(supposed by Mr. Philip, on rather slender evidence, we think, to have been the same who once sneeringly said he would hear the tinker prate), a graduate of the university of Cambridge, and an officiating minister in the established church, who has evinced uncommon tact and talent, faithfulness and candor, both in the outlines, and the filling up of the picture of his noble subject; and from whom, by the way, Mr. Philip might learn a wholesome lesson of self-forgetfulness, while absorbed in the contemplation of a theme so worthy of his own and his reader's undivided regards.

Dr. Thomas Scott, not altogether unknown in the world, has, also, attempted a life of Bunyan. True, his style is not the most attractive, and his sober and plodding step does not march well with a life like this. Scott and Bunyan were both eminently good and holy men; we doubt not they are both in heaven, and sing the same new song in blessed, delightful harmony. But when they were on the earth they were perfect antipodes. They marched under the same banner, indeed they had sworn allegiance to the same Sovereign; they labored indefatigably for the extension of the same kingdom, and either of them would willingly have laid down his life to advance the declarative glory of their common Lord, or save a soul for which he died. But in all things else they were totally unlike. Scott would patiently delve in the deep mine of God's truth, far beneath the surface where the sun shines and the dew falls; while Bunyan, with a quick but sure eye, would discriminate the shining ore amid washed pebbles or accumulating sands. Scott was like a civil engineer: he could carry an embankment through a morass, or tunnel a mountain, so as to secure a dead level track for himself and others coming after him. Bunyan loved the bounding billow, the freedom and the vicissitudes of those who navigate the wide ocean. Had he lived in our day, he would have ridden alone on his ambling steed, or have travelled from Bedford to London on foot, so that he might turn aside to the hedge and hold communion with its feathered songsters, rather than be cooped up in the car of a railroad, or travel through the country inside of a night-coach. Both loved God's truth with their whole hearts; and confided in it alone for the victory they were laboring to secure;

but the one forged that truth into massive battle-axes, while the other gave it the form of winged darts. The one would always contrive how he should build a fort against the enemy; the other beat up his quarters with flying guerillas. The one would freight a heavy Dutch wagon with provisions and various useful implements; the other, like his own matchless Pilgrim, has only his staff and his "roll." It was not, therefore, in the nature of things, that such a man as Scott, should write a popular life of Bunyan; and yet, for a very numerous class of readers, his biography will be more useful than those of his successors.

Mr. Ivimey, the historian of the English Baptists, and the late biographer of Milton, has given us, also, a life of Bunyan. In some respects he had an advantage over his fellow-laborers in this field. He was a Baptist, and felt that sympathy with his persecuted brother, which was likely to beget in him a lively solicitude to wipe away from his fair fame the aspersions of his calumniators. He has done Bunyan simple and even-handed justice, where some other biographers could not, or did not, appreciate the worthiness of his motives, or the dignity and truth of his principles. And though it may be admitted, that Mr. Ivimey is not just the man to do ample credit to such an undertaking, since neither his mental endowments, nor his learning would have prompted his selection from the distinguished circle of English Baptists, for this purpose; still, by preserving unmutilated Bunyan's own account of himself, he has given us an invaluable book. Of the lives of Bunyan by Monsieur Suard, and Mr. St. John, we need give no very particular notice, as they are not much known, or needed, by our readers: The London Eclectic Review says of the latter, that "Mr. St. John's sketch of the life and writings of Bunyan, adds greatly to the value of the edition to which it is prefixed, though it fails to do full justice to the spiritual significance of the allegory;" of which judgment, we do not hesitate to say, that the latter clause is more to be depended on than the former.

Mr. Conder, a writer of very respectable talents, has, also, presented to the world what he regards as a faithful exhibition of the great allegorist. As a somewhat distinguished poet, a veteran editor, and an author of

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extensive reputation, he is well known. His Modern Traveller, and his recent elaborate work, entitled, "An Analytical and Comparative View of all Religions now extant among Mankind," have given him deserved celebrity. We fully coincide in the opinion of the able editor of the London Congregational Magazine, that " Mr. Conder's productions will always be highly appreciated by those who prefer truth to finery, and noble conceptions to any imposing external array in which they may be dressed." His Life of Bunyan is one of his best and most satisfactory efforts. That heavenly-minded Christian poet, James Montgomery, has also given us, if not a professed biography, yet an admirable critique on Bunyan, to which Mr. Philip is obviously indebted, and which might do something towards redeeming our literature from that wonder of foreigners, with which the pastor of Maberly Chapel affects to feel so lively a sympathy.

