It was in prison that Boetius wrote his 'Consolations of
Philosophy,' and Grotius his 'Commentary on St. Matthew,' regarded
as his masterwork in Biblical Criticism. Buchanan composed his
beautiful 'Paraphrases on the Psalms' while imprisoned in the cell
of a Portuguese monastery. Campanella, the Italian patriot monk,
suspected of treason, was immured for twenty-seven years in a
Neapolitan dungeon, during which, deprived of the sun's light, he
sought higher light, and there created his 'Civitas Solis,' which
has been so often reprinted and reproduced in translations in most
European languages. During his thirteen years' imprisonment in
the Tower, Raleigh wrote his 'History of the World,' a project of
vast extent, of which he was only able to finish the first five
books. Luther occupied his prison hours in the Castle of Wartburg
in translating the Bible, and in writing the famous tracts and
treatises with which he inundated all Germany.
It was to the circumstance of John Bunyan having been cast into
gaol that we probably owe the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He was thus
driven in upon himself; having no opportunity for action, his
active mind found vent in earnest thinking and meditation; and
indeed, after his enlargement, his life as an author virtually
ceased. His 'Grace Abounding' and the 'Holy War' were also
written in prison. Bunyan lay in Bedford Gaol, with a few
intervals of precarious liberty, during not less than twelve
years; (7) and it was most probably to his prolonged imprisonment
that we owe what Macaulay has characterised as the finest
allegory in the world.
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