form is concerned, by a book which his wife brought with her on her
marriage, and which, as he tells us in his Grace Abounding, they
read together. It was entitled The Plaine Man's Pathway to Heaven:
By Arthur Dent, Preacher of the Word of God at South Shoobury in
Essex. The eleventh impression, the earliest now known, is dated
1609. Both books are in dialogue form, and in each case the
dialogue is supposed to be carried on through one long day.
Bunyan's Mr Wiseman, like Dent's Theologus, holds forth instructive
discourse, while the Mr Attentive of the former, like the
Philagathus of the latter, listens and draws on his teacher by
friendly questionings. There is not in Bunyan's conference, as
there is in Dent's, an Asunetus, who plays the part of an ignorant
man to come out enlightened and convinced at last, or an Antilegon,
who carps and cavils all the way; and there is not in Dent's book
what there is in Bunyan's, a biographical narrative connecting the
various parts of the dialogue; but the groundwork of each is the
same--a searching manifestation and exposure of the nature and
evils of various forms of immorality.

Bunyan's book came out in 1680, and was published by Nathaniel
Ponder, who was also the publisher of The Pilgrim's Progress. A
third edition appeared in 1696, but as no copy of the second
edition is known to exist, no date can be assigned to it. In 1684
Johannes Boekholt, a publisher in Amsterdam, obtained leave of the
State to issue a Dutch translation, with the title Het Leven en
Sterben van Mr Quaat. This edition was illustrated by five copper-
plate engravings, executed by Jan Luiken, the eminent Dutch
engraver, who also illustrated The Pilgrim's Progress the following
year. In 1782 a Welsh version, translated by T. Lewys, was
published at Liverpool with the title: Bywyd a Marwolaeth yr