hands, both for mine own living and for those that are with me. And I trust that the Lord Jesus will also help me still; so that I shall preach freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake." In those days, hard words and uncivil language were commonly used in controversy, and Bunyan's early associations and singular genius furnished his quiver with arrows of piercing point. After his conversion his moral character was assailed in the grossest terms; he was called a wizard, a Jesuit, a highwayman, a libertine, and was charged as guilty of every crime; to this he gave a direct denial, and triumphantly pointed to his whole conduct since his conversion, as a refutation of such unfounded calumnies. These malignant accusations are referred to and refuted in that thrilling narrative, 'The singular experience and great sufferings of Mrs. Agnes Beaumont,' contained in a deeply interesting volume, An Abstract of the gracious Dealings of God with several eminent Christians, by Samuel James, M.A.2 Bunyan's difference of opinion relative to the terms of communion at the Lord's table, led to a controversy with the strict Baptist churches, to all of which he was sincerely attached; and this in all probability greatly enlarged his views of the kingdom of Christ, and was calculated to enable him, in the fulness of his heart, to embrace all those who loved the Redeemer, and so well fitted him to become the pilgrim's guide to Christians of every name, sect, or denomination. His wife was a partaker of his own spirit -a heroine of no ordinary stamp in so trying a situation-a CHRISTIANA. She came to London with a petition for the release of her husband, which was presented to the House of Lords; but in vain. Time after time she appeared in person before the judges; and, although a delicate young woman of retiring habits, pleaded the cause of her husband and his children in language worthy of the most talented counsel; but all her supplications were fruitless, although Judge Hale was evidently affected by her powerful appeal, and felt much for her. This courageous, this fine, high-minded English woman, and Lord Chiefjustice Hale, and Bunyan, have long since met in heaven; but how little could they recognize each other's character on earth! How little could the distressed insulted wife have imagined, that beneath the judge's ermine there was beating the heart of a child of God, a man of humility, integrity, and prayer! How little could the great, the learned, the illustrious, and truly pious judge have dreamed that the man, the obscure tinker, whom he was suffering to languish in prison for want of a writ of error, would one day be the subject of greater admiration and praise than all the judges in the kingdom of Great Britain! How little could he dream, that from that narrow cell where the prisoner was left incarcerated, and cut off apparently from all usefulness, a glory would shine out, illustrating the government and grace of God, and doing more good to man, than will be known to the latest period of time. The prison was the university in which he found an opportunity to study and promote the happiness of ALL Christ's pilgrims—a pilgrim's guide, fitted for every clime, and kindred, and tongue, and people. Here he was sheltered from the persecution that raged without. Here he found peaceful leisure and nearness of access to the throne of grace-the gate of heaven. Thence came that divine wisdom which fitted him for this all-important work. CHAPTER IV WAS BUNYAN ASSISTED IN THE COMPOSITION OF HIS To this question take his own reply :- In name and fame by the worth of another, I'll father bastards: or, if need require, I scorn it; John such dirt-heap never was 'It came from mine own heart, so to my head, 'Manner and matter too was all mine own, He who doubts the word of John Bunyan, knows nothing of the character and soul of a man who suffered nearly thirteen years' imprisonment in Bedford jail, rather than utter a falsehood, or use the slightest simulation. Such objectors deserve chastisement in Doubting Castle, and should be flogged with the royal garterHoni soit qui mal y pense. But such there have been from 1678 to a late period; and the same feeling which led the Scribes and Pharisees to reject the Messiah, because he appeared as the son of a carpenter, probably has led authors of great repute to express their doubts as to the originality of the Pilgrim's Progress, because the author was an unlettered man-the reason why, as his pastor says, 'the archers shot so sorely at him.' when he was not aware of any such influence.'s It is high time that these questions were fully investigated, and set at rest. It must be kept in mind that Bunyan knew no language but his own; and that all his characters, as well as the trial by jury, are purely English. When he used five common Latin words in Dr. Skill's prescription, Ex carne et sanguine Christi, this perfectly unassuming author tells his