that most troublesome of pilgrims, stumbling at every straw, lying roaring at the Slough of Despond above a month together, standing shaking and shrinking at the Wicket Gate, but making no stick at the Lions, and at last getting over the river not much above wetshod; or Mr. Valiant for Truth, the native of Darkland, standing with his sword drawn and his face all bloody from his three hours’ fight with Wildhead, Inconsiderate, and Pragmatick; Mr. Standfast, blushing to be found on his knees in the Enchanted Ground, one who loved to hear his Lord spoken of, and coveted to set his foot wherever he saw the print of his shoe; Mr. Feeblemind, the sickly, melancholy pilgrim, at whose door death did usually knock once a day, betaking himself to a pilgrim’s life because he was never well at home, resolved to run when he could, and go when he could not run, and creep when he could not go, an enemy to laughter and to gay attire, bringing up the rear of the company with Mr. Readytohalt hobbling along on his crutches; Giant Despair’s prisoners, Mr. Despondency, whom he had all but starved to death—­and Mistress Much-afraid his daughter, who went through the river singing, though none could understand what she said?  Each of these characters has a distinct individuality which lifts them from shadowy abstractions into living men and women.  But with all its excellencies, and they are many, the general inferiority of the history of Christiana and her children’s pilgrimage to that of her husband’s must be acknowledged.  The story is less skilfully constructed; the interest is sometimes allowed to flag; the dialogues that interrupt the narrative are in places dry and wearisome—­too much of sermons in disguise.  There is also a want of keeping between the two parts of the allegory.  The Wicket Gate of the First Part has become a considerable building with a summer parlour in the Second; the shepherds’ tents on the Delectable Mountains have risen into a palace, with a dining-room, and a looking-glass, and a store of jewels; while Vanity Fair has lost its former bad character, and has become a respectable country town, where Christiana and her family, seeming altogether to forget their pilgrimage, settled down comfortably, enjoy the society of the good people of the place, and the sons marry and have children.  These same children also cause the reader no little perplexity, when he finds them in the course of the supposed journey transformed from sweet babes who are terrified with the Mastiffs barking at the Wicket Gate, who catch at the boughs for the unripe plums and cry at having to climb the hill; whose faces are stroked by the Interpreter; who are catechised and called “good boys” by Prudence; who sup on bread crumbled into basins of milk, and are put to bed by Mercy—­into strong young men, able to go out and fight with a giant, and lend a hand to the pulling down of Doubting Castle, and becoming husbands and fathers.  We cannot but feel the want of vraisemblance which