"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said: 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die, for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.' * * * In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made, nor what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it was the dreadfulest sight that I ever saw." The miracle of this book is that it should have been written by a man who had little education and small knowledge of the great world, yet that it should be a literary masterpiece in the simple perfection of its form, and that it should be so filled with wisdom that the wisest man may gain something from its pages. Literary genius has never been shown in greater measure than in this immortal allegory by the poor tinker of Bedfordshire. OLD DR. JOHNSON AND HIS BOSWELL HIS GREAT FAME DUE TO HIS ADMIRER'S BIOGRAPHY--BOSWELL'S WORK MAKES THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITERARY MAN OF HIS AGE. The last of the worthies of old English literature is Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose monumental figure casts a long shadow over most of his contemporaries. The man whom Boswell immortalized and made as real to us today as though he actually lived and worked and browbeat his associates in our own time, is really the last of the great eighteenth century writers in style, in ways of thought and in feeling. Gibbon, who was his contemporary, appears far more modern than Johnson because, in his religious views and in his way of appraising historical characters, the author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ was a hundred years in advance of his time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded as the last of the worthies who have made English literature memorable in the eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly conclude this series of articles on the good old books. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BOSWELL'S FAMOUS "LIFE"] Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work we have the curious anomaly of a man who is not only far greater than anything he ever wrote, but who depends for his fame upon a biographer much inferior to himself in scholarship and in literary ability. _The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Esquire_ is the title of the book that has preserved for us one of the most interesting figures in all literature. Commonly it is known as _Boswell's Johnson_. Though written over a hundred years ago, it still stands unrivaled among the world's great biographies.