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men that in those times were enabled of God to adventure farre in showing their detestation of the bishops and their superstitions: he was born within a few feet of where we stood, in 1628; the dates he has immortalised occurred to our memory one by one. He began to preach about the

year 1656, was ordained pastor 21st of October, 1671, and died on the 31st of August, 1688. What a marvellous change in the circumstances of the tinker's child! who struggled into existence beneath so humble a roof,* and the termination of HIS life, who triumphed over most bitter

*The research and kindness of Captain Smyth, R.N., have furnished us with a drawing, from the pencil of an eminent divine, who writes thus of the cottage and its locality:

'The house he (Bunyan) lived in at Elstow was a favourite haunt of mine, when I was curate of that parish, on account of its historical associations as well as because there were two very old persons living in it who took delight in showing the very forge at which Bunyan worked so they believed, and so did I. It is all gone now, the cottage having been pulled down some ten or twelve years ago. I send you a sketch made from an old drawing of mine done upon the spot, under some foreboding fears that the time would not be long before the fate which has now come upon it would befall it.' The old cottage was of far more importance in appearance than the new, the shed at the side being what is so often mentioned as 'the forge'-the word 'forge' leading us to believe that to the tinker's' humble calling might be united that of the smith,' a more manly and honourable trade.

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B

persecutions and bequeathed to the world, for all time, a monument such as the Pilgrim's Progress.' The cottage raised upon the ruins of that which he occupied is of the poorest description, with the exception of the beams, which, in their thickness and the lowness of the ceiling, reminded us of the cottage at Chalfont, where Milton sheltered during the plague; it is in nothing remarkable, except, perhaps, being more dilapidated than many of the neighbouring cottages; but if Captain Smyth's communication needed confirmation, it would be in the fact that the cottage presents the appearance of want of care, rather than extreme old age: Mr. Fairholt, as we have said, sketched both; and the cottage as it was, and is, illustrates what we have written. The little garden is dank and tangled; it was overgrown partly by weeds and partly by vegetables, but both were neglected. It was a dear place to live in,' the lace-maker said, and prices for lace so low; they all worked at the pillow, but they earned little, work they ever so late or ever so early strangers often came to see the cottage, but the townsfolk did not think much about it.' It is to be hoped the quiet people of quiet Bedford do not deserve this character; for ourselves, we can only say that those it was our good fortune to meet on our pilgrimage shared our enthusiasm. It was wrong to be disappointed that the poor lace-makers did not feel the influence of the sacred ground upon which they dwelt ; it was, however, a comfort that they were free from the jargon of sight-showers, and suffered us to muse on what we saw-or did not see; not disturbing the enjoyment of that holy SILENCE which subdues tumultuous feelings by its solemn stillness, and calls up the dearest and purest memories to confirm or disprove those fancies which, though the offspring of facts, are frequently unworthy their descent. Some might count that as the very walls were not those that sheltered Bunyan, we had gained nothing by our pilgrimagenot so had the whole place been desolate we still had trodden the self-same place where most of his days were passed; and we still had to visit the scenes of his imprisonment and his preaching. It is, moreover, a holy and elevating exercise to recall the past and its people, and dwell with them even in their silent tombs and mouldering graves.

When he was on the verge of eighteen he was most signally preserved from death, at the siege of Leicester; but this in nothing changed his life, though, doubtless, the providence took good root in his mind, to bring forth

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fruit in due season; soon after this Bunyan married the wife whose father was 'counted godly,' and who was dowered with two books, The Plain Man's Guide to Heaven,' and The Practice of Piety;' this young woman knew her duty, and neglected it not, but wiled her husband tenderly and lovingly into the right path, bearing with his frailties and yet steadfast in her faith and in her love; meek and patient, yet having the great end of his conversion in view, despite his Sabbath-breaking even after his churchgoing, despite his oaths, that would break forth though he considered himself improved in Christian knowledge; despite these, she persevered, she believed in him, she loved him, doubtless as a Christian wife: she prayed for him, earnestly, faithfully; and at last, his often stricken imagination heard the solemn voice on that very 'green' we had just quitted, saying Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to Hell?' When his soul was really aroused and his conscience awakened, he never halted or turned back. Oh what then must have been the joy of his faithful wife, when she saw him put away all worldly strength and vain-glory, and kneel with bending head and contrite spirit, meekly, at the foot of the cross; it is beautiful to observe the stronghearted man with his vigorous intellect and gorgeous imagination, distrusting himself, putting away his own wisdom, continuing instant in prayer, and stimulating his righteousness by the constant perusal of Holy Writ; he at one period looked for sudden impulses, and direct signs and revelations, but after a time—and a long time it was-of turmoil and trial, his fiery spirit became subdued, and, as Doctor Cheever most beautifully says, when writing of him, his piety not only grew elevated and glowing, but strong and impregnable, and of a deep, ripe, serene, and heavenly character, that fitted him as a wise master-builder, for his work with other souls, and as an experienced guide, to mark for others the road that leads to the Lamb.'