readers, in a marginal note, 'The Latine I borrow.' It is absurd to suppose that learned men read to him old monkish manuscripts, or the allegories of a previous age; for his design was unknown, he had formed no plan, nor had he any intention to have written such a book, until it came upon him suddenly. His first idea was inspired from one of his own works while composing it, and then the whole story flowed into his mind as quick as he could write it. Every attempt has been made to tarnish his fair fame; the great and learned, the elegant poet and the pious divine, have asserted, but without foundation in fact, or even in probability, that some of his ideas were derived from the works of previous writers. Dr. Dibdin, in his Typographical Antiquities, describing Guileville's Pilgrimage of the Soul, printed by Caxton, says 'This extraordinary production, rather than Bernard's Isle of Man, laid the foundation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress." Mr. Hill and Miss Cust thought they discovered some similar ideas to the Pilgrim in De Guileville's Pilgrimage of Man. The late Dr. Adam Clark, in a postscript to a Life of Bunyan, observes that 'his whole plan being so very similar to Bernard's religious allegory, called the Isle of Man, or Proceedings in Manshire; and also to that most beautiful allegorical poem, by Mr. Edmund Spenser, oddly called the Faëry Queen, there is much reason to believe that one or other, if not both, gave birth to the Pilgrim's Progress." Mr. Montgomery, a devoted admirer of Bun-acters, the faithful dealing, are all his own. And yan's genius, considers that the print and the verses entitled the Pilgrim, in Whitney's Emblems, dedicated to the Earl of Leicester, in 1585, might, perhaps, have inspired the first idea of this extraordinary work." Southey, who investigated this subject with great ability, came to a very pointed conclusion: 'It would, indeed, be as impossible for me to believe that Bunyan did not write the Pilgrim's Progress, as that Porson did write a certain copy of verses entitled the Devil's Thoughts.' Now, as these verses were doubtless written by Southey himself, he had arrived at a conviction that Bunyan was fully entitled to all the honour of conceiving and writing his great allegory. Still, he says, 'the same allegory had often been treated before him. Some of these may have fallen in Bunyan's way, and modified his own conceptions Every assertion or suggestion of this kind that came to my knowledge has been investigated, and the works referred to have been analyzed. And beyond this, every allegorical work that could be found previous to the eighteenth century, has been examined in all the European languages; and the result is a perfect demonstration of the complete originality of Bunyan. 'It came from his own heart.' The plot, the char what is more, there has not been found a single phrase or sentence borrowed from any other book, except the quotations from the Bible, and the use of common proverbs. To arrive at this conclusion has occupied much time and labour, at intervals, during the last forty years. It The first allegory of this kind was written about four hundred years before the advent of our Lord, by a Greek philosopher, Cebes the Theban. was translated by John Healy, 1616. It has been many times republished in new and improved translations. I have used an edition of 1774, in the British Museum. Cebes falls asleep in a grove, and dreams that Experience unfolds to him the circuit of life. Entering upon the world with the multitude, his guide warns him to beware of dangers fatal to happiness. Genius and Education give their advice, to which very few attend. The multitude are seduced by a painted lady, named Deceit. They are then tempted by and Avarice; Flattery follows, and completes the Fornication, Intemperance, Luxury, Ambition, 5 Southey's Life of Bunyan, p. xc. delusion. It is excellent advice from cold philo- | is for common men to breathe. In this view, sophy to avoid the hot temptations which are so Bunyan's work comes nearer to the inspired adverse to temporal happiness and prosperity. poetry of the Hebrews in its character than any The downward road to ruin is the same as under other human composition. He wrote from the the Christian system; commencing with Deceit, impulse of his genius, sanctified and illuminated Folly is urged on by unbridled passions. It by a heavenly influence; as if, indeed, he had wants all the animation, that warmth which can exerted no voluntary supervision over its exeronly arise from the glories and terrors of the cise. Everything is as natural and unconstrained world to come-eternity. The first edition has as if it had not been intended for public inspecno dream, but in the temple of Saturn an old tion. There has not been found any model with gentleman points out in a picture the tempta- which it can even be compared. It is a beautitions which beset human life.' ful transparency, seen