Froude contributed in 1880 to Mr. Morley’s English Men of Letters a critical and biographical sketch of Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress, as the work of a Dissenter, had been excluded from the Rectory at Dartington. But Froude was not long in supplying the deficiency for himself, and his literary appreciation of Bunyan’s style was accompanied by a sincere sympathy with the Puritan part of his faith. All religious people, he thought, might find common ground in Bunyan, a man who lived for religion, and for nothing else. Yet even here Froude’s Erastianism, and respect for authority, come into play. He gravely defends Bunyan’s imprisonment in Bedford gaol, which lasted, with some intermissions, from 1660 to 1672, as necessary to enforce respect for the law. That such a man as Charles Stuart should have had power to punish such a man as John Bunyan for preaching the word of God is a strange comment on the nature of a Christian country …
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