How severely and successfully he could expose drunkenness, the following anecdote, from his own pen, will show. "It is," he says, "a swinish vanity, indeed: I will tell you another story. There was a gentleman that had a drunken servant to be his groom; and (he) coming home one night much abused with Beer, his Master saw it. Well (quoth his Master within himself), I will let thee alone to-night; but to-morrow morning I will convince thee thou art worse than a beast, by the behavior of my horse. So when morning was come, he bids his man go and water his horse. And so he did: but coming up to his Master, he commands him to water him again. So the fellow rode into the water a second time. But his Master's horse would drink no more. So the fellow came and told his Master. Then said his Master, Thou drunken sot, thou art far worse than my horse. He will drink but to satisfy nature; but thou wilt drink to the abuse of nature. He will drink but to refresh himself; but thou to thy hurt and damage. He will drink, that he may be more serviceable to his Master; but thou till thou art incapable of serving either God or man. O, thou Beast, how much art thou worse than the horse thou. ridest on!"" This story is, I am aware, familiar, in a vague form. Bunyan's version of it is, however, worth preserving; it smacks so, of his own style. His," as Dr. Southey well says, "is a nome-spun style, not a manufactured one. It is a clear stream of current English-the vernacular of his age; sometimes. indeed in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plainness and strength. To this natural style, Bunyan is in some degree indebted for his general popularity: his language is every where level to the most ignorant reader, and to the meanest capacity: there is a homely reality about it, a nursery tale is not more intelligible, in its manner of narration, to a child." It can hardly surprise any one, that Bunyan was not wiser than his generation, in regard to old stories about the devil. He gave currency to some of these, without at all questioning their truth, when they happened to furnish warning against the popular vices of his times. It is, however, curious, that while he would believe almost any thing about the devil, if it only showed the evil or the danger of sin, he was very cautious in giving an opinion upon the ministry of Angels. Accordingly when he was told of a "godly old Puritan," whose wife heard, as he was dying, "the sweetest music," "like melodious notes of angels," which went "further and further off from the house," as the spirit departed, Bunyan said, "I cannot say, but that God goes out of his ordinary road with us poor mortals sometimes." He then added, that Badman's wife "had better music in her heart," when she was dying, "than sounded in this woman's ears." Here he is prudent: but in the very next breath, he tells old Clarke's most astounding story of the Woman of Oster, in Germany, without comment or query. "This woman," he says, "used in her cursing, to give herself body and soul to the devil. Being reproved for it, she still continued the same; till, being at a wedding-feast, the devil came in person, and carried her up into the air, with the most horrible outcries and roarings. In that sort, he carried her round about the town, so that the inhabitants were ready to die for fear." I dare not quote more of the scene; except, that the devil threw part of the body upon the banqueting table, before the Mayor, telling his worship, "that like destruction awaited him," if he did not "amend his wicked life." This is very unlike the devil: but Bunyan forgot that, in his anxiety to warn swearers and cursers. Thus his very credulity arose from good motives. Besides, it was not greater than that of more learned men, in these times. Another vice of the age, which he lashed severely, was the indelicate dress of the women, who imitated the court bevy of Charles II. "I once talked with a maid, by way of reproof," he says, "of her fond and gaudy garments. But she told me, the Tailor would make it so. Alas, poor proud girl, she gave the order to the Tailor so to make it. Many make parents, husbands, and tailors, the blind to others: but their naughty hearts, and their giving way thereto,-that is the original cause of all these evils. Many have their excuses ready: but these will be but the spider's web, when the thunder of the word of the great God shall rattle from heaven against them, as it will at death and judgment: but I wish it might do it before." I dare not quote his sketches of fashionable dress. Not, however, that they are extravagant or indelicate; but only too graphic. Bunyan's tastes were chaste, and his mind nobly pure, from the time he became a Christian. Indeed before, he was not a sensualist. Who could keep nearer to truth, or farther from indelicacy, than he does in the following characteristic stroke? "I wonder what it was that, of old, was called 'the attire of a harlot.' Certainly, it could not be more bewitching and tempting, than are the garments of many professors this day." But this subject is sufficiently touched by others. It was not, however, vain professors only, that he could show up graphically. He pilloried the farmers' wives who "made a prey of the necessity of the poor," as well as the "proud dames" who aped the court. Cobbett, with all his powers of description and exposure, never went beyond the following sketch. It only wants names, in order to be a in order to be a perfect story. Even without names, it is all alive, and in motion.-"There is a poor body, we will suppose, so many miles from the market; and this man wants a bushel of grist, a pound of butter, or a cheese, for himself, his wife, and poor children. But his |