as the heavenly light shines through-the renewed spirit alone enjoys the picture in its perfection, with all its chaste but glowing colours. It can be fully appreciated only by him who possesses that spiritual light without which the things of God and heaven cannot be discerned. The works read and analyzed, with the exception of the Theban Cebes, commence with our monkish manuscripts, and continue through the printed books published prior to the Reformation, when the church, having no competition in the cure of souls, spoke out without disguise; and from that time to 1678, when our Pilgrim appeared. Many, if not all the works so examined, contain useful information; and some of them show what was taught by the Church of England when she refused the Bible to the laity, and was unreformed. And, as my readers ought to judge for themselves, while, in most cases, these rare volumes are beyond their reach, it may prove useful to print these analyses, and then every reader can form his own opinion as to the probability, or rather the impossibility, of Bunyan's having gained any idea, or phrase, or name, from any source but his own prolific imagination. My determination in all these researches has been to report the whole truth; and had it been discovered that some hints might have been given by previous writers, it would not have been any serious reflection upon the originality of a work which has no prototype. This idea is well represented by Mr. Montgomery: 'If the Nile could be traced to a thousand springs, it would still be the Nile; and so far undishonoured by its obligations, that it would repay them a thousand-fold, by reflecting upon the nameless streams, the glory of being allied to the most renowned of rivers." But there has been no discovery of any tributary spring; no borrowed phrases; no more hints even than such as naturally arise from the open treasury or storehouse of Holy Writ. 3 Bunyan's works furnish ample proof that his mind was preparing, for many years, the plan and incidents which render this allegory so striking. This may easily be traced in his works, although it was not known to himself; for, however he was all his spiritual life employed in unintentionally preparing the material, the design struck him suddenly. Twenty years before his great work appeared, he published a most pungent work, called Sighs from Hell. The preface to this book alludes to a pilgrimage; and in it is found some similar ideas to those which occur in the conversation between Christian and Pliable. It thus commences: 'Friend, because it is a dangerous thing to be walking towards a place of darkness, the journey that most of the poor souls in the world are taking with delight, I have thought it my duty to tell thee what sad success those souls have had, and are like to have, by persevering therein. Why, friend, hast thou thy back to heaven and thy face to hell; and art thou running full hastily that way? I beseech thee, stop thy earnest race, and look what entertainment thou art like to have. Hark! dost thou hear the bitter cries of those who have gone before; shall not these mournful groans pierce thy flinty heart? O! sinner, sinner, there are better things than hell to be had, and a thousand times cheaper. O! there is no comparison; there is heaven, there is God, there is Christ, there is communion with an innumerable com remind us of Christian's encouraging words to Pliable! The greatest characteristic of original genius is its spontaneous exertion—the evidence of hav-pany of saints and angels.' How do these ideas ing written without labour and without the consciousness of doing anything remarkable, or the ambitious aim of doing a great work. The greatest efforts of genius flow as naturally as it A copy of this very rare book is in the library of my friend, A. Gardyne, Esq., Hackney. * Introductory Essay to the Pilgrim's Progress, p. xxv. Collins. In examining the following accounts of allegories composed by learned doctors, bishops, and divines, the simple Christian will rejoice and triumph in the amazing superiority of a poor unlettered preaching mechanic, guided only by $ Dr. Cheever. his Bible. Sanctified learning is exceedingly tions. They hold a long conversation, in which is narrated valuable; yet the productions of an unlettered the case of a Duke Fryse, who had consented to be bap tized; man, wholly influenced by the Holy Oracles, otherwise naked, except his crown; but when he had got he is represented with a girdle about his middle, shines resplendently over the laboured, murky into the baptistery, he becomes alarmed by a voice which productions of lettered men, who, forsaking the informs him that it is an unlucky day:simplicity of the gospel, are trammelled with creeds, confessions, canons, articles, decretals, fathers, and, we may almost add, grandfathers. Before entering upon an analysis of De Guileville's pilgrimages, we must notice a most slanderous mendacious