own of Bedford.

He owed his complete liberation to one of the worst acts of one of the
worst governments that England has ever seen. In 1671 the Cabal was in
power. Charles II. had concluded the treaty by which he bound himself to
set up the Roman Catholic religion in England. The first step which he took
towards that end was to annul, by an unconstitutional exercise of his
prerogative, all the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics; and in
order to disguise his real design, he annulled at the same time the penal
statutes against Protestant nonconformists. Bunyan was consequently set at
large.[6] In the first warmth of his gratitude he published a tract, in
which he compared Charles to that humane and generous Persian king, who,
though not himself blest with the light of the true religion, favoured the
chosen people, and permitted them, after years of captivity, to rebuild
their beloved temple.

Before he left his prison he had begun the book which has made his name
immortal.[7] The history of that book is remarkable. The author was, as he
tells us, writing a treatise, in which he had occasion to speak of the
stages of the Christian progress. He compared that progress, as many others
had compared it, to a pilgrimage. Soon his quick wit discovered innumerable
points of similarity which had escaped his predecessors. Images came
crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words, quagmires
and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, soft vales, sunny pastures,
a gloomy castle, of which the courtyard was strewn with the skulls and
bones of murdered prisoners, a town all bustle and splendour, like London
on the Lord Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a rule could make
it, running on up hill and down hill, through city and through wilderness,
to the Black River and the Shining Gate. He had found out, as most people
would have said, by accident, as he would doubtless have said, by the
guidance of Providence, where his powers lay. He had no suspicion, indeed,
that he was producing a masterpiece. He could not guess what place his
allegory would occupy in English literature; for of English literature he
knew nothing. Those who suppose him to have studied the _Faery Queen_ might
easily be confuted, if this were the proper place for a detailed
examination of the passages in which the two allegories have been thought
to resemble each other. The only work of fiction, in all probability, with
which he co