says; "they need but look to their Ministers, and they shall have a lively, or rather a deadly resemblance set before them, -in their riding and running after great Benefices and Parsonages, by night and by day. Nay; they amongst themselves will scramble for the same. I have seen, that so soon as a man is departed from his Benefice (as he calls it,) either by death, or out of covetousness for a bigger; we have had one Priest from this town, and another from that, so run after these tithe-cocks and handfuls of barley, as if it were their proper trade to hunt after the same. "I hope," he adds, "God will give me opportunity and a fair call, that I shall, a second time in this world, give testimony against your filthy conversation." He did so, and in poetry, addressed to Girls and Boys.

TO THE CUCKOO.

"Thou Booby, say'st thou nothing but Cuckoo ?
The Robin and the Wren can thee outdo.
They play to us, from out their little throats,
Not one, but sundry, pretty tuneful notes.
But thou hast Fellows! Some like thee can do
Nothing but suck our eggs, and cry, Cuckoo !"

Divine Emblems.

With not less severity could he lash another kind of wolves in sheep's clothing :-pretenders to supernatural visions and messages. "There are a company of dumb dogs crept into the nation, and they are every one for his gain from his quarter and there are a company of wolves also crept out, wrapping themselves about with sheep's clothing."

His promptness, as well as power, in repartee, never failed him upon emergencies. When Anne Blackly, the sister of Burroughs, the Quaker, called upon him to throw away the Scriptures, whilst preaching, "No," said he; "for then the Devil would be too hard for me." Thus he complimented Anne's talents, and identified the use of them with the devil's, at the same time. Interruptions of this kind were often given to him in the pulpit. The Quakers, he says, "have told me to my face, that I use conjuration and witchcraft, because what I preached was according to the Scriptures. I myself have heard them blaspheme, with a grinning countenance, the doctrine of that Man's second coming from heaven above the stars, who was born of the Virgin Mary." Anne Blackly was the leader of these public interruptions. Bunyan was

unwilling, for a time, to expose her to the world: but when Burroughs denied that any Quaker would condemn him for preaching according to the Scriptures, he published sister Anne's ravings, "as a warning to others."

A friendly Quaker visiting him one day in Jail, introduced himself thus," Friend Bunyan, the Lord hath sent me with a message to thee, and I have been searching for thee every. where." 66 Nay, Friend," said Bunyan, "if thy message to me had been from the Lord, he would have told thee where to find me; for I have been long here." This reply gave rise probably to the similar one of Caffin. He was a farmer as well as a preacher, and thus suspected of paying tithes. A Quaker, therefore, came to him and said, "Matthew Caffin, I have a message from the Lord to thee: I am come to reprove thee for paying tithes to the priests, and to forbid thy doing so any more. "Thou art not sent of the Lord, but deceived," said Matthew, "for I never did pay tithes, nor am I likely to be charged with any." The farm was tithe-free to him.Taylor's Gen. Baptists.

One chief fund of Bunyan's wit lies where it has never been suspected; in his "Divine Emblems for the use of Boys and Girls." There are whole sheaves of "polished shafts" hid in that little Book. He placed them there, he says, on the principle,

"That 'tis the arrow out of sight

Does not the Sleeper or the Watcher fright."

At least, he thus foreHe says,

He could not, however, keep his own secret. told too much in his Preface, not to forewarn, and arm, some of the grown-up children of his times.

"The Title Page will show, if thou wilt look,
Who are the proper subjects of this book.
They're boys and girls, of all sorts and degrees,
From those of age, to children on the knees.
Thus comprehensive am I in my notions.

They tempt me to it, by their childish motions!
We now have boys with beards, and girls that be
Huge as old women, wanting gravity.

Our bearded men, do act like beardless boys,
Our women please themselves with childish toys."

It was, perhaps, necessary that he should be thus explicit, in order to sustain his own character amongst the wise and the

grave, when he played "the very Dotril," and cast his "beard behind a bush," to gain the ear of the heedless and trifling. Becoming all things, in order to gain some of the gay and foolish, was a hazardous attempt for a Minister, and hardly in keeping with the solemnities of imprisonment for conscience' sake. Bunyan felt this, and explained his motives thus ;

"Our Ministers, long time, by word and pen,
Dealt with them, counting them not boys, but men.
They shot their thunders at them and their toys;
But hit them not: for they are girls and boys.
The better charged, the wider still they shot;
Or else so high, such Dwarfs they touched not.
Instead of men, they found them girls and boys,
To nought addicted but their childish toys.
Wherefore, Dear Reader, that I save them may,
I now with them the very Dotril play;
And since at gravity they make a tush,
My very beard I cast behind a bush.

Paul seemed to play the fool, that he might gain
Those that were Fools indeed, if not in grain.
A noble act, and full of honesty!"

