Books and reading; Literature -- History and criticism
In regard to outward details there are many interesting little points of
contact between the Diary and the _Pilgrims Progress_. We hear of Pepys
purchasing Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_; Bartholomew and Sturbridge Fairs
come in for their own share of notice; nor is there wanting a
description of such a cage as Christian and Faithful were condemned to
in Vanity Fair. Justice Keelynge, the judge who condemned Bunyan, is
mentioned on several occasions by Pepys, very considerably to his
disadvantage. But by far the most interesting point that the two have in
common is found in that passage which is certainly the gem of the whole
Diary. Bunyan, in the second part of the _Pilgrim's Progress_,
introduces a shepherd boy who sings very sweetly upon the Delectable
Mountains. It is the most beautiful and idyllic passage in the whole
allegory, and has become classical in English literature. Yet Pepys'
passage will match it for simple beauty. He rises with his wife a little
before four in the morning to make ready for a journey into the country
in the neighbourhood of Epsom. There, as they walk upon the Downs, they
come "where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant and innocent
sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little boy
reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I
made the boy read to me, which he did.... He did content himself
mightily in my liking his boy's reading, and did bless God for him, the
most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I saw in my life, and it
brought those thoughts of the old age of the world in my mind for two or
three days after."
Such is some slight conception, gathered from a few of many thousands of
quaint and sparkling revelations of this strange character. Over against
the "ingenious dreamer," Bunyan, here is a man who never dreams. He is
the realist, pure and unsophisticated; and the stray touches of pathos,
on which here and there one chances in his Diary, are written without
the slightest attempt at sentiment, or any other thought than that they
are plain matters of fact. He might have stood for this prototype of
many of Bunyan's characters. Now he is Mr. Worldly Wiseman, now Mr.
By-ends, and Mr. Hold-the-World; and taken altogether, with all his
good and bad qualities, he is a fairly typical citizen of Vanity Fair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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