,' and
his 'Holy War,' followed each other in quick succession." Bunyan's
literary fertility in the earlier half of his imprisonment was indeed
amazing. Even if, as seems almost certain, we have been hitherto in
error in assigning the First Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" to this
period, while the "Holy War" certainly belongs to a later, the works
which had their birth in Bedford Gaol during the first six years of his
confinement, are of themselves sufficient to make the reputation of any
ordinary writer. As has been already remarked, for some unexplained
cause, Bunyan's gifts as an author were much more sparingly called into
exercise during the second half of his captivity. Only two works appear
to have been written between 1666 and his release in 1672.

Mr. Green has spoken of "poems" as among the products of Bunyan's pen
during this period. The compositions in verse belonging to this epoch,
of which there are several, hardly deserve to be dignified with so high a
title. At no part of his life had Bunyan much title to be called a poet.
He did not aspire beyond the rank of a versifier, who clothed his
thoughts in rhyme or metre instead of the more congenial prose, partly
for the pleasure of the exercise, partly because he knew by experience
that the lessons he wished to inculcate were more likely to be remembered
in that form. Mr. Froude, who takes a higher estimate of Bunyan's verse
than is commonly held, remarks that though it is the fashion to apply the
epithet of "doggerel" to it, the "sincere and rational meaning" which
pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. "His ear for
rhythm," he continues, "though less true than in his prose, is seldom
wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative
merit that he could never write nonsense." Bunyan's earliest prison
work, entitled "Profitable Meditations," was in verse, and neither this
nor his later metrical ventures before his release--his "Four Last
Things," his "Ebal and Gerizim," and his "Prison Meditations"--can be
said to show much poetical power. At best he is a mere rhymester, to
whom rhyme and metre, even when self-chosen, were as uncongenial
accoutrements "as Saul's armour was to David." The first-named book,
which is entitled a "Conference between Christ and a Sinner," in the form
of a poetical dialogue, according to Dr. Brown has "small literary merit
of any sort." The others do not deserve much higher commen