was neglected. In bis youth lie was dissolute and profligate, and he joined the Parliamentary army, lie was converted from his evil ways in 1G5J, and in 1G55 became a Baptist. For preaching to the Baptist con- gregation at Bedford he was thrown into prison, where he "tagged laces" twelve years and a half (1660-1672), and composed the Pilgrim's Progress, a work which has already gone through more than fifty editions, and has been translated into many foreign languages. Before be was taken to jail he had begun to use his pen, chief- ly in controversy with the Quakers ; and writing proved an ample solace to him in his cell. Several w< rks, in- cluding his (! race Abounding, and what is, next to the "Pilgrim," his best-known work, The //(■/;/ War, which were eagerly read then and long afterward, were the fruit of his imprisonment. During the later years of his confinement he was allowed much freedom : could go into town at pleasure, and once was permitted to visit London, though for permitting that the jailer re- ceived a severe censure. During these years Bunyan appears to have preached and exhorted pretty nearly as freely as though he had not been a prisoner. In the last year of his imprisonment he was elected pas- tor of the Baptist church in Bedford (Mr. Gilford's), and be was able to attend regularly to his ministerial duties. At length, en the 13th of September, 1(171', he was set at liberty. After his release Bunyan set about putting his private affairs and those of his church in order. The chapel in which he preached was great- ly enlarged in order to accommodate- the increasing congregation. He commenced the organization of branch meetings and what might be called preaching circuits, and soon acquired such extended authority and influence that he came to be commonly known as Bishop Bunyan. He used to make frequent visits to Loudon, where the announcement of a sermon by him was certain to collect an immense congregation. The close of his life is thus related by Southey: " Beading was a place where be was well known. ... In a visit to that place ha contracted the disease which brought him to the grave. A friend of his who resided there had resolved to disinherit his son; the young man re- quested Bunyan to interfere in his behalf; he did so with good success, and it was his last labor of love; for, returning to London on horseback through heavy rain, a fever ensued, which after ten days proved fatal. He died at the house of his friend Mr. Stradwick, a grocer, at the sign of the Star on Snow Hill, and was buried in that friend's vault in Bunhill Fields' burial- ground." His tomb-stone states his death to have oc- curred on the 12th of August, 1688, but the correct dale appears to be August the :sist. The first collected edi- tion of Bunyan's Works was published in 1692 i Bed- ford, 1 vol. fob); the last and most carefully collated edition of The Works of John Bunyan, with en Introduc- tion, Notes, and Sketch of his Life and Contemporaries, b3r George Offor, appeared in London in 1*.~>:'> (3 vols, imp. 8vo). The "Pilgrim's Progress" attained quick popularity. "The first edition was 'printed for Nath. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, 1678,' and lie- fore the year closed a second edition was called for. In the four following years it was reprinted six times. The eighth edition, which contains the last improve- ments made by the author, was published in Ids:', the ninth in 1684, and the tenth in 1685. In Scotland and the colonies it was even more popular than in England. Bunyan tells that in New England his dream was the daily subject of conversation of thousands, and was thought worthy to appear in the most superb binding. It had numerous admirers, too, in Holland, and among the Huguenots in France. Yet the favor and the enormous circulation of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' were limited to those who read for religious edification and made no pretence to critical taste. When the literati spoke of the book, it was usually with contempt
Swift observes in his 'Letter to a young Divine,' 'I have been entertained and more informed by a few- pages in the " Pilgrim's Progress" than by a long dis- course upon the will and intellect, and simple and complex ideas;' but we apprehend the remark was de- signed rather to depreciate metaphysics than to exalt Bunyan. Young, of the 'Night Thoughts,' coupled Bunyan's prose with D'Urfe's doggerel, and in the 'Spiritual Quixote' the adventures of Christian are classed with those of Jack the Giant-killer and John Hickathrift. But the most curious evidence of the rank assigned to Bunyan in the eighteenth century appears in Cowper's couplet, written so late as 1782 : " ' I name thee Dot, 1 st BO despised a name Should move a bh it at thy deserved fame.1 It was only with the growth of purer and more catho- lic principles of criticism toward the close of the Lot century and the beginning of the present that the popular verdict was affirmed, and the ' Pilgrim's Prog- ress' registered among the choicest of English class- ics. N\ ith almost every Christmas there now appears one or mora editions of the Pilgrim, sumptuous in ty- pography, paper, and binding, and illustrated by fav< r- ite artists. Ancient editions are sought for by collect- ors; but, strange to say, only one perfect copy of ltiT.S is known to be extant. Originally published for one shilling, it was bought a few years ago, in its old sheepskin cover, for twenty guineas. It is probable that, if offered again for sale, it would fetch twice or thrice that sum." — Book of Days. Of recent editions, perhaps that by Southey, with his gracefully written L\fe of Bunyan prefixed, is one of the best. The " Pil- grim's Progress" has been translated into every lan- guage and almost every dialect of civilized Europe, and it has been a favorite exercise of missionaries to translate it into the languages of the people to whom they have been sent; hence the " Pilgrim" of the El- Stow tinker has been rendered into more languages than any other uninspired writ r. And it deserves all the labor that has been expended upon it. Beyond dispute it is the first in rank of its class. Written I y a plain, uneducated man for plain, uneducated people, it has ever found its way straight home to their hearts and imaginations. But it has not less delighted and instructed the most highly educated and intellectual. Macaulay, in his " Essay on Southey's Bunyan" (writ- ten in 1831, Edlnb. A'"-, liv, 450), affirmed that he " was not afraid to say that, though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the 1 71 h cen- tury, there were only two great creative minds: one of these' minds produced the 'Paradise Lost,' the other the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" This is high, it might al- most seem extravagant praise; yet twenty years later the same great authority reiterates in his "History"