* It has recently been argued, with some plausibility, that Bunyan may have derived some of his pictures of scenery from his preaching excursions to the Surrey hills and the Sussex Weald (see pp. 33-35), where he would often cross the track of "the Canterbury pilgrims." "It is said that he frequently selected the hilly districts of South Surrey as his hiding- place; two houses, one on Quarry Hill, Guildford, and the other known as Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common, being pointed out as among those he occupied.".... "The struggles of the pedestrian through the Shalford swamp might have given Bunyan the original idea of the _Slough of Despond_; the Surrey Hills he loved so well might be called the _Delectable Mountains_; St. Martha's Hill would answer perfectly his description of the _Hill Difficulty_; the Vale of Albury, amid the picturesque scenery of which he passed so many days of true humiliation, might be considered the _Valley of Humiliation_; and lastly, the name _Doubting Castle_ actually exists to this day, near the Pilgrims' Way, being approached, as its namesake was supposed lo be, by a path near Box Hill. It is right, however, to state that the antiquity of the last name quoted is not verified."--Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey; by Captain E. Renouard James, R.E. Stanford, 1871. But it was after all in no earthly walks or haunts of men that he found the prototypes of his immortal pictures. They are idealised experiences, and from the Wicket gate to the Land of Beulah they all represent what he had seen and felt only in his soul.* No doubt the people are in many cases less abstract. A very remarkable edition of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, published some years ago by an artist of rare promise, since deceased, portrayed the personages of the allegory in the very guise in which Bunyan must often have met their originals up and down in Bedfordshire. Such faces may be seen to-day. We ourselves thought we saw Mr. Honesty, in a brown coat, looking at some bullocks in the Bedford market-place. Ignorance tried to entice us into a theological discussion at the little country-side inn where we rested for the night: the next morning, as we passed along, Mercy was knitting at a farmhouse door, while young Mr. Brisk, driving by in his gig, made her an elaborate bow, of which we were glad to see she took the slightest possible notice. * The impression made upon a passing traveller through Bunyan's Country is well expressed in some verses entitled