to his unconsciously artistic story the charm of
perfect artlessness as well as the semblance of reality. When Bunyan's
lack of learning and culture are considered, and also the comparative
dryness of his controversial and didactic writings, this efflorescence
of a vital spirit of beauty and of an essentially poetic genius in him
seems quite inexplicable. The author's rhymed 'Apology for His Book,'
which usually prefaces the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' contains many
significant hints as to the way in which he was led to

"Make truth spangle, and its rays to shine."

He had no thought of producing a work of literary excellence; but on the
other hand he had not, in writing this book, his customary purpose of
spiritual edification. Indeed, he put his multiplying thoughts and
fancies aside, lest they should interfere with a more _serious_ and
_important_ book which he had in hand!

"I only thought to make
I knew not what: nor did I undertake
Thereby to please my neighbor; no, not I:
I did it mine own self to gratify.

. . . . . . .

Thus I set pen to paper with delight,
And quickly had my thoughts in black and white."

The words are exceedingly suggestive. In writing so aimlessly--"I knew
not what"--to gratify himself by permitting the allegory into which
he had suddenly fallen to take possession of him and carry him
whithersoever it would, while he wrote out with delight his teeming
fancies, was not Bunyan for the first time exercising his genius in a
freedom from all theological and other restraint, and so in a surpassing
range and power? The dreamer and poet supplanted the preacher and
teacher. He yielded to the simple impulse of his genius, gave his
imagination full sweep, and so, as never before or elsewhere, soared and
sang in what seemed to many of his Puritan friends a questionable
freedom and profane inspiration. And yet his song, or story, was not a
creation of mere fancy,--

"It came from my own heart, so to my head,
And thence into my fingers trickled;"--

and therefore, we add, it finds its way to the heart of mankind.

Hence the spontaneity of the allegory, its ease and freedom of movement,
its unlabored development, its natural and vital enfolding of that old
pilgrim idea of human life which had so often bloomed in the literature
of all climes and ages, but whose consummate flower appeared in the book
of this inspired Puritan tinker-pre