and her three daughters under the three names that still
stick to them to this day,--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life. But it was reserved for John Bunyan to fill up
and to finish those outlines of Scripture and to pour over the whole work
his own depth and strength of colour, till, altogether, Madam Bubble
stands out as yet another masterpiece of our dreamer's astonishing
genius. Let us take our stand before this heaving canvas, then, till we
have taken attentive note of some of John Bunyan's inimitable touches and
strokes and triumphs of truth and art. "One in very pleasant attire, but
old . . . This woman is a witch . . . I am the mistress of the world, she
said, and men are made happy by me . . . A tall, comely dame, something
of a swarthy complexion." In the newly discovered portrait of a woman,
by Albert Durer, one of the marks of its genuineness is the way that the
great artist's initials A. D. are pencilled in on the embroidery of the
lady's bodice. And you will note in this gentlewoman's open dress also
how J. B. is inextricably woven in. "She wears a great purse by her side
also, and her hand is often in her purse fingering her money. Yea, this
is she that has bought off many a man from a pilgrim's life after he had
fairly begun it. She is a bold and an impudent slut also, for she will
talk with any man. If there be one cunning to make money in any place,
she will speak well of him from house to house . . . She has given it out
in some places also that she is a goddess, and therefore some do actually
worship her . . . She has her times and open places of cheating, and she
will say and avow it that none can show a good comparable to hers. And
thus she has brought many to the halter, and ten thousand times more to
hell. None can tell of the mischief that she does. She makes variance
betwixt rulers and subjects, betwixt parents and children, 'twixt
neighbour and neighbour, 'twixt a man and his wife, 'twixt a man and
himself, 'twixt the flesh and the heart." And so on in the great
original. "Had she stood by all this while," said Standfast, whose eyes
were still full of her, "you could not have set Madam Bubble more amply
before me, nor have better described her features." "He that drew her
picture was a good limner," said Mr. Honest, "and he that so wrote of her
said true".

1. "I am the mistress of this world," says Madam Bubble. And though all
the time she is a