Ri £d«mrd8,Pf>efase to the Liib «f B«b(^ sitj^ ^



112 COLEBlDaB, AND THE

his life was an open course of wickedness." Coleridge adds, ^ Southey,
in the Life prefixed to his edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, has, in a
manner worthy of his head and heart, reduced this oft repeated charge
to its proper value. Bunyan was never, in our received sense of the
word, wicked. He was chaste, sober, honest ; but he was a bitter black-
guard ; that is, deimned his own and his neighbor's eyes on slight or no
occasion, and was fond of a row. In this our excellent Laureate has
performed an important service to morality. For the transmutation of
actual reprobates into saints is doubtless possible ; but, like the many re-
corded facts of corporeal chemistry, it is not supported by modern exper-
iments." Ibid. p. 398.
The allegory of Christ behind the wall, counteracting the malice of
Satan, Coleridge says is beautiful; but, says he, "I cannot but think
it would have been still more appropriate, if the water-pourer had been a
Mr. Legality, a prudentialist ofiering his calculation of consequences as
the moral antidote to guilt and crime ; and if the oil-instillator, out of
sight and from within, had represented the corrupt nature of man, that
is, the spiritual will corrupted by taking up a nature into itself." Ibid,
p. 403.
