was, could sit and hear an illiterate tinker prate, he replied: May it please your majesty, could I possess that tinker's abilities for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.”* The anecdote, if true, may be thought to illustrate the modesty and generous candour of Owen, himself an accomplished pulpit orator, as much as the power of Bunyan's native eloquence; yet it is quite credible, that Owen should prize above all his scholastic attainments, the native genius displayed by the uneducated preacher, in combination with the peculiar unction that appears to have characterised his ministry. "Even some to whom he had been misrepresented upon the account of his (want of) education," says the Continuator of his Narrative," were convinced of his worth and knowledge in sacred things, as perceiving him to be a man of sound judgment, delivering himself plainly and powerfully; insomuch that many who came spectators for novelty, rather than to be edified and improved, went away well satisfied with what they heard, and wondered, as the Jews did at the apostles, whence this man should have these things.'

Besides his annual visit to London, Bunyan occasionally visited other parts of the country; "insomuch," says the same authority, "that some, by these visitations that he had made, which were two or three every year, (though in jeering manner, no doubt,) gave him the epithet of Bishop Bunyan; while others envied him for his so earnestly labouring in Christ's vineyard." The Baptist congregation. at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, is supposed to have been founded by him. There is a deep dell in a wood near the

Ivimey's History of the English Baptists, Vol. II. p. 41. Southey treats the anecdote as apocryphal, without assigning any other reason for his incredulity, than that such an opinion would be discreditable to Owen's judgment, if he really entertained it. Yet he remarks of the following anecdote, that it authenticates itself. "One day, when he had preached with peculiar warmth and enlargement, some of his friends came to shake hands with him after the service, and observed to him, what 'a sweet sermon' he had delivered. 'Aye!' he replied, you need not remind me of that; for the devil told me of it before I was out of the pulpit.'" This story has been told of others besides Bunyan, but it may belong to him.

village of Preston, where a thousand people could collect; and there Bunyan, used frequently to preach to large congregations. A chimney-corner, in a house in the same wood, is still looked upon with veneration, as having been the place of his refreshment.* About five miles from Hitchin, was a famous puritan preaching-place, called Bendish,† where also Bunyan was in the practice of preaching, in an old malt-house; and the pulpit was carefully removed, as an honoured relic, when, in 1787, the meeting was transferred to Coleman's Green. Other congregations in Bedfordshire are believed to owe their origin to his midnight preaching during his imprisonment, when he enjoyed the liberty, by sufferance, of making secret excursions to visit his friends. Reading, in Berkshire, was another place which he frequently visited; and a tradition has been preserved by the Baptist congregation there, that he sometimes went through that town dressed like a carter, with a long whip in his hand, to avoid detection. The house in which the Baptists met for worship, stood in a lane; and from the back door, they had a bridge over a branch of the river Kennett, whereby, in case of alarm, they might escape. In a visit to that place, prompted by his characteristic kindness of heart, he contracted the disease which brought him to his grave. The son of a gentleman who resided there, having fallen under his father's displeasure, who threatened to disinherit him, applied to Mr. Bunyan to act as a mediator on his behalf. He did so with good success; and it was his last labour of love. As he returned to London on horseback, he was overtaken by heavy rains,

The following anecdote has been preserved by tradition. At a house near Preston Castle, about three miles from Hitchin, the nonconformist ministers used to meet for mutual conference. At one of these meetings, that difficult text, Rom. viii. 18-22, was spoken from. When it came to Mr. Bunyan's turn to speak, he only said, "The Scriptures are wiser than 1." Luther confessed that the meaning of that Scripture he could never make out.

+ It was a low, thatched building, running in two directions. A large square pulpit stood in the angles, and adjoining it was a "high pew, in which ministers sat, out of sight of informers, and from which, in case of alarm, they could escape into an adjacent cave."

and took cold. A violent fever ensued; and, after an illness of ten days, he "resigned his soul into the hands of his most merciful Redeemer." He died at the house of his friend Mr. Struddock, (or Stradwick,) a grocer, on Snowhill, on the 12th of August, 1688, in the 61st year of his age; and was buried in his host's vault at Bunhill-fields, where a handsome tomb has been erected to his memory.

The following description of his person and character has been drawn by his first Biographer. "He appeared in countenance to be of a stern and rough temper, but, in his conversation, mild and affable; not given to loquacity or much discourse in company, unless some urgent occasion required it; observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but rather to seem low in his own eyes, and submit himself to the judgment of others; . . . . loving to reconcile differences, and make friendship with all. He had a sharp, quick eye, accompanied with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit. As for his person, he was tall of stature, strong-boned, though not corpulent; somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes; wearing his hair on his upper lip, after the old British fashion; his hair reddish, but, in his latter days, time had sprinkled it with grey; his nose well set, but not declining or bending, and his mouth moderately large; his forehead somewhat high; and his habit always plain and modest."