Preface to Emblems.

In imitating this noble act, Bunyan often indulges his wit, as well as his fancy, and is grave and gay by turns.

Legalist, he says,

Of the

The Hypocrite, as may be supposed, finds no quarter from our sharp-shooter, in the Emblems.

"The Frog, by nature, is both damp and cold.
Her mouth is large; her belly much can hold.
She sits somewhat ascending: loves to be
Croaking in gardens, though unpleasantly.
The Hypocrite is like unto this Frog:
As like as is a puppy to a dog.
He is of nature cold; his mouth is wide,
To prate, and at true goodness to deride.
He mounts his head, as if he lived above,
Although the world is that which has his love.
And though he seeks in Churches for to croak,
He neither loveth Jesus, nor his yoke."

The author of Mammon would not be ashamed of Bunyan's hits at mammonized professors, homely as they are.

"Those Saints whose eyes are always in their pocket,
And Candles that do blink within the socket,

Are much alike. Such Candles make us fumble;
And at such saints, good men and bad do stumble!
Good candles don't offend, except sore eyes;
Nor hurt, unless it be the silly Flies."

The Ostentatious fare no better than the niggardly, in the Emblems.

"Some professing men,

If they do aught that's good, they, like a Hen,

Cannot but cackle on't, where'er they go;

And what their right hand doth, their left must know."
Emblems, vol. ii.

Bunyan's wit, although not much blunted by his rhyme, tells best in his prose. The most daring stroke of it, that I know is terrific. He had been asked, if it was likely that a funeral Sermon would be preached on the death of Badman? "I doubt not," he said, "that some one will be found to bury even GoG himself thus, in the valley of Hamon-Gog!" It is a curious coincidence that, soon after, Dr. Tenison preached a funeral Sermon on the death of the notorious Nell Gwynn, one of the Mistresses of Charles II. The Earl of Jersey, very properly, started this fact, as a reason against Tenison's nomination to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The Queen, however, overruled the objection, on the ground that the Dr. was too good a man to have spoken well of "the Protestant Courtezan," if she had not deserved it by her penitence. Tenison was so twitted for this Sermon by the Papists, (an exaggerated report of which was hawked through London. Biog. Brit.,) that he apprized the public of the incorrectness of the first printed report of it. I have never seen the Sermon in any form: but Nell's Will contains the appointment of Tenison as the preacher. She bequeathes a pulpit-cloth and cushion to his Church, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields; and places at his disposal 150l. for the poor of the parish: fifty pounds of which are for the benefit of those from whom she differed in her religion,—the Romanists! She was interred "with great solemnity," at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.-New Monthly, 1838. The fact is, funeral Sermons were fashionable then. One Dignitary saved his conscience in preaching one

for a worse character than Nell. He said, she was born well -lived well-and died well; and then preached a sermon on Death. The fact is, the names of the towns in which she lived and died-ended in the syllable well! The Archbishop was not so fortunate as his contemporary. He had to take Nell Gwynn as he found her.

Bunyan said of Badman's children, "They had, like Esau, to join in affinity with Ishmael; to match, live, and die with Hypocrites: the Good would not trust them, because they were bad in their lives; and the Bad would not trust them, because they were good in their words. Their Father did not like them, because they had their Mother's tongue; and their Mother did not like them because they had their Father's heart and life and thus they were not fit company for good or bad."-Works, vol. ii. p. 876.

When Bunyan borrowed a sharp arrow from another man's quiver, he shot it well. "As Luther says, 'In the name of God, begins all mischief; for Hypocrites have no other way to bring their evils to maturity, but by mixing the name of God and Religion with them. So Master Cheat stands for a right honest man. Some are arch-villains in this way. They use the white of Religion to hide the dirt of their actions."vol. ii. p. 900.

-Works,

"He is 'penny wise and pound foolish,' they say, 'who loseth a good ship for a halfpenny worth of tar :' what then is he who loseth his soul for a little of this world?"-Works, vol. ii. p. 901.

"The Holy War" abounds with sparkling Wit, as well as with profound metaphysics. It is, altogether, "a witty invention," which verifies the proverb, that "Wisdom dwells with Prudence." Mr. Conscience, the Recorder of Mansoul, was "put out of place by Diabolus," Bunyan says, "because he was a seeing man: wherefore he darkened him, not only by taking from him his office, but by building a high and strong Tower between the sun, and the windows of the Recorder's house." Lord Will-be-will also, was, he says, "as high-born, and even more a freeholder than many; having privileges peculiar to himself in Mansoul. Now together with these, he was a man of great strength, resolution, and courage; nor in his occasion could any turn him. A headstrong man he was! He was the first to listen to Diabolus at Eargate, and to welcome him into the town. Diobolus, therefore, made him Keeper of all the Gates, and Governor of the Wall; and then,