r, in
which we know that Bunyan had fought, although there are certain parts
of it which were probably suggested by events of that campaign. The
allegory is equally silent concerning the Great Fire and the Great
Plague of London, which were both fresh in the memory of every living
man. The only phrase which might have been suggested by the Fire, is
that in which the Pilgrim says, "I hear that our little city is to be
destroyed by fire"--a phrase which obviously has much more direct
connection with the destruction of Sodom than with that of London. The
only suggestions of those disastrous latter years of the reign of
Charles the Second, are some doubtful allusions to the rise and fall of
persecution, few of which can be clearly identified with any particular
events.

There are several interesting indications that Bunyan made use of recent
and contemporary secular literature. The demonology of the _Pilgrim's
Progress_ is quite different from that of the _Holy War_. It used to be
suggested that Bunyan had altered his views in consequence of the
publication of Milton's _Paradise Regained_, which appeared in 1671.
That was when it was generally supposed that he had written the
_Pilgrim's Progress_ in his earlier imprisonment. If, as is now
conceded, it was in the later imprisonment that he wrote the book, this
theory loses much of its plausibility, for Milton published his
_Paradise Regained_ before the first edition of the _Pilgrim's Progress_
was penned. It is, of course, always possible that between the
_Pilgrim's Progress_ and the _Holy War_ Bunyan may have seen Milton's
work, or may have been told about it, for he certainly changed his
demonology and made it more like Milton's. Again, there are certain
passages in Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ which bear so close a resemblance
to Bunyan's description of the Celestial City, that it is difficult not
to suppose that either directly or indirectly that poem had influenced
Bunyan's creation; while in at least one of his songs he approaches so
near both the language and the rhythm of a song of Shakespeare's as to
make it very probable that he had heard it sung.[2]

These suppositions are not meant in any way to detract from the
originality of the great allegory, but rather to link the writer in with
that English literature of which he is so conspicuous an ornament. They
are no more significant and no less, than the fact that so much of the
geography of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ s