Some have of late, to counterfeit

My Pilgrim, to their own my title set;

Yea, others, half my name and title too,

Have stitched to their books, to make them do.

"These interlopers," Mr Southey continues, "may have very likely given Bunyan an additional inducement to prepare a second part himself. It appeared in 1684. No additions or alterations were made in this part, though the author lived more than four years after its publication."

'The Pilgrim's Progress' has been translated into almost all the modern European languages. Next to the Bible, it is probably the most popular book in the world. Writers of all parties, and of every variety of taste, have concurred in representing it as a master-piece of piety and genius, in which sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail.' It is certainly the finest allegorical piece of writing extant.

"If this work," says Southey, "is not a well of English undefiled, it is a clear stream of current English, the vernacular speech of his age; sometimes, indeed, in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plainness and its strength. To this natural style Bunyan is in some degree beholden 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. Another cause of his popularity is, that he taxes the imagination as little as the understanding. The vividness of his own imagination is such, that he saw the things of which he was writing as distinctly with his mind's eye as if they were indeed passing before him in a dream. And the reader, perhaps, sees them more satisfactorily to himself, because the outline only of the picture is presented to him, and the author having made no attempt to fill up the details, every reader supplies them according to the measure and scope of his own intellectual and imaginative powers."

Mr Ivimey remarks, "The plan of this work is admirable, being drawn from the circumstances of his own life, as a stranger and pilgrim, who had left the City of Destruction,' upon a journey towards the 'Celestial Country.' The difficulties he met with in his determination to serve Jesus Christ, suggested the many circumstances of danger through which this pilgrim passed. The versatile conduct of some professors of religion, suggested the different characters which Christian met with in his way; these, most probably, were persons whom he well knew, and who, perhaps, would be individually read at the time. His deep and trying experience, arising from convictions of sin, drew the picture of a man with a heavy burden upon his back, crying as he fled from destruction, but going he knew not whither, Life! life! eternal life !'"

"With the account of his experience and imprisonment before us," Mr Ivimey justly observes, "we cease to wonder that Bunyan's fine imagination, though he had no books but the Bible, and Fox's Acts and Monuments,' should produce so exquisite a performance as 'The Pilgrim's Progress' it naturally grew out of the circumstances of his life. The manner in which he relates the steps that led to its composition and publication, is so simple and yet so expressive, that though it is printed with every edition of this work, as the author's apology

for it, yet I cannot withhold myself the pleasure of inserting it in this place.

When at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book,
In such a mode; nay, I had undertook
To make another; which, when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun :

And thus it was-I, writing of the way,
And race of saints, in this our gospel day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory,

About their journey, and the way to glory,
In more than twenty things which I set down :
This done, I twenty more had in my crown;
And they again began to multiply,

Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.
Nay then, thought I, if that you breed so fast,
I'll put you by yourselves, lest you at last
Should prove ad infinitum, and eat out
The book that I already am about.
Well, so I did, but yet, I did not think
To show to all the world my pen and ink
In such a mode; I only thought to make
I knew not what; nor did I undertake

Thereby to please my neighbour; no not I;
I did it mine own self to gratify.

Neither did I but vacant seasons spend,

In this my scribble, nor did I intend

But to divert myself, in doing this,

From worser thoughts, which make me do amiss.
Thus I set pen to paper with delight,

And quickly had my thoughts in black and white :

For having now my method by the end,

Still as I pulled, it came; and so I penned

It down; until at last, it came to be,

For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.
Well, when I had thus put my ends together,

I showed them others, that I might see whether
They would condemn them, or them justify;

And some said, Let them live; some, let them die;
Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so;
Some said, It might do good, others said, No.
Now was I in a strait, and did not see
Which was the best thing to be done by me;
At last I thought, since you are thus divided,
I print it will; and so the case decided.'

"Thus, it appears, that, concerning this work, which, from the excellence of its matter, and from the circumstances in which it was written, has excited universal admiration, the good man was himself obliged to give the casting vote in its favour, and was doubtless charged with vanity by many for publishing it: but he will now be justified, as actuated by the spirit of love and of a sound mind."

Bunyan was restored to liberty in 1672, through the interference, it is generally supposed, of Barlow, bishop of Lincoln. Soon after his enlargement, he built a chapel at Bedford, by the contributions of his friends; and here he continued to preach to large audiences till his death. He also occasionally extended his ministrations to the surrounding country. Little, however, has been recorded of his life dur

ing the sixteen years which elapsed between his enlargement and death. He died in London on the 12th of August 1688. He is described as having been "tall of stature, strong-boned, but not corpu lent, 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 nor bending, and his mouth moderately large, his forehead somewhat high, and his habit always plain and modest."

6

Bunyan's writings are numerous, and of very different degrees of merit. Besides The Pilgrim's Progress,' he is the author of another allegorical treatise, entitled, The Holy War.' It is, however, a work of very inferior merit compared with the other.

The fall and recovery of man are represented in The Holy War' by two remarkable revolutions in the town of Mansoul: the human soul being represented allegorically as a once beautiful and prosperous town, seduced from its allegiance to its king and governor by the stratagems of Diabolus, his inveterate enemy; but, after a tedious war, again re covered by the victorious arms of Immanuel, the king's son. Bunyan was not unqualified for the management of a military allegory, having himself been a soldier in early life, and present at some of the contests in the civil war. His works were collected and published in folio, in 1692, by Ebenezer Chandler, Bunyan's successor at Bedford, and John Wilson, a brother pastor. His biography has engaged several pens. Scott, Burder, Ivimey, and Southey, have written memoirs of Bunyan; and several elaborate essays on his writings and genius have appeared in periodical works.

George For.

BORN A. D. 1624.-died a. D. 1690.

GEORGE FOX, the founder of the society of friends or quakers, was born at Fenny-Drayton, a village of Leicestershire, in the year 1624. His father is reputed to have been a man of strictly religious habits, and to have paid great attention to the education of his son. He was however in the humble rank of a weaver, and was very probably infected with something of the fanaticism which too frequently prevailed in that age, prolific above all others in forms of opinion and variety of sects. George Fox was apprenticed at a suitable age to a grazier, and there is little doubt that his occupation tended to foster the native bias of his mind. The keeping of sheep has been found in all ages favourable to meditation. The pastoral life has been honoured by some of the most illustrious visions of inspiration, and it has often also been a nursery of wild imaginations and fanatical delusions.*

At the age of nineteen he professed to have received a divine com

• Whatever were the extravagances and improprieties of George Fox's public conduct, to which we cannot avoid alluding, we wish to infer from them no charge whatever against that highly respectable and benevolent body who own him as the founder of their sect, but who would, we believe, be the last to justify, or to imitate many of the actions attributed to Fox.

mission or call to forsake his worldly employment, and commence the work of a religious reformer. Having equipped himself with a leathern doublet, he forsook his situation and commenced a wandering life without any very distinct notions of the nature of the reform he wished to promote, or any plan of operations. Having made his way to London, he remained for some time concealed in obscurity, but was at length discovered by his relations, and through their earnest importunities was induced to return with them to his home. But his inclination to reform the vices and errors of the time was not to be thus repressed. After a short period he again commenced his itinerant life, sought retirement in woods and solitudes, read and studied the Bible, and practised fasting. Sometimes he affected the hermit, and would sit enclosed for a whole day in a hollow tree! When he was about four and twenty he began to propagate his opinions publicly, and commenced as a preacher first in Manchester, where for a time he gained little attention. After this he moved from place to place through the adjoining counties, and usually preached in the market-places, where he was variously received, being sometimes treated with scorn, and often with cruelty and persecution. By degrees his opinions assumed a definite shape, and he began to enforce those peculiarities of dress, language, and sentiment, which constitute now the peculiarities of quakerism. About this period too, the sect, which began to number a few proselytes, received the nickname of quakerism. It is said to have originated at Derby in consequence of their trembling and agitated mode of delivery, as if suffering under a divine afflatus, and also in their calls upon the magistracy to tremble before the Lord. In some places the rude attacks of Fox, or some of his preachers, upon the public worship of other bodies of Christians, produced serious disturbances. In 1655, Fox was seized by the magistracy and remitted as a prisoner to Cromwell: but that wise usurper soon discovered by a personal examination that there was nothing in the opinions of Fox inimical to the stability and order of civil government, and in consequence he ordered him to be immediately restored to liberty. The local magistrates, however, were indisposed to treat him with similar lenity. Indeed the conduct of Fox and his partisans in disturbing the ministers during their public services, by violent exclamations and indecent interruptions, justly exposed them both to censure and punishment; and had it not been for the kindly interference of the protector on several occasions, Fox would not have escaped with impunity. Notwithstanding the license he had hitherto taken in assailing other sects, he considered himself and his party the subjects of unchristian persecution, and in many instances they undoubtedly were so. When a public fast was appointed on account of the persecution of protestants abroad, he took occasion to publish an address to the heads and governors of the nation, in which he powerfully appealed against similar severities, as he considered them, exercised against Christian professors at home. This protest was not without its use in exposing the inconsistency and impolicy of persecution under any circumstances, and in any of its forms. During the early part of Charles the Second's reign, Fox, like all other dissenters, was subject to many cruelties. Previous, however, to this period, he had made many proselytes to his opinions. In the year 1666 we find him in prison for his nonconformity, and in the same year he was liberated