THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS FROM THIS WORLD TO THAT WHICH IS JOHN BUNYAN WITH A PREFACE BY CHARLES KINGSLEY AND 118 ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES H. BENNETT A NOTE OF THE WAY LONDON GIBBINGS AND COMPANY, LIMITED GIFT OF A.F. MORRISON First Edition, Longmans, 1860 (215.) 135 PREFACE A SERIES of illustrations worthy of the great Puritan mystery has been as yet a desideratum. The eighteenth century could not be expected to produce one. The nineteenth has not produced one as yet, in spite of the great advance in the art of rendering thought into form, which is due to the influence of German designers. The reasons of this want are simple enough. The Puritan bodies, to whom John Bunyan belongs, have not sufficiently lost their hereditary dislike of the fine arts, to produce from their own ranks artists capable of so great a work. The religious artists of the Church of England have employed their pencils rather on Scriptural and Mediæval subjects. Whether the author of these designs, by trying to imagine for himself Bunyan's thoughts, rather from a simply human, than from a sectarian point of view, has done aught to supply the want, the Public must judge. If he has in some things failed, sensible persons at least will find excuses for him in the great difficulty of the undertaking. To be a faithful illustrator of any book is no light task. For no illustration can be considered true which M103475 vii |