Chaucer and Dryden have translated
some of the last into English rhyme, but the essence and the power of
poetry was there before. That which lifts the spirit above the earth,
which draws the soul out of itself with indescribable longings, is
poetry in kind, and generally fit to become so in name, by being
"married to immortal verse". If it is of the essence of poetry to
strike and fix the imagination, whether we will or no, to make the eye
of childhood glisten with the starting tear, to be never thought of
afterwards with indifference, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe may be
permitted to pass for poets in their way. The mixture of fancy and
reality in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ was never equalled in any allegory.
His pilgrims walk above the earth, and yet are on it. What zeal, what
beauty, what truth of fiction! What deep feeling in the description
of Christian's swimming across the water at last, and in the picture
of the Shining Ones within the gates, with wings at their backs and
garlands on their heads, who are to wipe all tears from his eyes! The
writer's genius, though not "dipped in dews of Castalie", was baptized
with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
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