Of his four children, (there were none by his second marriage,) three survived him:† the blind daughter, on whose

It appears that, at the time of his death, the lord mayor, Sir John Shorter, was one of his London flock. A memorandum preserved in Ellis's Correspondence thus records his death, September 6, 1688: "Few days before died Bunian, his Lordship's teacher or chaplain; a man said to be gifted in that way, though once a cobler."

Thomas, the eldest son, was received into communion with the Baptist Church at Bedford, November 6, 1673, just after his father had obtained his liberty, and continued a member for forty-five years, preaching occasionally in the adjacent villages. Katherine Bunyan, admitted a member in 1692, and John Bunyan, received into communion June 27, 1693, are supposed to have been grand-children of Mr. Bunyan. In the burial-ground of the Bedford meeting-house, is a stone in memory of his great-grand-daughter, Hannah Bunyan, who died Feb. 15, 1770, aged 76.

behalf he expressed such tender solicitude, died a few years before him. His wife Elizabeth, who had pleaded his cause with so much energy and feeling before the justices, "having lived to see him overcome his labour and sorrow, and pass from this life to receive the reward of his work, long survived him not; for, in 1692, she died, to follow her faithful pilgrim from this world to the other; whilst his works," quaintly adds the same Biographer, "which consist of sixty books, remain for the edifying of the reader, and praise of the author."

Bunyan was a voluminous writer. Besides the works already enumerated, he published from time to time a number of theological and polemical tracts; and he appears to great advantage as a controversial writer, in contrast with his acrimonious and intolerant assailants. He was reluctantly drawn into a dispute with some of the most eminent Baptist ministers of the day, who attacked him with disgraceful virulence for maintaining the principle and practice of what is termed open communion; that is to say, for admitting persons of other denominations to communion at the Lord's Table, on the principle, that "differences of judgment about water baptism" are "no bar to communion." In his tracts upon this litigated point, he discovers an enlightened tolerance and a catholicity of feeling, not only far removed from the narrow views and bigoted prejudices of his brethren, but far in advance of the spirit of his age. The Holy War, published also in his life-time, (apparently before the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress,) would of itself have immortalized its author, had he produced nothing else. Shortly after his decease, his widow put forth an advertisement, stating her inability to print the writings which he left unpublished, some of them prepared for the press. Four years, however, elapsed before, in 1692, his collected works, including several posthumous writings, were published in one volume folio, edited by Ebenezer Chandler, who succeeded him as pastor of the Bedford congregation, and John Wilson, the first pastor of the Baptist flock at

Hitchin. But this volume did not comprise the whole of his works. In 1735-6, another edition appeared in two vols. folio, edited by Rev. Samuel Wilson of Prescot-street meeting, grandson to the above John Wilson. For a reprint of this, the Rev. George Whitfield furnished a recommendatory preface. A later edition has been published in 6 vols. 8vo.; and an edition of his "Select Works" was printed in 1808. The Third Part of the Pilgrim's Progress, which appeared after his death, and is included in many editions of his incomparable work, is not genuine, and bears the indubitable marks of an inferior imitator.

It is impossible to form even a conjecture as to the number of editions through which the Pilgrim's Progress has passed. Dr. Southey thinks it probable that no other book in the English language has obtained so constant and so wide a sale. The prints which have been engraved to illustrate it, would form a curious and extensive collection, exhibiting every variety, from the worst specimens, both in wood and copper, up to the vignettes from Harvey's spirited designs, and the copper-plates from Martin, which adorn the elegant edition to which is prefixed Dr. Southey's Life of the Author, and the exquisite series of Illustrations by Melville, now presented to the admirers of the Prince of Dreamers. A list of the several languages into which the Pilgrim's Progress has been translated, would be not less curious. Bunyan," remarks Dr. Southey, "could little have supposed that his book would ever be adapted for sale among the Romanists. Whether this was done in the earliest French translation, I do not know; but in the second there is no Giant Pope.... The First Part, under the title of Le Pelerinage d'un nommé Chrétien,' forms one of the volumes of the Petite Bibliothéque du Catholique,' and bears in the title-page a glorified head of the Virgin! A Portuguese translation of the First Part also, and in like manner cut down to the opinions of the public for which it was designed, was published in 1782. Indeed, I believe there is no European language into which the Pilgrim's Progress has not been

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