of
the work, Bunyan tells us in his preface. It came into his mind, he
says, as in the former book he had written concerning the progress of the
Pilgrim from this world to glory, so in this second book to write of the
life and death of the ungodly, and of their travel from this world to
hell. The new work, however, as in almost every respect it differs from
the earlier one, so it is decidedly inferior to it. It is totally unlike
"The Pilgrim's Progress" both in form and execution. The one is an
allegory, the other a tale, describing without imagery or metaphor, in
the plainest language, the career of a "vulgar, middle-class,
unprincipled scoundrel." While "The Pilgrim's Progress" pursues the
narrative form throughout, only interrupted by dialogues between the
leading characters, "Mr. Badman's career" is presented to the world in a
dialogue between a certain Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive. Mr. Wiseman
tells the story, and Mr. Attentive supplies appropriate reflections on
it. The narrative is needlessly burdened with a succession of short
sermons, in the form of didactic discourses on lying, stealing, impurity,
and the other vices of which the hero of the story was guilty, and which
brought him to his miserable end. The plainness of speech with which
some of these evil doings are enlarged upon, and Mr. Badman's indulgence
in them described, makes portions of the book very disagreeable, and
indeed hardly profitable reading. With omissions, however, the book well
deserves perusal, as a picture such as only Bunyan or his rival in
lifelike portraiture, Defoe, could have drawn of vulgar English life in
the latter part of the seventeenth century, in a commonplace country town
such as Bedford. It is not at all a pleasant picture. The life
described, when not gross, is sordid and foul, is mean and commonplace.
But as a description of English middle-class life at the epoch of the
Restoration and Revolution, it is invaluable for those who wish to put
themselves in touch with that period. The anecdotes introduced to
illustrate Bunyan's positions of God's judgment upon swearers and
sinners, convicting him of a credulity and a harshness of feeling one is
sorry to think him capable of, are very interesting for the side-lights
they throw upon the times and the people who lived in them. It would
take too long to give a sketch of the story, even if a summary could give
any real estimate of its picturesque and vivid power. It is