human ladies they
seem to have been, given to the entertainment of their friends in the
intervals of their tasteful devotion, and occasionally needing a rebuke
from headquarters. Yet it seems not improbable that there is some
glorified memory of those ladies in the inhabitants of the House
Beautiful, which house itself appears to have been modelled upon
Houghton House on the Ampthill heights, built by Sir Philip Sidney's
sister but a century before. The silver mine of Demas might seem to have
come from some far-off source in chap-book or romance, until we remember
that at the village of Pulloxhill, which had been the original home of
the Bunyan family, and near which Bunyan was arrested and brought for
examination to the house of Justice Wingate, there are the actual
remains of an ancient gold mine whose tradition still lingers among the
villagers.

All these things seem to indicate that the great allegory is by no means
so remote from the earth as has sometimes been imagined; and perhaps the
most touching commentary upon this statement is the curious and very
unlovely burying-ground in Bunhill fields, cut through by a straight
path that leads from one busy thoroughfare to another. A few yards to
the left of that path is the tomb and monument of John Bunyan, while at
an equal distance to the right lies Daniel Defoe. The _Pilgrim's
Progress_ and _Robinson Crusoe_ are perhaps the two best-known stories
in the world, and they are not so far remote from one another as they
seem.

Nor was it only in the outward material with which he worked that John
Bunyan had much in common with the romance and poetry of England. He
could indeed write verses which, for sheer doggerel, it would be
difficult to match, but in spite of that there was the authentic note of
poetry in him. Some of his work is not only vigorous, inspiring, and
full of the brisk sense of action, but has an unconscious strength and
worthiness of style, whose compression and terseness have fulfilled at
least one of the canons of high literature. Take, for example, the lines
on Faithful's death--

"Now Faithful, play the man, speak for thy God:
Fear not the wicked's malice, nor their rod:
Speak boldly, man, the truth is on thy side;
Die for it, and to life in triumph ride."

Or take this as a second example, from his _Prison Meditations_--

"Here come the angels, here come saints,
Here comes the Spirit of God,
To comfort us