report, made by some Roman Catholic in the organ of that body, the Freeman's Journal, September, 1859-that Bunyan in writing his Pilgrim's Progress had copied Guileville nearly verbatim, and that this was proved by a reprint of the Pilgrimage of the Soul, by Miss Cust. Knowing the reckless forgeries by Papists on John Fox-that most truthful and awful historian-I obtained Miss Cust's reprints and found them accurate, but abridged, leaving out all the adoration to the Virgin Mary. Judge my astonishment on finding that Miss Cust was an admirer of honest John Bunyan. Her words are 'Before we proceed to a parallel between the two works of Bunyan and De Guileville, we must premise that the allegory, which becomes in the hands of the former a fascinating narrative, full of vitality and Christian doctrine, is in the work of the latter only a cold and lifeless dialogue between abstract and unembodied qualities." Some similarity is supposed to exist between Bunyan's Pilgrim falling into the Slough of Despond and Guileville's river of Baptism. Both might be by immersion, but the Slough of Despond was a very nasty kind of baptism. There is not one sentence in this book similar to Bunyan-and yet the popish writer calls it nearly a verbatim copy. If such deception is attempted with Bunyan, who can trust them in quoting the fathers! Guileville is the first work, in the order of time, that claims our notice. It is called The Pilgrim. This ancient poem, a manuscript on vellum, illustrated with drawings, but very much damaged, is in the Cottonian Collection in the British Museum; probably translated in the fifteenth century from the first of the Three Pilgrimages, a French manuscript. It is in the form of a dream, and it concludes by fixing the pilgrim as a monk in a Cistercian monastery. Soon after setting out, he is tempted by a golden image, but is driven from it by the appearance of a dead corpse. He then encounters an armed man, who endeavours to entice him to turn aside to see his mistress, and uses a magic circle and incanta 1A Mr. Andrews charges Fox, among other equally groundless slanders, with perverting Lithgow's frightful account of his sufferings on the rack, Fox having died before Lithgow was born! 2 Advertisement to the Pilgrimage of the Soul. Page 17. 'For hym thought he herde a cry For synne and for Inyquyte To dwelle in heuene that fayre cyte.' The duke, although a bishop has got him by one hand, with one of his legs in the baptistery, gets his liberty, and runs away. Hence it appears he was to be immersed, not sprinkled, else the bishop might have managed the baptism with a handful of water. The pilgrim then has a very long adventure with Heresy, who strives earnestly to draw him aside. She is engaged with a pair of scissors, cutting strips from Pelagians, Arians, and other 'Sectys founde false and vntrewe.' These she puts together, to form a new system of divinity. He becomes sadly puzzled; she had laid her nets so artfully, 'In lond, on water, and in the hayr.' He sees many attempt to pass, but all are entangled; at length by fasting and by great penance, he slips through the nets. He is then assaulted by Satan, who tells him that he has devoured thousands of Christ's flock, and has so many arts that he cannot escape him. The devil, to terrify the pilgrim, narrates a recent adventure by which he had succeeded in destroying a holy hermit. He had transformed himself into an angel of light, and went to the hermit, warning him that Satan would soon overcome him if he was not courageous to resist; that he would appear to him in the shape of his father, and if he parleyed with the fiend, he must be lost; and exhorted him to smite the fiend at really came to visit him, when the deluded hermit plunged a dagger to his heart, and thus fell into the jaws of the once with sword or knife. Soon after this, his father fiend. The pilgrim, much terrified, kept crossing himself, at which Satan drew back; and by continuing to make the sign of the cross, he makes his escape. He is then stopped by Fortune and her Wheel, and by Idolatry, but evades them. A fortune-teller wishes him to have his nativity cast, but as he knows that many men are born at the same moment, some to fortune and many to misery, he knows that there can be no virtue in such consultations of the stars. He is then profited by images in churches, to remind us of the holy lives of saints: 'And vn to folkes many on [a one] Ful greet proffyte also they don.' Sorcery endeavours to catch him with her crooked hook; and he is assailed by Worldly-gladness, but escapes. At length Grace Dieu visits him in a stately ship, having a palace and castle on deck. He embarks, and is shown a large baptistery, filled with tears from an eye in a rock. This bath is replenished with tears of repentance, by works of supererogation. Its virtues are thus described:'For it re-cureth euery wounde Call this Baptym the secunde That dothe away alle greuance With