This second part introduces some new scenes, as well as characters and experiences, but with the same broad sympathy and humor; and there are closing descriptions not excelled in power and pathos by anything in the earlier pilgrimage.
In his 'Apology' Bunyan says:—
"This book is writ in such a dialect
As may the minds of listless men affect."
The idiom of the book is purely English, acquired by a diligent study of the English Bible. It is the simplest, raciest, and most sinewy English to be found in any writer of our language; and Bunyan's amazing use of this Saxon idiom for all the purposes of his story, and the range and freedom of his imaginative genius therein, like certain of Tennyson's 'Idylls,' show it to be an instrument of symphonic capacity and variety. Bunyan's own maxim is a good one:—"Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air."
Of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' in both its parts, we may say in the words of Milton:—
"These are works that could not be composed by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases, without reference to station, birth, or education."
Let Bunyan speak for his own book:—
"Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep?
Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep?
Wouldst thou lose thyself and catch no harm,
And find thyself again, without a charm?
Wouldst read thyself, and read, thou knowst not what,
And yet know whether thou art blest or not
By reading the same lines? O then come hither!
And lay my book, thy head, and heart together."
Bunyan died of fever, in the house of a friend, at London, August 12th, 1688, in the sixty-first year of his age. Three of his four children survived him; the blind daughter, for whom he expressed such affectionate solicitude during his imprisonment, died before him. His second wife, Elisabeth, who pleaded for him with so much dignity and feeling before Judge Hale and other justices, died in 1692. In 1661 a recumbent statue was placed on his tomb in Bunhill Fields, and thirteen years later a noble statue was erected in his honor at Bedford. The church at Elstow is enriched with memorial windows presenting scenes from the 'Holy War' and the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and the Bunyan Meeting-House in Bedford has bronze doors presenting similar scenes.