tity, and the knight as that of justice? Many discrepancies of the same kind could be pointed out; and probably some readers may agree with us in thinking that those passages of the poem are sometimes not the least amusing in which Spenser forgets his allegory, and becomes a mere romancer like Ariosto. But, besides the allegory by which Spenser designs to present the pageant of the moral virtues, assigning a knight as the representative of each virtue, by whom the opposing appetites should be curbed and overthrown; he has embodied in his story a second and political allegory. Not only is Gloriana the imaginary concentration of the glory sought by every true knight— she is Queen Elizabeth too; not only does King Arthur present the spirit and essence of pure chivalry- he is likewise Spenser's (unworthy) patron, the Earl of Leicester; and many of the adventures which describe the struggles of virtue and vice also shadow forth anecdotes and intrigues of the English court, invisible to those, as Spenser himself insinuates,

"Who n'ote without a hound fine footing trace."

This complication of meanings may render the Faëry Queene doubly valuable to the antiquary who can explore its secret sense; but it must always be an objection to Spenser's plan, with the common reader, that the attempt at too much ingenuity has marred the simplicity of his allegory, and deprived it, in a great degree, of consistency and coherence.

In this essential point the poet is greatly inferior to the prose allegorist: indeed they write with very different notions of the importance of their subject. Spenser desired, no doubt, to aid the cause of virtue, but it was in the character of a cold and unimpassioned moralist, easily seduced from that part of his task by the desire to pay a compliment to some courtier, or some lady, or the mere wish to give a wider scope to his own fancy. Bunyan, on the contrary, in recommending his own religious opinions to the readers of his romance, was impressed throughout with the sense of the sacred importance of the task for which he had lived through poverty and captivity, and was, we doubt not, prepared to die. To gain the favour of Charles and all his court he would not, we are confident, have guided Christian one foot off the narrow and strait path; and his excellence above Spenser's is, that his powerful thoughts were all directed to one solemn end, and his fertile imagination taxed for every thing which could give life and vivacity to his narrative, vigour and consistency to the spirit of his allegory. His every thought is turned to strengthen and confirm the reasoning on which his argument depends; and nothing is more admirable than the acuteness of that fancy with which, still keeping an eye on his principal purpose, Bunyan contrives to extract, from the slightest particulars, the means of extending and fortifying its impression.

Let us, for example, compare Bunyan to a good man, but common-place writer, the author of the

rival Parable. Dr Patrick's Pilgrim, in the thirtysecond chapter, falls in with " a company of select friends, who are met at a frugal, but handsome dinner." This incident suggests to the worthy guide the praises of sociable mirth, restrained by temperance and sobriety. When Bunyan, on the contrary, has occasion to mention an entertainment, instead of the cold generality of the Dean of Peterborough, every dish which he places on the table is in itself a scriptural parable; and the precise nature of the refreshment, while described with the vivacious seeming accuracy of Le Sagé or Cervantes, is found, on referring to the texts indicated, to have an explicit connexion with some striking particular of Holy Writ. At the house of Gaius, for example, not only the wine red as blood, the milk "well crumbed," the apples and nuts, but the carving of the table, and ordering of the salt and trenchers, have each their especial and typical meaning; and while the reader only hears of the entertainment of Dr Patrick, he seems to feed at that of John Bunyan, and sit a guest to profit by the conversation. Unquestionably this desire to keep so close to, and hunt down, as it were, the metaphor, may sometimes be held trifling and tedious but it is a far better fault than that neglect of his machinery which is most likely to enfeeble the texture of a less gifted allegorist.

The parable of the Pilgrim's Progress is, of course, tinged with the tenets of the author, who might be called a Calvinist in every respect, save 1 Pilgrim's Progress, p. 344.

his aversion to the institution of a regular and ordained clergy. To these tenets he has, of course, adapted the Pilgrimage of Christian, in the incidents which occur, and opinions which are expressed. The final condemnation of Ignorance, for instance, who is consigned to the infernal regions when asking admittance to the celestial city, because unable to produce a certificate of his calling, conveys the same severe doctrine of fatalism which had wellnigh overturned the reason of Bunyan himself. But the work is not of a controversial character,-it might be perused without offence by sober-minded Christians of all persuasions; and we all know that it is read universally, and has been translated into many languages. It, indeed, appears from many passages in Bunyan's writings, that there was nothing which he dreaded so much as divisions amongst sincere Christians.

"Since you would know (he says) by what name I would be distinguished from others, I tell you, I would be, and hope I am, a Christian; and choose if God should count me worthy, to be called a Christian, a Believer, or other such name which is approved by the Holy Ghost. And as for those factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or the like, I conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor from Antioch, but rather from Hell and Babylon; for they naturally tend to divi sions. You may know them by their fruits."-P. lxxvii.

Mr Southey, observing with what general accuracy this apostle of the people writes the English language, notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which his youth must have been passed, pauses to notice one gross and repeated error. "The vulgarism alluded to," says the laureate, "consists in the almost uniform use of a for have,—*

never marked as a contraction, e.g. might a made me take heed,—like to a been smothered." Under favour, however, this is a sin against orthography rather than grammar: the tinker of Elstow only spelt according to the pronunciation of the verb to have, then common in his class; and the same form appears a hundred times in Shakspeare. We must not here omit to mention the skill with which Mr Southey has restored much of Bunyan's masculine and idiomatic English, which had been gradually dropped out of successive impressions by careless, or unfaithful, or, what is as bad, conceited correctors of the press.

The speedy popularity of the Pilgrim's Progress had the natural effect of inducing Bunyan again to indulge the vein of allegory in which his warm imagination and clear and forcible expression had procured him such success. Under this impression, he produced the second part of his Pilgrim's Progress; and well says Mr Southey, that none but those who have acquired the ill habit of always reading critically, can feel it as a clog upon the first. The first part is, indeed, one of those delightfully simple and captivating tales which, as soon as finished, we are not unwilling to begin again. Even the adult becomes himself like the child who cannot be satisfied with the repetition of a favourite tale, but harasses the story-telling aunt or nurse, to know more of the incidents and characters. In this respect Bunyan has contrived a contrast, which, far from exhausting his subject, opens new sources of attraction, and adds to the original impression. The Pilgrimage of Christi