as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times.1 4. This is the highest miracle of genius; that? things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. 5. And this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turnstile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction; the long line of road, as straight as rule can make it; the Interpreter's house, and all its fair shows; the prisoner in the iron cage; the palace, at the doors of which armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all in gold; the cross and the sepulchre; the steep hill and the pleasant arbor; the stately front of the House Beautiful by the way side; the low green valley of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks, all3 are as well known to us as the sights of our own street. 6. Then we come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where afterwards the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. 7. The clouds gather overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome 1 Rule X. 2 Rule I, Rem. 2. 3 Rule XVI. 4 Rule XXI, Rem. 14. smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. 8. Thence he goes on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark valley, he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of those whom they had slain. 9. Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length1 the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller; and soon he is in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. There are Italian Row,2 and French Row,2 and Spanish, Row, and Britain Row, with their crowds of buyers, sellers and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the earth. 10. Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is bordered on both sides by fruit trees. On the left side, branches off the path leading to that horrible castle, the court-yard of which is paved with the skulls of pilgrims; and right onward are the sheep-folds and orchards of the Delectable Mountains. 11. From the Delectable Mountains the way lies through the fogs and briers of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there a bed of soft cushions spread under a green arbor. And beyond, is the land of Beulah, where the 1owers, the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, and where the sun shines night and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and streets of pearl, on the other side of that black and cold river over which there is no bridge. 12. All the stages of the journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims — giants, and hobgoblins, ill-favored ones and shining ones, the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with her money; the black man in the bright vesture; Mr. Worldly Wiseman,1 and my Lord Hategood;1 Mr. Talkative,1 and Mrs. Timorous1— are all actually existing beings to us. 13. We follow the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. 14. Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jealousy; not an Iago, but perfidy, not a Brutus, but patriotism. CHAPTER X. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. [COWPER] "Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, The very name we carved subsisting still; The bench2 on which we sat while deep employed, Tho' mangled, hacked, and hewed, not yet destroyed; The little ones,2 unbuttoned, glowing hot, 5 1 Rule I, Rem. 4. 2 These sentences may be completed by supplying "here is," or some similar expression. Playing our games, and on the very spot, This fond attachment to the well known place, GOD EVERYWHERE.- -[COWPER.] 5 10 Nature is but a name for an effect, Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire 15 20 With self-taught rites, and under various names, With tutelary goddesses and gods, That were not; and commending as they would But all are under one. One spirit-His, Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows, - 30 Rules universal nature. Not a flower But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, AVARICE AND RICHES.-[POPE.] 5 10 15 At length corruption, like a general flood 20 Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box, And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown. And France revenged of Anne's and Edward's arms! 'Twas no court-badge, great scrivener! fired thy brain, Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain. 1 Rule XXI, Rem. 8. 2 See Weld's Gram. § 102-2. *Of what verb is whom the object? |