Mr. Scott, in the life of John Bunyan affixed to one edition of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' says it is not advisable to recapitulate those impressions which constitute a large part of his religious experience. But to admire him as he deserves to be admired,' says Southey, it is necessary that we should be informed not only of the coarseness of his youth, but of the extreme ignorance out of which he worked his way, and the stage of

burning enthusiasm through which he passed, a passage not less terrible than that of his own pilgrim in the valley of the shadow of death.'

In time, weaned from the Church which had first awoke him to a sense of his spiritual darkness, he became a member of the Baptist congregation of which a Mr. Gifford (whose character had also undergone a great spiritual change) was pastor at Bedford, and after his death Bunyan went frequently forth as a preaching itinerant to neighbouring villages. In the year 1653 Bunyan was first received into this handful of Baptist Christians—and strangely enough the same year, 1653, Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of these realms-there was much similarity in the characters of these two men, but of that we have not space to write, yet the coincidence is singular. Bunyan's wanderings during the Protectorate, over his native county, must have been extensive, as there are traditions of him in numberless villages. He was, like all teachers of his class and time, for a considerable period, an Alarmist rather than a Comforter, but his experience rendered him, as he became older, more hopeful. We have no record of his domestic life during this period—indeed few' preachers' have any to record—and thus it may be that what others consider their home duties,' are so frequently unfulfilled but that he tenderly loved his wife and children there can be no doubt; there is no record of the date of his first wife's death, no telling how or when her simple, chastened, and believing spirit was called to HIM, who had so ordered her pilgrimage on earth as to be peculiarly instrumental in awaking her husband to a sense of sin, and a knowledge of the way, the truth, and the life. That he entertained a truly Christian belief in the instrumentality of women in Christian purposes, is evident from the position he gave to Christiana' in the Pilgrim's Progress.' Certainly before the commencement of the public persecutions against him, in the reign of the Second Charles, he had married a second wife-of whom hereafter. Even during the Protectorate he suffered much from calumny, as all men do who become remarkable by peculiar gifts; but the reign of the dissolute Charles had commenced ; and many remembered the daring words of the nonconformist, and how he had served in the Parliament's army-and so he was arrested at a place called Samsell in Bedfordshire, while addressing a congregation; and after being examined by a Justice Wingate,' committed to Bedford jail, there to

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remain until the quarter sessions. While his mittimus was making out, a Doctor Lindale, whom the nonconformist considered a great enemy to the truth,' rather jested with him, and said he had read of one Alexander the coppersmith, who troubled the Apostles. Aiming this at me,' said Bunyan, because I was a tinker;' upon which I answered, that I had read of priests and pharisees who had their hands in the blood of our Lord.'

Mr. Philip gives the renown of Bunyan's imprisonment to the city prison, which in his (Bunyan's) time stood on the bridge *; but those persons in Bedford with whom we conversed, seemed inclined to the belief, that the greater part, if not the whole, of his twelve years' confinement, was passed in the county jail-which is now a modern structure. We stood upon the bridge,

and looked along the sluggish waters of the Ouse on the left; on the right is the Swan Inn; not the 'Swan,' in a room of which the nonconformist's second wife so heroically pleaded her husband's cause, but a new building, standing as the old one did, on the site of the ancient Castle of Bedford.

* Our engraving is copied from a View published in May, 1783. It is taken from the north side of the river. The church steeple is that of St. Mary's. This building was a gate-house, a part of the ancient fortifications of the town. The grated window of the jail is seen above the old stonework which projects from the bridge into the river, on the spectator's left. A jail similarly built still exists on the bridge at Rotherham, Yorkshire.