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124 SYNTAXE.
experimental of all
knowledge
the religious passions, from despair to
ecstacy, amply supplied in him the (this) want of learning. His rude
oratory
roused and melted hearers who listened without interest to the
laboured discourses of great logicians and Hebraists.
3. His books were widely circulated among
the humbler classes. One of
them, 1 the Pilgrim's Progress, was in his own life time, translated into
several foreign languages. It was, however, scarcely known to (of) the
learned and polite, and had been, during more than a century, the delight
of pious cottagers and artisans before it took its proper place, as
a classical work, in libraries. At length critics condescended to inquire
[where] the secret of so wide and so durable a popularity [lay]. They
were compelled to own that the ignorant multitude had iudged more
correctly than the learned, and that the despised little book was really
a masterpiece. Bunyan is indeed [as] decidedly the first of allegorista
as Demosthenes is the first of orators, or Shakspeare the first of dramatists.
Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity; 2 but no other
[allegorist] has ever been able to touch the heart, and to make abstractions
objects of terror, of pity and of love. (Macaulay.)
THE LITTLE PHILOSOPHER.
Mr. L. was one morning riding by himself, when, dismounting to gather
a plant in the hedge, his horse got loose and galloped away before him.
He followed calling the horse by name, which stopped, but on his ap-
proach set off again. At length a little boy in a neighbouring field,
seeing the affair, ran across where the road made a turn, and, getting
before the horse , took him by the bridle ; and held him till his owner
came up.
Mr. L. looked at the boy, and admiring his ruddy cheerful countenance:
'Thank you my good lad', said he, 'you have caught my horse
very cleverly.
What shall I give you for your trouble'? putting his hand into his
pocket.
'I want nothing sir', said the boy.
6. Mr. L. So much the better for you. Few men can say as muefc. But
pray, what were you doing in that field?
B. I was rooting up weeds, and tending the sheep that are feeding
on the turnips.
Mr. L. And do you like this employment?
J5. Yes, very well, this fine weather.
1 The one from among them * As much ingenuity as he.