which water Dame penaunce Makyth a lye I the ensure To wasche away al ordure, Alye;' water impregnated with alkaline salt. In whiche bath in certayne And many mo than I may telle And so schalt thou by reed of me Grace Dieu fills up the bath, and the pilgrim, naked, enters the baptistery to his middle, and is bathed and washed. She then tells him he may make his choice of monastic orders-Cisterces, Clunys, Charterhous, or Preechers Minours: he chooses to enter the Cistercian order. The porter, 'Drede of God,' at first refuses him; but Charity receives and shows him over the establishment: he is shown many books. The librarian says: 'And my name zeue thou lyste be Which is to seyne I the ensure I reste in skynnes off dede bestis.' She expresses a clear notion of the Old Testament as enlightened by the New: 'I mene as thus in sentement, Were derke and cloudy off his syght Whos schynynge in conclusyoun He is shown a mirror, which exhibits the sins of the person, who looks in it; he is also shown one of Flattery's mirrors, which exhibits the most defiled as angels of purity. He is at length introduced to the chief prior, Obedience, and sits down to dinner: 'And also as I dyde obserue, Abstinence is the freytourer and butler; the servants were the skeletons of those who had founded and endowed the abbey. Wilful Poverty, in a state of nudity, sings a song, ending with 'I slepe in Joye and sekerness For theues may not robbe me.' Unwilling Poverty sits grumbling and murmuring. Dame Chastity at last introduces the pilgrim to Prayer, who makes him welcome in these lines: 'Wherefore callyd I am Prayere That flee to heuene with whynges lyght, To fore the lord to present He then speaks to the pilgrim about the servants, who were the spectres of the founders: 'And eche wyght for his good dede Lyke his meryte off equyte These deede folk which thou dost se.' Grace Dieu, Obedience, Latrya, and Prayer then give him instructions for his future conduct in the monastery, where he remains until death strikes him, and he awakes from his sleep. There is an ancient pilgrimage noticed in Skelton's Ryght Delectable Treatyse upon a Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell. The author recounts his literary labours; inter alia 'Of my ladys grace at the contemplacyoun Of mannes lyfe the peregrynacioun He did translate, enterprete and disclose.' No copy of this pilgrimage has been discovered and identified as his; and very high authority connects the second line with the 'peregrynacioua.' If so, it is in prose; but if the first two lines refer to the Contemplation on the Virgin Mary's Grace, a prose work, and Skelton being a poet, it would lead us to infer that the pilgrimage was in verse. The poem last described may prove to be the translation referred to by Skelton. Be that as it may, Bunyan never gained a hint from John Skelton, the satirist. The Booke of the Pylgrymage of Mun. 4to, 26 leaves. Woodcut of Pilgrim, with staff and cockle shell, and clasped book in his left hand.' Here begynneth a boke, in Frenche called, le pelerynage de L'homme (in latyn, peregrinatio humani generis), and in oure Maternal tunge, the pylgrymage of mankynd, of late drawen and in compendiouce prose copoūded by the reuerent father in god dane william2 hendred Prioure of the honourable place and pryory of Leomynstre: and now newly, at the specyal commaundemente of the same Father reuerent, I haue compyled the tenure of the same in Metre comprehended in xxvi. chaptours as ensuynge appereth. THE TABLE. First, the prologe, with the exposyon and enterpretacyon of the name of their sayd reuerent father in God. Item how man was made of viij partyes. Capitulo primo. Item how almyghty god put adam into paradyce, and of his first age. Ca.. Item the secounde age of mankynde, and howe ye sonnes of noe Bylded the Toure of Babylon. Cap. Item how man procedyd his thirde age, and of the synkynge of cyties. Ca. Item howe Moyses receyuyd ij tables of the lawe in the iiij age of man. Ca. Item howe kyng Salamon byldyd the temple of god in the Cytie of Jerusalem. Ca.. iij vi This rare book is in the library of Queen's College, Oxford. I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Underhill, for the above analysis. Query, is this Skelton's poem? 2 Guillaime de Guileville, moine de chaliz. It was written in 1330, and printed in Lyons, 1485 and 1494, with cuts. Mr. Greswell, in his notice of this book, says, 'Not only in early ages, but in later also, mankind have been found less willing to be instructed by abstract reasoning, than by fables or similitudes. Hence the popularity of these old religious fictions. The "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS' of our day confessedly excels ali others of its kind. And though some have endeavoured to trace its prototype in earlier works, it was a perfectly spontaneous and original effort of the genius of its unlettered author.'-See Annals of Parisian Typography, p. 245. " |