such as Bedford. It is not at all a pleasant picture. The life
described, when not gross, is sordid and foul, is mean and commonplace.
But as a description of English middle-class life at the epoch of the
Restoration and Revolution, it is invaluable for those who wish to put
themselves in touch with that period. The anecdotes introduced to
illustrate Bunyan's positions of God's judgment upon swearers and
sinners, convicting him of a credulity and a harshness of feeling one is
sorry to think him capable of, are very interesting for the side-lights
they throw upon the times and the people who lived in them. It would
take too long to give a sketch of the story, even if a summary could give
any real estimate of its picturesque and vivid power. It is certainly a
remarkable, if an offensive book. As with "Robinson Crusoe" and Defoe's
other tales, we can hardly believe that we have not a real history before
us. We feel that there is no reason why the events recorded should not
have happened. There are no surprises; no unlooked-for catastrophes; no
providential interpositions to punish the sinner or rescue the good man.
Badman's pious wife is made to pay the penalty of allowing herself to be
deceived by a tall, good-looking, hypocritical scoundrel. He himself
pursues his evil way to the end, and "dies like a lamb, or as men call
it, like a Chrisom child sweetly and without fear," but the selfsame Mr.
Badman still, not only in name, but in condition; sinning onto the last,
and dying with a heart that cannot repent.

Mr. Froude's summing up of this book is so masterly that we make no
apology for presenting it to our readers. "Bunyan conceals nothing,
assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He makes his bad man sharp and
shrewd. He allows sharpness and shrewdness to bring him the reward which
such qualities in fact command. Badman is successful; is powerful; he
enjoys all the pleasures which money can bring; his bad wife helps him to
ruin, but otherwise he is not unhappy, and he dies in peace. Bunyan has