It was in prison that Boetius wrote his 'Consolations of Philosophy,'
and Grotius his 'Commentary on St. Matthew,' regarded as his masterwork
in Biblical Criticism. Buchanan composed his beautiful 'Paraphrases
on the Psalms' while imprisoned in the cell of a Portuguese monastery.
Campanella, the Italian patriot monk, suspected of treason, was immured
for twenty-seven years in a Neapolitan dungeon, during which, deprived
of the sun's light, he sought higher light, and there created his
'Civitas Solis,' which has been so often reprinted and reproduced in
translations in most European languages. During his thirteen years'
imprisonment in the Tower, Raleigh wrote his 'History of the World,' a
project of vast extent, of which he was only able to finish the first
five books. Luther occupied his prison hours in the Castle of Wartburg
in translating the Bible, and in writing the famous tracts and treatises
with which he inundated all Germany.
It was to the circumstance of John Bunyan having been cast into gaol
that we probably owe the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He was thus driven in
upon himself; having no opportunity for action, his active mind
found vent in earnest thinking and meditation; and indeed, after
his enlargement, his life as an author virtually ceased. His 'Grace
Abounding' and the 'Holy War' were also written in prison. Bunyan lay
in Bedford Gaol, with a few intervals of precarious liberty, during not
less than twelve years; [217] and it was most probably to his prolonged
imprisonment that we owe what Macaulay has characterised as the finest
allegory in the world.
All the political parties of the times in which Bunyan lived, imprisoned
their opponents when they had the opportunity and the power. Bunyan's
prison experiences were principally in the time of Charles II. But in
the preceding reign of Charles I., as well as during the Commonwealth,
illustrious prisoners were very numerous. The prisoners of the former
included Sir John Eliot, Hampden, Selden, Prynne [218] [21a most voluminous
prison-writer], and many more. It was while under strict confinement
in the Tower, that Eliot composed his noble treatise, 'The Monarchy
of Man.' George Wither, the poet, was another prisoner of Charles the
First, and it was while confined in the Marshalsea that he wrote his
famous 'Satire to the King.' At the Restoration he was again imprisoned
in Newgate, from which he was transferred to the Tower, and he is
supposed by some to have died there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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