unyan knew them.

_George on Horseback_ has been identified by Professor Firth with the
_Seven Champions of England_, an extremely artificial romance, which may
be taken as typical of hundreds more of its kind. The 1610 edition of it
is a very lively book with a good deal of playing to the gallery, such
as this: "As for the name of Queen, I account it a vain title; for I had
rather be an English lady than the greatest empress in the world." There
is not very much in this romance which Bunyan has appropriated, although
there are several interesting correspondences. It is very courtly and
conventional. The narrative is broken here and there by lyrics, quite in
Bunyan's manner, but it is difficult to imagine Bunyan, with his direct
and simple taste, spending much time in reading such sentences as the
following: "By the time the purple-spotted morning had parted with her
grey, and the sun's bright countenance appeared on the mountain-tops,
St. George had rode twenty miles from the Persian Court." On the other
hand, when Great-Heart allows Giant Despair to rise after his fall,
showing his chivalry in refusing to take advantage of the fallen giant,
we remember the incident of Sir Guy and Colebrand in the _Seven
Champions_.

"Good sir, an' it be thy will,
Give me leave to drink my fill,
For sweet St. Charity,
And I will do thee the same deed
Another time if thou have need,
I tell thee certainly."

St. George, like Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
traverses an Enchanted Vale, and hears "dismal croakings of night
ravens, hissing of serpents, bellowing of bulls, and roaring of
monsters."[3] St. Andrew traverses a land of continual darkness, the
Vale of Walking Spirits, amid similar sounds of terror, much as the
pilgrims of the Second Part of Bunyan's story traverse the Enchanted
Ground. And as these pilgrims found deadly arbours in that land,
tempting them to repose which must end in death, so St. David was
tempted in an Enchanted Garden, and fell flat upon the ground, "when his
eyes were so fast locked up by magic art, and his waking senses drowned
in such a dead slumber, that it was as impossible to recover himself
from sleep as to pull the sun out of the firmament."

_Bevis of Southampton_ has many points in common with St. George in the
_Seven Champions_. The description of the giant, the escape of Bevis
from his dungeon, and a number of other passages show how much w