There remains to be noticed in this connection the first of the works whose titles stand at the head of this article. The Life of Bunyan, by Dr. Southey, though recently republished in this country, has been nearly half a score of years before the public, in a variety of forms of the English editions. And although the first announcement of his purpose to engage in such an enterprise was rather distasteful to Dissenters, and especially to Baptists, some of whom thought it unreasonable to expect a fair view of this subject of church persecution, from the pensioned apologist and advocate of the ecclesiastical tyranny of England, with all its early and late abominations, still we think the Laureate has, in this case, disappointed the fears of those who most earnestly deprecated his undertaking. He has done ampler justice to the genius of Bunyan than most of his predecessors; and much more than justice to the purity and almost blamelessness, as he would represent it,-of Bunyan's character before his conversion. Of course, his high church notions led him to make such a representation, and also to disregard the abundant evidence of that spiritual renovation, which so entirely changed, in this case, both the outer and the inner man. It is truly mournful to witness the bold attempts of Southey to set aside the most unquestionable testimony of Bunyan's established habits, his vileness and thorough ungodliness, for the sake of

accounting for the reform, as he regards it, which was manifest in Bunyan, without involving the peculiar and omnipotent energies of that Spirit by which sinful men are "created in Christ Jesus." Of his disposition to gloss over with honeyed words the real and wicked persecutions, by the unholy combination of church and state, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. With these exceptions (we are grieved that they are faults of such magnitude), the Life by Southey is, indeed, an admirable production. There is a directness, simplicity and beauty in its conception and execution, and a wisdom of compression and selection, which can scarce fail to make it a favorite with the public, and will secure to it the general approbation of Bunyan's admirers. They will be likely to read it, with pleasure and profit, when some more pretending exhibitions shall have figured their brief day upon the stage and been forgotten.

The number of "Lives of Bunyan" might easily be multiplied an hundred fold. We have here noticed only those which there is abundant evidence were in the hands of Mr. Philip when he made the singular discovery of the "wonder of foreigners" abovementioned. And if our readers are not fully satisfied that such an announcement, in the first page of his book, betokens a want of becoming modesty, we very much err in judgment. Indeed, we have seldom seen more striking specimens of self-complacency and extravagant assumption in any author, than are furnished in his preface to the "Life and Times of Whitefield," and in this volume. He begins the former with, "The public have long wondered and regretted that there was no good life of Whitefield." He closes the same preface with the prediction for his work that "it will be read, and read again, for it is entirely in Whitefield's own spirit."

These things are noted more in sorrow than captiousSome of the former writings of this author had given us high and almost unmingled pleasure; and for the sake of that "circle of readers on both sides of the Atlantic, large enough for his ambition," as his vanity proclaims them, we entreat him to remember that "before honor is humility." His work, notwithstanding these blemishes, which are interwoven more or less through every part, has many redeeming excellences. It is writ

ten with the spirit of fraternal and almost enamored interest in Bunyan, which is a kind of guarantee of his willingness to see every event and every act in the life of his distinguished subject, in a fair light. He has very freely mingled his own opinions and reasonings, sometimes unnecessarily, and rather to the injury than to the advantage of the main subject he was prosecuting. But many even of these extraneous remarks and discussions are by no means void of intrinsic interest; and had they been met with in a more fitting connection, would have commanded our cordial approval. The style of the work is lively, and piquant, full to repletion of that racy, breezy freshness, which is sure to keep the reader's attention awake. Though it has not the finished correctness to which one who writes for immortality ought to aspire, yet, it shows that conscious communion with his readers, which is adapted to conciliate their hearty good-will. A cool critic would find work enough for animadversion in the free and jumbled use of mixed metaphors, or even the discordant, ill-assorted use of epithets and attributes, such as "a rainbow dispersing a cloud," and, "enshrining this world with the thunders of the next."

A more serious objection might be raised to numerous instances of flippant and unsustained conclusions, which seem to have been jumped at, because they were fancied. Thus, where Mr. Philip seems positive that Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood in the early life of his BADMAN; because the passage of that early life, which he quotes, "is told with an ease and a point, which experience alone could have reached." Does not the author see to what wild lengths this reason, if carried out, would inevitably lead? It is, in this instance, somewhat worse than unfounded assumption; it is directly against evidence. See the reference to the case of Harry S., page 57. Bunyan says of this individual, "I make mention of him to my shame. That young man was my playfellow when I was solacing myself in my sins. Young Badman was as like him as an egg is like an egg; and, as far as I could ever gather, he lived and died as Mr. Badman did." We need not multiply such instances of false logic and careless judgment; but will remark once for all, that Mr. Philip,-after noticing in his preface what he there seems to think rather a perversion, a disposi