imprisonment, contained in his Narrative. "I found myself," he says, "a man encompassed with infirmities: the parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from the bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should have after brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was likely to meet with, should I be taken from them; especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all beside. Oh! the thoughts of the hardship I thought my poor blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces. Poor child! thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon thee. But yet, recalling myself, thought I, I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you."

The summary punishment which the justices had inflicted upon Bunyan, was not only an act of gross oppression, but obviously a stretch of the law, both as he was apprehended before there had been any proclamation against the meetings, upon a statute which had lain dormant, and as he was convicted upon a mere construction put upon his own words during examination. His detention in prison afterwards turned upon his having been thus irregularly convicted.

On the King's coronation, in April 1661, a general pardon was proclaimed; and thousands who had been committed to prison for nonconformity and other offences, were set at liberty. "In which privilege," says Bunyan, "I should also have had my share, but they took me for a convicted person; and, therefore, unless I sued out a pardon, as they called it, I could have no benefit thereby." Bunyan, therefore, was still detained; and at the next assizes, in August 1661, that he might leave no lawful means of escape unattempted, he did, by his wife, present

a petition to the judges, three times, that he might be heard, and his case taken into consideration. Sir Matthew Hale was one of these judges; and it appears from Mrs. Bunyan's testimony, as preserved in the Narrative, that, on receiving the petition, he expressed a willingness to do for her the best he could, but feared that nothing could be done; and on being assured by one of the justices who had committed Bunyan, that he was a hot-spirited fellow, he waived the matter, and declined interfering. Encouraged, however, by the high sheriff, to make another effort before the judges left the town, Elizabeth Bunyan, who seems to have imbibed a portion of her husband's spirit, again made her way, "with a bashed face and a trembling heart," into the judges' chamber. Addressing herself to Judge Hale, she pleaded the unlawfulness of his conviction; urging that she had been told in London by a nobleman, to whom she had delivered a petition to the House of Lords on her husband's behalf, that his releasement was committed to the judges at the next assizes. "And now,"

she said, "I am come to you, to see if any thing may be done in this business, and you give neither releasement nor relief." "My Lord," said Justice Chester, "he is a pestilent fellow; there is not such a fellow in the country again." "Will your husband leave preaching?" said Judge Twisdon: "if he will do so, then send for him."

My Lord," replied Elizabeth Bunyan," he dares not leave preaching, as long as he can speak." "See here!" exclaimed the last-mentioned judge; "what should we talk any more about such a fellow? Must he do what he lists? He is a breaker of the peace." "He desires to live peaceably, my Lord," rejoined Mrs. Bunyan, "and to follow his calling, that his family may be maintained. Moreover," she added, "I have four small children that cannot help themselves, one of which is blind; and we have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people.” "Hast thou four children?" said Judge Hale: "thou art but a young woman to have four children." My Lord," said she, "I am but mother-in-law to them, having not

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been married to him yet two full years." She proceeded to add, that she was near her confinement when her husband was apprehended; and that the shock brought on premature labour, and the child died. Upon hearing which, Judge Hale, looking very seriously, exclaimed, "Alas! poor woman." Judge Twisdon brutally remarked, that she made poverty a cloak; and that Bunyan was maintained better by running up and down preaching, than by following his calling. "What is his calling?" asked Judge Hale. "A tinker, my Lord," said a bystander. "Yes," rejoined Elizabeth Bunyan, " and because he is a tinker and a poor man, therefore he is despised, and cannot have justice." There was truth in this blunt appeal, and Hale felt its force. "I tell thee, woman," he very mildly replied, “seeing it is so, that they have taken what thy husband spake for a conviction, thou must apply thyself to the king, or sue out his pardon, or get a writ of error." Justice Chester, on hearing the upright judge give her this counsel, could not conceal his vexation; exclaiming, "My Lord, he will preach, and do what he lists." "He preacheth nothing but the word of God," said his wife.

preach the word of God!" said Twisdon in a rage;

