The Greatness of the Soul - And the Unspeakableness of the Loss Thereof; No Way to Heaven but by Jesus Christ #266742

Milton and Shakespeare; and thus it is Patriotism to praise him. But still, after deducting all this matter-of course praise, there remains a succession of Master-spirits who have paid homage to his genius, in spite of all their hatred to his sect as a Nonconformist, and to his senti ments as an Evangelical. Neither Dr Johnson, nor Dr Southey, nor Sir Walter Scott, nor Lord Byron, could re member, for their life, whilst reading Bunyan, that he was anything but just a great and good man, who had been very ill-used, in bad times. The fact is, he had filled the wide field of their vision with creations they could not imitate, nor find a parallel to, nor help admiring and thus they gave way to the gush of their own emotions, because no other writer had ever awakened, in their mighty minds, similar emotions, from such sources, or by such scenes. He thus threw the bigotry~ of Johnson and Southey, and the banter of Scott and Byron, into a mesme ric sleep, and left them Clairvoyant on the borders of Emmanuel's Land.