Bunyan's is chapel English, man's English, woman's English, the English spoken anywhere by the native sons and daughters of the soil." Says Venables:—"He (Bunyan) wrote because he had something to say which was worth saying, a message to deliver on which the highest interests of others were at stake which demanded nothing more than a straight forward earnestness and plainness of speech, such as, coming from the heart might best reach the hearts of others. He wrote as he spoke, because a necessity was laid upon him which he dared not evade. Southey describes Bunyan's language, "as a stream of current English, the vernacular speech of his age."
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe requires no introduction. It is pre-eminently the most popular book; it is still read by every child. The author, the son of a butcher, never attended any secondary school or college. He was a self-educated man. He could write his mother tongue as easily as he spoke it and wrote more than 254 books besides countless pamphlets. He was a politician, most active, most astute. The first part of Robinson Crusoe was published on April 25, 1719 and four editions of it were sold in five months. It is said that every old woman used to buy a copy of the book and leave it as a legacy to her family along with the Pilgrim's Progress. "One of the most remarkable
