rebuked those who did so. He managed all things with such
exactness as if he had made it his study not to give offence.'

The final 'Declaration of Indulgence' came at last, bringing with it
the privilege for which Bunyan had