introduction, that there was little delay between the finishing of the
book and its being given to the world. After having written the book, he
tells us, simply to gratify himself, spending only "vacant seasons" in
his "scribble," to "divert" himself "from worser thoughts," he showed it
to his friends to get their opinion whether it should be published or
not. But as they were not all of one mind, but some counselled one thing
and some another, after some perplexity, he took the matter into his own
hands.

"Now was I in a strait, and did not see
Which was the best thing to be done by me;
At last I thought, Since you are so divided,
I print it will, and so the case decided."

We must agree with Dr. Brown that "there is a briskness about this which,
to say the least, is not suggestive of a six years' interval before
publication." The break which occurs in the narrative after the visit of
the Pilgrims to the Delectable Mountains, which so unnecessarily
interrupts the course of the story--"So I awoke from my dream; and I
slept and dreamed again"--has been not unreasonably thought by Dr. Brown
to indicate the point Bunyan had reached when his six months'
imprisonment ended, and from which he continued the book after his
release.

The First Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" issued from the press in 1678.
A second edition followed in the same year, and a third with large and
important additions in 1679. The Second Part, after an interval of seven
years, followed early in 1685. Between the two parts appeared two of his
most celebrated works--the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," published in
1680, originally intended to supply a contrast and a foil to "The