He is martyred, not in shadow, but in ill spare. We feel that the story owes reality, at Vanity Fair. Hopeful talks much of its charm to these occasional to Christian about Esau's birthright glimpses of solemn and affecting suband about his own convictions of jects, which will not be hidden, which sin as Bunyan might have talked with force themselves through the veil, and one of his own congregation. The appear before us in their native aspect. damsels at the House Beautiful cate- The effect is not unlike that which is chize Christiana's boys, as any good said to have been produced on the ladies might catechize any boys at a ancient stage, when the eyes of the Sunday School. But we do not believe actor were seen flaming through his that any man, whatever might be his mask, and giving life and expression genius, and whatever his good luck, to what would else have been an incould long continue a figurative his-animate and uninteresting disguise. tory without falling into many incon- It is very amusing and very instrucsistencies. We are sure that incon- tive to compare the Pilgrim's Progress sistencies, scarcely less gross than the with the Grace Abounding. The latter worst into which Bunyan has fallen, work is indeed one of the most remarkmay be found in the shortest and able pieces of autobiography in the most elaborate allegories of the Spec- world. It is a full and open confestator and the Rambler. The Tale of sion of the fancies which passed through a Tub and the History of John Bull the mind of an illiterate man, whose swarm with similar errors, if the name affections were warm, whose nerves of error can be properly applied to were irritable, whose imagination was that which is unavoidable. It is not ungovernable, and who was under the easy to make a simile go on all fours. | influence of the strongest religious exBut we believe that no human ingenu-citement. In whatever age Bunyan ity could produce such a centipede as had lived, the history of his feelings a long allegory in which the corres- would, in all probability, have been pondence between the outward sign very curious. But the time in which and the thing signified should be ex- his lot was cast was the time of a great actly preserved. Certainly no writer, stirring of the human mind. A treancient or modern, has yet achieved mendous burst of public feeling, prothe adventure. The best thing, on the duced by the tyranny of the hierarchy, whole, that an allegorist can do, is to menaced the old ecclesiastical institu present to his readers a succession of tions with destruction. To the gloomy analogies, each of which may separately regularity of one intolerant Church had be striking and happy, without looking succeeded the license of innumerable very nicely to see whether they har-sects, drunk with the sweet and heady monize with each other. This Bunyan must of their new liberty. Fanaticism, has done; and, though a minute scru- engendered by persecution, and destiny may detect inconsistencies in tined to engender persecution in turn, every page of his tale, the general spread rapidly through society. Even effect which the tale produces on all the strongest and most commanding persons, learned and unlearned, proves minds were not proof against this that he has done well. The pas- strange taint. Any time might have sages which it is most difficult to de-produced George Fox and James Nayfend are those in which he altogether lor. But to one time alone belong drops the allegory, and puts into the the frantic delusions of such a statesmouth of his pilgrims religious ejacula-man as Vane, and the hysterical tears tions and disquisitions better suited to of such a soldier as Cromwell. his own pulpit at Bedford or Reading than to the Enchanted Ground or to the Interpreter's Garden. Yet even these passages, though we will not undertake to defend them against the objections of critics, we feel that we could The history of Bunyan is the history of a most excitable mind in an age of excitement. By most of his biographers he has been treated with gross injus tice. They have understood in a popular sense all those strong terms of self 66 surely unfair to apply so strong a word of reproach to one who is only what the great mass of every community must inevitably be. condemnation which he employed in a theological sense. They have, therefore, represented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed by means almost miraculous, or, to use their favourite Those horrible internal conflicts metaphor, as a brand plucked from which Bunyan has described with so the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls him much power of language prove, not the depraved Bunyan and the wicked that he was a worse man than his tinker of Elstow. Surely Mr. Ivimey neighbours, but that his mind was ought to have been too familiar constantly occupied by religious conwith the bitter accusations which the siderations, that his fervour exceeded most pious people are in the habit of his knowledge, and that his imaginabringing against themselves, to under- tion exercised despotic power over his stand literally all the strong expressions body and mind. He heard voices which are to be found in the Grace from heaven. He saw strange visions Abounding. It is quite clear, as Mr. of distant hills, pleasant and sunny as Southey most justly remarks, that Bun- his own Delectable Mountains. From yan never was a vicious man. He those abodes he was shut out, and married very early; and he solemnly placed in a dark and horrible wilderdeclares that he was strictly faithful to ness, where he wandered through ice his wife. He does not appear to have and snow, striving to make his way been a drunkard. He owns, indeed, into the happy region of light. At that, when a boy, he never spoke one time he was seized with an incliwithout an oath. But a single ad- nation to work miracles. At another monition cured him of this bad habit time he thought himself actually posfor life; and the cure must have been sessed by the devil. He could distinwrought early; for at eighteen he was in guish the blasphemous whispers. He the army of the Parliament; and if he felt his infernal enemy pulling at his had carried the vice of profaneness into clothes behind him. He spurned with that service, he would doubtless have his feet and struck with his hands at received something more than an the destroyer. Sometimes he was admonition from Serjeant Bind-their- tempted to sell his part in the salvakings-in-chains, or Captain Hew-Agag- tion of mankind. Sometimes a vioin-pieces-before-the-Lord. Bell-ring- lent impulse urged him to start up ing and playing at hockey on Sundays seem to have