or Aeneas. He sees there the
reflexion of himself, the familiar features of his own nature, which
remain the same from era to era. Time cannot impair its interest, or
intellectual progress make it cease to be true to experience.

But the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' though the best known, is not the only
work of imagination which Bunyan produced; he wrote another religious
allegory, which Lord Macaulay thought would have been the best of its
kind in the world if the 'Pilgrim's Progress' had not existed. The
'Life of Mr. Badman,' though now scarcely read at all, contains a
vivid picture of rough English life in the days of Charles II. Bunyan
was a poet, too, in the technical sense of the word, and though he
disclaimed the name, and though rhyme and metre were to him as Saul's
armour to David, the fine quality of his mind still shows itself in
the uncongenial accoutrements.

It has been the fashion to call Bunyan's verse doggerel; but no verse
is doggerel which has a sincere and rational meaning in it. Goethe,
who understood his own trade, says that the test of poetry is the
substance which remains when the poetry is reduced to prose. Bunyan
had infinite invention. His mind was full of objects which he had
gathered at first hand, from observation and reflection. He had
excellent command of the English language, and could express what he
wished with sharp, defined outlines, and without the waste of a word.
The rhythmical structure of his prose is carefully correct. Scarcely a
syllable is ever out of place. His ear for verse, though less true, is
seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the
superlative merit that he could never write nonsense. If one of the
motives of poetical form be to clothe thought and feeling in the dress
in which it can lie most easily remembered, Bunyan's lines are often
as successful as the best lines of Quarles or George Herbert. Who, for
instance, could forget these?--

Sin is the worm of hell, the lasting fire:
Hell would soon lose its heat should sin expire;
Better sinless in hell than to be where
Heaven is, and to be found a sinner there.

Or these, on persons whom the world calls men of spirit:--

Though you dare crack a coward's crown,
Or quarrel for a pin,
You dare not on the wicked frown,
Or speak against their sin.

The 'Book of Ruth' and the 'History of Joseph' done into blank verse
are really beautiful idylls. The substance with