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"He

"he

runneth up and down, and doth harm." "No, my Lord," said she," it is not so: God hath owned him, and done much good by him." "God!" said Twisdon, "his doctrine is the doctrine of the devil." My Lord," once more replied this meek, yet spirited woman, "when the righteous Judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doctrine of the devil." There was no answering this; and Twisdon, turning to Hale, begged him not to mind her, but to send her away. The Judge, evidently moved, said again to Mrs. Bunyan, in a tone of kindness: Thou “I am sorry, woman, that I can do thee no good. must do one of those three things aforesaid, namely, either to apply thyself to the king, or sue out his pardon, or get a writ of error; but a writ of error will be the cheapest."

Thus terminated this extraordinary scene. Elizabeth Bunyan left the court in tears; "not so much," she

declares, “because they were so hard-hearted against her and her husband, as from the thought, what a sad account such poor creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord." How could she suppose that one of those judges was a man of saintly piety and integrity! And how little did that judge suspect that the prisoner whose cause was thus pathetically pleaded, was destined by his writings to win to himself an everlasting name, as the guide of Christian pilgrims to the heavenly city! At the coming of the Lord, Hale and Bunyan will not be divided.

Although, in the Pilgrim's Progress, there is nothing that can be construed into personal satire, its Author must be supposed to have had his own case in vivid recollection, when he described the treatment which Christian and Faithful met with at Vanity Fair. The indictment of the pilgrims, if not a parody on the charges brought against Bunyan, conveys the same idea in allegorical terms:"That they were enemies to and disturbers of the trade; that they had made commotions and divisions in the town, and had won a party to their own most dangerous opinions, in contempt of the law of their prince." The language of the witnesses, too, will recall the above exami

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Envy. My Lord, this man is one of the vilest men in the country; he neither regardeth prince nor people, law nor custom; but doth all he can to possess all men with certain of his disloyal notions, which he in the general calls principles of faith and holiness. And, in particular, I heard him once myself affirm, that Christianity and the customs of our Town of Vanity were diametrically opposite, and could not be reconciled; by which saying, my Lord, he doth at once not only condemn all our laudable doings, but us in the doing of them.

Superstition. My Lord, I have no great acquaintance with this man, nor do I desire to have further knowledge of him however, this I know, that he is a very pestilent fellow, from some discourse that the other day I had with him in this town; for, then talking with him, I heard

him say, that our religion was naught, and such by which a man could by no means please God.

Faithful. May I speak a few words in my own de

fence?

"Judge. Sirrah, sirrah! thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immediately on the place. Yet, that all men may see our gentleness towards thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to say.

Faithful. I say, then, in answer to what Mr. Envy hath spoken, I never said ought but this; That what rule, or laws, or custom, or people, were flat against the word of God, are diametrically opposite to Christianity. If I have said amiss in this, convince me of my error, and I am ready, here before you, to make my recantation. As to the second, to wit, Mr. Superstition and his charge against me, I said only this; That in the worship of God there is required a divine faith; but there can be no divine faith without a divine revelation of the will of God. Therefore, whatever is thrust into the worship of God that is not agreeable to divine revelation, cannot be done but by a human faith, which faith will not be profitable to eternal life."

There can be no doubt that it was upon such grounds as these, (whether valid or otherwise, this is not the place to inquire,) that Bunyan, in common with other nonconformists, objected to the use, and still more to the imposition, of the Book of Common Prayer. He tells us himself, that, on obtaining liberty from the gaoler, (who appears to have confided in him so far as to allow him to go at large upon his word,) he followed his wonted course of preaching, taking all occasions put into his hand to visit those who had attended upon his ministry; "exhorting them to be steadfast in the faith of Jesus Christ, and to take heed that they touched not the Common Prayer, &c.,* but to mind the word of God, which giveth direction to Chris

"An &c.," remarks Dr. Southey, "more full of meaning than that which occasioned the dishonest outcry against the &c. oath." Had the learned Biographer printed the whole of the sentence, however, Bunyan's meaning