as
common stock for the writers of these earlier romances. There is the
same rough humour in it from first to last, and the wonderful swing and
stride of vigorous rhyming metre. Of the humour, one quotation will be
enough for an example. It is when they are proposing to baptize the
monstrous giant at Cologne, whom Bevis had first conquered and then
engaged as his body-servant. At the christening of Josian, wife of
Bevis, the Bishop sees the giant.

"'What is,' sayde he, 'this bad vysage?'
'Sir,' sayde Bevys, 'he is my page--
I pray you crysten hym also,
Thoughe he be bothe black and blo!'
The Bysshop crystened Josian,
That was as white as any swan;
For Ascaparde was made a tonne,
And whan he shulde therein be done,
He lept out upon the brenche
And sayde: 'Churle, wylt thou me drenche?
The devyl of hel mot fetche the
I am to moche crystened to be!'
The folke had gode game and laughe,
But the Bysshop was wrothe ynoughe."

There is a curious passage which is almost exactly parallel to the
account of the fight with Apollyon in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and
which was doubtless in Bunyan's mind when he wrote that admirable battle
sketch--

"Beves is swerde anon upswapte,
He and the geaunt togedre rapte;
And delde strokes mani and fale,
The nombre can i nought telle in tale.
The geaunt up is clubbe haf,
And smot to Beves with is staf,
But his scheld flegh from him thore,
Three acres brede and somedel more,
Tho was Beves in strong erur
And karf ato the grete levour,
And on the geauntes brest a-wonde
That negh a-felde him to the grounde.
The geaunt thoughte this bataile hard,
Anon he drough to him a dart,
Throgh Beves scholder he hit schet,
The blold ran doun to Beves' fet,
The Beves segh is owene blod
Out of his wit he wex negh wod,
Unto the geaunt ful swithe he ran,
And kedde that he was doughti man,
And smot ato his nekke bon;
The geant fel to grounde anon."

It is part of his general sympathy with the spirit of the romances that
Bunyan's giants were always real giants to him, and he evidently enjoyed
them for their own sake as literary and imaginative creations, as well
as for the sake of any truths which they might be made to enforce.
Despair and Slay-Good are distinct to his imagination. His interest
remains always twofold. On