We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see, and feed; and, of all who do so, it is said, "He that watereth, shall be watered also himself." But the reverse is truth also. He that watereth not, shall be withered himself, and he that seeth not, shall himself be shut out of sight,-shut into the perpetual prison-house. And that prison opens here, as well as hereafter: he who is to be bound in heaven must first be bound on earth. That command to the strong angels, of which the rockapostle is the image, "Take him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him out," issues, in its measure, against the teacher, for every help withheld, and for every truth refused, and for every falsehood enforced; so that he is more strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast, as he more and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close upon him, and as "the golden opes, the iron shuts amain." We have got something out of the lines, I think, and much more is yet to be found in them; but we have done enough by way of example of the kind of word-by-word examination of your author which is rightly called "reading"; watching every accent and expression, and putting ourselves always in the author's place, annihilating our own personality, and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly to say, "Thus Milton thought," not "Thus I thought, in mis-reading Milton." Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) was one of the eminent writers of the Victorian age. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was distinguished as a debater, and famous for his ability to remember everything that he read, often in the exact words of the book. To the Edinburgh Review he contributed a number of essays on historical and literary topics. He served several terms in Parliament, had a seat in the Cabinet, and went to India as a member of the Supreme Council. He wrote a History of England that was so popular that its sales exceeded those of the novels of the time. He also wrote some stirring ballads called the Lays of Ancient Rome, and contributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica articles upon Samuel Johnson, Bunyan, and Goldsmith. Macaulay had the power to make his readers see the persons and scenes he described. His marvellous memory enabled him, as in this essay, to bring in a mass of details. Yet he never lets the detail become confusing; he carries us along as over a well-marked road, we know where we are, and he knows exactly where he is taking us. His style is always clear; he is fond of using balanced sentences and sharp antitheses; his statements are always positive; when he makes a general statement he usually follows it by a concrete example. All these characteristics are seen in the essay on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It was first published in the Edinburgh Review for December, 1832. THOMAS B. MACAULAY BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS "* (From Macaulay's Literary Essays) This is an eminently beautiful and splendid edition of a book which well deserves all that the printer and the engraver can do for it. The Life of Bunyan is, of course, not a performance which can add much to the literary reputation of such a writer as Mr. Southey. But it is written in excellent English, and, for the most part, in an excellent spirit. Mr. Southey propounds, we need not say, many opinions from which we altogether dissent; and his attempts to excuse the odious persecution to which Bunyan was subjected have sometimes moved our indignation. But we will avoid this topic. We are at present much more inclined to join in paying homage to the genius of a great man than to engage in a controversy concerning Church government and toleration. We must not pass without notice the engravings with which this volume is decorated. Some of Mr. Heath's woodcuts are admirably designed and executed. Mr. Martin's illustrations do not please us quite so well. His Valley of the Shadow of Death is not that Valley of the Shadow of Death which Bunyan imagined. At all events, it is not that dark and horrible glen which has from childhood been in our mind's eye. The valley is a cavern: the quagmire is a lake: the straight path runs zigzag: and Christian appears like a speck in the darkness of the immense vault. We miss, too, those hideous *The Pilgrim's Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan. By Robert Southey, Esq., LL.D., Poet-Laureate. Illustrated with Engravings. 8vo. London: 1830. forms which make so striking a part of the description of Bunyan, and which Salvator Rosa would have loved to draw. The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit by Addison. In these performances there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Progress. But the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of Mirza,* the Vision of Theodore, the Genealogy of Wit, or the Contest between Rest and Labor, is exactly similar to the pleasure which we derive from one of Cowley's odes or from a canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the understanding, and in which the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a commentator would have held out to the end. *This and the following are titles of Addison's Spectator papers. |