been the worst vices of this depraved tinker. They would have passed for virtues with Archbishop Laud. It is quite clear that, from a very early age, Bunyan was a man of a strict life and of a tender conscience. He had been," says Mr. Southey, "a blackguard." Even this we think too hard a censure. Bunyan was not, we admit, so fine a gentleman as Lord Digby; but he was a blackguard no otherwise than as every labouring man that ever lived has been a blackguard. Indeed Mr. Southey acknowledges this. "Such he might have been expected to be by his birth, breeding, and vocation. Scarcely indeed, by possibility, could he have been otherwise." A man whose manners and sentiments are decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard. But it is 66 from his food, to fall on his knees, and to break forth into prayer. At length he fancied that he had committed the unpardonable sin. His agony convulsed his robust frame. He was, he says, as if his breastbone would split; and this he took for a sign that he was destined to burst asunder like Judas. The agitation of his nerves made all his movements tremulous; and this trembling, he supposed, was a visible mark of his reprobation, like that which had been set on Cain. At one time, indeed, an encouraging voice seemed to rush in at the window, like the noise of wind, but very pleasant, and commanded, as he says, a great calm in his soul. At another time, a word of comfort "was spoke loud unto him; it showed a great word; it seemed to be writ in great letters." But these intervals of ease were short. His state, during two years and a half, | his own mind had become clear and was generally the most horrible that cheerful, for persons afflicted with rethe human mind can imagine. "Iligious melancholy. walked," says he, with his own peculiar eloquence, "to a neighbouring town; and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell into a very deep pause about the most fearful state my sin had brought me to; and, after long musing, I lifted up my head; but methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give me light; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the house3, did band themselves against me. Methought that they all combined together to banish me out of the world. I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell among them, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Oh, how happy now was every creature over I! for they stood fast, and kept their station. But I was gone and lost." Scarcely any madhouse could produce an instance of delusion so strong, or of misery so acute. Mr. Southey, who has no love for the Calvinists, admits that, if Calvinism had never worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan's works, it would never have become a term of reproach. In fact, those works of Bunyan with which we are acquainted are by no means more Calvinistic than the articles and homilies of the Church of England. The moderation of his opinions on the subject of predestination gave offence to some zealous persons. We have seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of which is named Hephzibah, written by some raving supralapsarian preacher who was dissatisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim's Progress. In this foolish book, if we recollect rightly, the Interpreter is called the Enlightener, and the House Beautiful is Castle Strength. Mr. Southey tells us that the Catholics had also their Pilgrim's Progress, without a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is the Director, and the House Beautiful Grace's Hall, It is surely a remarkable proof of the power of Bunyan's genius, that two religious parties, both of which regarded his opinions as heterodox, should have had recourse to him for assistance. It was through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, overhung by darkness, peopled with devils, resounding with blasphemy and lamentation, and passing amidst quagmires, snares, and pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, that Bunyan journeyed to that bright and fruitful land of Beulah, in which he sojourned during the latter There are, we think, some characters period of his pilgrimage. The only and scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress, trace which his cruel sufferings and which can be fully comprehended and temptations seem to have left behind enjoyed only by persons familiar with them was an affectionate compassion the history of the times through which for those who were still in the state in Bunyan lived. The character of Mr. which he had once becn. Religion Greatheart, the guide, is an example. has scarcely ever worn a form so calm His fighting is, of course, allegorical; and soothing as in his allegory. The but the allegory is not strictly prefeeling which predominates through served. He delivers a sermon on imthe whole book is a feeling of tender-puted righteousness to his companions; ness for weak, timid, and harassed and, soon after, he gives battle to Giant minds. The character of Mr. Fearing, Grim, who had taken upon him to back of Mr. Feeble-Mind, of Mr. Despon- the lions. He expounds the fifty-third dency and his daughter Miss Much- chapter of Isaiah to the household and afraid, the account of poor Littlefaith guests of Gaius; and then he sallies who was robbed by the three thieves, out to attack Slaygood, who was of of his spending money, the description the nature of flesh-eaters, in his den. of Christian's terror in the dungeons These are inconsistencies; but they are of Giant Despair and in his passage inconsistencies which add, we think, through the river, all clearly show how to the interest of the narrative. We strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after | have not the least doubt that Bunyan had in view some stout old Greatheart | Restoration to the Revolution, were of Naseby and Worcester, who prayed merely forms preliminary to hanging, with his men before he drilled them, drawing, and quartering. Lord Hatewho knew the spiritual state of every good performs the office of counsel for dragoon in his troop, and who, with the prisoners as well as Scroggs himthe praises of God in his mouth, and a self could have performed it. two-edged sword in his hand, had turned to flight, on many fields of battle, the swearing, drunken bravoes of Rupert and Lunsford. "JUDGE. Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee? "FAITHFUL. May I speak a few words in my own defence? JUDGE. Sirrah, sirrah! thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immedi ately upon the place; yet, that all men may see our gentleness to thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to say.” Every age produces such men as By-ends. But the middle of the seventeenth century was eminently prolific of such men. Mr. Southey thinks that the satire was aimed at some particular individual; and this scems by no means No person who knows the state trials improbable. At all events, Bunyan can be at a loss for parallel cases. Inmust have known many of those hypo-deed, write what Bunyan would, the crites who followed religion only when baseness and cruelty of the lawyers of religion walked in silver slippers, when those times "sinned up to it still," and the sun shone, and when the people even went beyond it. The imaginary applauded. Indeed he might have trial of Faithful, before a jury comeasily found all the kindred of By-posed of personified vices, was just and ends among the public men of his merciful, when compared with the real time. He might have found among trial of Alice Lisle before that tribunal the peers my Lord Turn-about, my where all the vices sat in the person of Lord Time-server, and my Lord Fair- Jefferies. speech; in the House of Commons, Mr. The style of Bunyan is delightful to Smooth-man, Mr. Anything, and Mr. every reader, and invaluable as a study Facing-both-ways; nor would "the to every person who wishes to obtain a parson of the parish, Mr. Two-tongues," wide command over the English lanhave been wanting. The town of Bed-guage. The vocabulary is the vocaford probably contained more than one bulary of the common people. There politician who, after contriving to raise is not an expression, if we except a an estate by seeking the Lord during few technical terms of theology, which the reign of the saints, contrived to would puzzle the rudest peasant. We keep what he had got by persecuting have observed several pages which do the saints during the reign of the not contain a single word of more than strumpets, and more than one priest two syllables. Yet no writer has said who, during repeated changes in the more exactly what he meant to say. discipline and doctrines of the church, For magnificence, for pathos, for vchehad remained constant to nothing but ment exhortation, for subtle disquisihis benefice. tion, for every purpose of the poet, the One of the most remarkable pas-orator, and the divine, this homely sages in the Pilgrim's Progress is that in which the proceedings against Faithful are described. It is impossible to doubt that Bunyan intended to satirise the mode in which state trials were conducted under Charles the Second. The license given to the witnesses for the prosecution, the shameless partiality and ferocious insolence of the judge, the precipitancy and the blind rancour of the jury, remind us of those odious mummeries which, from the dialect, the dialect of plain working men, was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed. Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. We cannot but admire the ingenuity of this contrivance for shifting the burden of the proof from those to whom it properly belongs, and who would, we suspect, find it rather cumbersome. Surely no Christian can deny that every human being has a right to be allowed every gratification which produces no harm to others, and to be spared every mortification which produces no good To our refired forefathers, we suppose, and no man can justly complain that Lord Roscommon's Essay on Trans- he is shut out from it. lated Verse, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's Essay on Poetry, appeared to be compositions infinitely superior to the allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times; and we are not afraid to say, that, though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty in a very eminent degree. One of to others. Is it not a source of mortithose minds produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress. CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE fication to a class of men that they are excluded from political power? If it be, they have, on Christian principles, a right to be freed from that mortification, unless it can be shown that their exclusion is necessary for the averting of some greater evil. The presumption is evidently in favour of toleration. It is for the prosecutor to make out his case. The strange argument which we are considering would prove too much even THE distinguished member of the for those who advance it. If no man House of Commons who, towards the has a right to political power, then close of the late Parliament, brought neither Jew nor Gentile has such a forward a proposition for the relief of right. The whole foundation of gothe Jews, has given notice of his inten-vernment is taken away. But if gotion to renew it. The force of reason, vernment be taken away, the property in the last session, carried the measure through one stage in spite of the opposition of power. Reason and power are now on the same side; and we have little doubt that they will conjointly achieve a decisive victory. In order to contribute our share to the success of just principles, we propose to pass in review, as rapidly as possible, some of the arguments, or phrases claiming to be arguments, which have been employed to vindicate a system full of absurdity and injustice. and the persons of men are insecure; and it is acknowledged that men have a right to their property and to personal security. If it be right that the property of men should be protected, and if this can only be done by means of government, then it must be right that government should exist. Now there cannot be government unless some person or persons possess political power. Therefore it is right that some person or persons should possess political power. That is to say, some The constitution, it is said, is essen-person or persons must have a right to tially Christian; and therefore to admit political power. Jews to office is to destroy the constitution. Nor is the Jew injured by being excluded from political power. For no man has any right to power. A man has a right to his property; a man has a right to be protected from personal injury. These rights the law allows to the Jew; and with these rights it would be atrocious to interfere. But it is a mere matter of favour to admit any man to political power; It is because men are not in the habit of considering what the end of government is, that Catholic disabilities and Jewish disabilities have been suffered to exist so long. We hear of essentially Protestant governments and essentially Christian governments, words which mean just as much as essentially Protestant cookery, or essentially Christian horsemanship. Government exists for the purpose of |