ds of their victims, and to bring on by this
means the meeting between Tab and Bunyan. Of course, the blind
daughter's part is imaginary, but yet it seems to bring very vividly
before us this well loved child. Another touch, quite in keeping with
the time, is the decision of the Judge that the remarkable change of
heart in Ned and Tab was due to the piety of King Charles. Like every
one else, however, he was impressed by what he heard of the Tinker, and
inclined to see what he could do to give him his freedom. It seems that
Bunyan's life in jail was a good deal lightened by the favor he always
inspired. The story goes that from the first he was in favor with the
jailor, who nearly lost his place for permitting him on one occasion to
go as far as London. After this he was more strictly confined, but at
last he was often allowed to visit his family, and remain with them all
night. One night, however, when he was allowed this liberty Bunyan felt
resistlessly impressed with the propriety of returning to the prison. He
arrived after the keeper had shut up for the night, much to the
official's surprise. But his impatience at being untimely disturbed was
changed to thankfulness, when a little after a messenger came from a
neighboring clerical magistrate to see that the prisoner was safe. "You
may go now when you will" said the jailer; "for you know better than I
can tell you when to come in again."

[Illustration: John Bunyan

Statue by J. E. Boehm]

Though Bunyan is not primarily the subject of this poem, it is an
appreciative tribute to his genius and to his force of character,
only to be paralleled by Dowden's sympathetic critique in his "Puritan
and Anglican Studies." What Browning makes Ned and Tab see through
suddenly aroused feeling--namely that it is no book but

"plays,
Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,
But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"

Dowden puts in the colder language of criticism.

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a gallery of portraits, admirably
discriminated, and as convincing in their self-verification as those of
Holbein. His personages live for us as few figures outside the drama of
Shakespeare live.... All his powers cooperated harmoniously in creating
this book--his religious ardor, his human tenderness, his sense of
beauty, nourished by the Scriptures, his strong common sense, even his
gif