and his hidden heart 'anatomised.' Why, asked Wordsworth, and Matthew
Arnold in our day has echoed the question--why does Homer still so live
and rule without a rival in the world of letters? And they answer that
it is because he always sang with his eye so fixed upon its object.
'Homer, to thee I turn.' And so it was with Dante. And so it was with
Bunyan. Bunyan's _Holy War_ has its great and abiding and commanding
power over us just because he composed it with his eye fixed on his own
heart.

My readers, I have somewhat else to do,
Than with vain stories thus to trouble you;
What here I say some men do know so well
They can with tears and joy the story tell . . .
Then lend thine ear to what I do relate,
Touching the town of Mansoul and her state:
For my part, I (myself) was in the town,
Both when 'twas set up and when pulling down.
Let no man then count me a fable-maker,
Nor make my name or credit a partaker
Of their derision: what is here in view
Of mine own knowledge, I dare say is true.

The characters in the _Holy War_ are not as a rule nearly so clear-cut or
so full of dramatic life and movement as their fellows are in the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, and Bunyan seems to have felt that to be the case.
He shows all an author's fondness for the children of his imagination in
the _Pilgrim's Progress_. He returns to and he lingers on their doings
and their sayings and their very names with all a foolish father's fond
delight. While, on the other hand, when we look to see him in his
confidential addresses to his readers returning upon some of the military