III.

The rolls of fame I will not now explore;
Nor need I here describe in learned lay,
Ilow forth the minstrel fared in days of yore,
Right glad of heart, though homely in array;
His waving locks and beard all hoary gray:
While, from his bending shoulder, decent hung
His harp, the sole companion of his way,
Which to the whistling wind responsive rung;
And ever, as he went, some merry lay he sung.

IV.

20

25

Fret not thyself, thou glittering child of pride,

They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain;
The parasite their influence never warms,

35

Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms.

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.-[MACAULAY.]

It should be constantly borne in mind, that one great object in analyzing and parsing, is to learn how good writers employ language.

1. That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor Johnson,' all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an exception in favor of the "Pilgrim's Progress".

2. That work, he said, was one of the two or three works which he wished longer. It was by no common merit that the illiterate sectary extracted praise like this

1 Rule I., Rem. 7.

from the most pedantic of critics and the most bigoted of Tories.

3. In the wildest part of Scotland, the "Pilgrim's Progress" is a greater favorite than "Jack the Giant Killer". Every reader knows the straight and narrow path, as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times.

4. This is the highest miracle of genius; that' things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no restingplace, no turnstile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted.

5. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction; the long line of road, as straight as rule can make it; the Interpreter's house, and all its fair shows; the prisoner in the iron cage; the palace, at the doors of which armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all in gold; the cross and the sepulchre; the steep hill and the pleasant arbor; the stately front of the House Beautiful by the wayside; the low green valley of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks,-all are as well known to us as the sights of our own street.

6. Then we come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right' across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where afterwards the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker.

7. The clouds gather overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and

1 Rule I., Rem. 3. 2 Rule XXV., Rem. 1.

fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer.

8. Thence he goes on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark valley he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of those whom they had slain.

9. Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller; and soon he is in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. There are Italian Row, and French Row, and Spanish Row, and Britain Row, with their crowds of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the earth.

10. Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is bordered on both sides by fruit trees. On the left side, branches off the path leading to that horrible castle, the court-yard of which is paved with the skulls of pilgrims; and right onward are the sheep-folds and orchards of the Delectable Mountains.

11. From the Delectable Mountains the way lies through the fogs and briers of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there a bed of soft cushions spread under a green arbor. And beyond is the land of Beulah, where the flowers, the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, and where the sun shines night and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and streets of pearl on the other side of that black and cold river over which there is no bridge.

12. All the stages of the journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims-giants and hobgoblins, ill-favored ones and shining ones; the tall, comely,

swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with her money; the black man in the bright vesture; Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood; Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous, -are all actually existing beings to us.

13. We follow the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London.

14. Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jealousy; not an Iago, but perfidy; not a Brutus, but patriotism.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.-[COWPER.]

"Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise,
We love the play-place of our early days;
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone,
That feels not at the sight, and feels at none.
The wall' on which we tried our graving skill,

5

The very name we carved subsisting still;

The bench' on which we sat while deep employed,

Tho' mangled, hacked, and hewed, not yet destroyed;
The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot,

Playing our games, and on the very spot,

10

As happy as we once,2 to kneel and draw
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw,
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat ;-
The pleasing spectacle at once excites
Such recollection of our own delights,
That, viewing it, we seem almost t'obtain
Our innocent sweet simple years again.

This fond attachment to the well known place

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Whence first we started into life's long race,
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.

GOD EVERYWHERE.-[COWPER.]

Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire
By which the mighty process is maintained;
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight
Slow circling ages are as transient days;
Whose work is without labor; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts;
And whose beneficence no change exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profaned, not served,

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5

With self-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona,' Pales, Pan,

10

And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling earth

With tutelary goddesses and gods,

That were not; and commending as they would

To each some province, garden, field, or grove.

15

But all are under one. One spirit-His,

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,—
Rules universal nature. Not a flower 2

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivalled pencil. He inspires

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Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes

In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavor or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak

To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,

1 Rule I.

2 Rule V., Rem. 5.
4 Object of prompts.

3 Rule XV., Rem. 3.