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but was in his conversation mild and affable 5 not given to loquacity or much discourse in company , unless some urgent occasion required it j observing never to boast of himself or his parts , but rather seem low in his own eyes , and submitted himself to the
judgment of others ; abhorring lying and swearing 5 being just , in all that lay in his power , to his word ; not seeming to revenge injuries , loving to reconcile differences , and making friendship with all ; he had an excellent discernment of persons , being of
go > od judgment and quick wit . As for his person , he was tall of stature ; strong-boned , though nor corpulent ; somewhat of a ruddy face , with sharp and sparkling eyes ; wearing his hair on his upper lip after the old British
fashion ; his hair reddish , but in his latter days time had sprinkled it with grey ; his nose well set , but not declining or bending ; and his mouth moderately large ; his forehead something high , and his habit always plain and modest . "
" When he arrived at the 60 th year of his age , he had written books , " it has been observed , equal to the number of his years . " His -works , which had been long printed in
detached pieces on tobacco paper , were collected together and reprinted in 1736 and 1757 , in 2 vols , folio ; and have since been reprinted in a fairer edition , particularly in one impression with a recommendation from the
pen of Mr . Geo . Whitfield . The Pilgrim ' s Progress had , in the year 1784 , passed through upwards of fifty editions . Bunyan ,- u who had been mentioned , " says Mr . Granger , " amongst the least and lowest of our writers ,
deserves , a much higher rank than is commonly imagined . His masterpiece is his ' Pilgrim ' s Progress , ' one of the most popular , and I may add , one of the most ingenious books in the English language . It gives us a
clear and distinct idea of Calvinistical divinity . The allegory is admirably carried on and the characters are justly drawn and uniformly supported . The author ' s original and poetic genius shines through the coarseness and
*> Biographia Britannica , ut ante , note Z , 7 This observation , Mr . Granger observes in the margin , is not to be extended to the second part .
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vulgarity of his language , and inti , mates that if he had been a master of numbers he might have composed a poem worthy of Spenser himself . As this opinion may b £ deemed paradoxical , I shall venture to name two persons of eminence of the same
sentiments one , the late Mr . Merrick , of Reading , who has been heard to say in conversation , c that his invention was like that of Homer ; ' the other , Dr . Roberts , fellow of Eton college . " The mixture of the dramatic and narrative , enlivening the style , Lord
Kaimes remarks , has rendered the " Pilgrim ' s Progress , " and " Robinson Crusoe , " great favourites of the vulgar , and has been the cause of their having been translated into several European languages . Bunyan had such an
extraordinary knack in amusing and parabolical compositions under the form of visions , that some thought they \ yere communications made to him in dreams , and that he first really dreamt over the matter contained in
his writings of this kind . This notion was not a Jittle propagated by his picture prefixed to some of his treatises , in which he is represented in a sleeping posture . An anonymous author in 1729 , speaking of the "
Pilgrim s Progress , " remarked that " it had infinitely outdone * The Tale of a Tub , ' which perhaps had not made one convert to infidelity ; whereas the Pilgrim ' s Progress had converted many sinners to Christ . "
Dr . Kippis , with great deference to the opinions of such judges as Mr . Merrick and Dr . Roberts , doubts whether Bunyan ' could ever have been capable of rising to a production worthy a Spenser . The poverty , not
with regard to numbers only , but to fancy , visible in the specimens o ^ his versification , justifies an apprehension , that with the best advantages of education he would scarcely have attained to complete poetical composition . " He had the invention , but
not the other natural qualifications which are necessary to constitute a great poet . If his genius had intended him to be any thing more than a poet in prose , it would probably , Ji&e
8 Granger ' s History of England , vo ! . m . p . 348 , 8 vo . ed . 1779 . 9 The above remarks are taken from Mr . Oldys ' s MSS . See Biog-raphia Brita * - nica * ut ante . p . 13 , note L .
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132 Memoir of John JBunyan .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1815, page 132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1758/page/4/
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