1830.] [ 225 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Souihey's Life of John Bunyan, pre- 

 fixed to a handsome Edition of Pilgrim's 

 Progress Mr. Southey gathers his mate- 

 rials chiefly from Bunyan's own narrative of 

 his spiritual history, and has told the tale 

 with his usual felicity, and tinged it, more- 

 over, with his own inveterate feelings 

 never, indeed, refusing honour to talents 

 and character, but incapable of withholding 

 a sneer at aU deviations from established 

 tracks. Bunyan was born at Elston, with- 

 in a mile of Bedford, and followed his 

 father's trade of tinkering not a travelling 

 tinker his itineracies were all preaching 

 ones. In his youth he was a rude and 

 roystering fellow a blackguard, as Mr. S. 

 expressively terms him but had early 

 visitations of conscience as to the sinfulness 

 of his course of life. To listen to his own 

 words, he was nothing but wickedness, 

 though he expressly disclaims the sins 

 which most easily beset his caste, drunken- 

 ness and libertinage. A sharp reproof from 

 a poor woman, " no better herself than she 

 should be," put a sudden and permanent 

 stop to the habit of common swearing, and 

 he rapidly, as his sense of decorum ex- 

 tended, threw off his attendance on Sunday 

 sports, bell-ringing, and dancing. By the 

 time he had thus renounced his coarser 

 pursuits, he began to think he was so per- 

 fect, nobody could please God like him ; 

 but this self-complacency was soon shaken 

 by the discourses of some of GifFord's fana- 

 tic congregation at Bedford. They quickly 

 threw him into alarm, and the steps from 

 confidence to despair were few and fast, 

 till the recurrence to his thoughts of certain 

 texts of Scripture recalled him, by degrees, 

 to a state, at the other end of the scale, of 

 something like beatitude of assurance of 

 divine communications. When plunged 

 down to the lowest depths, the strange 

 fancy possessed him to sell his Saviour 

 the devil suggested, " Sell him, sell him ;" 

 and he escaped raving madness only by ex- 

 claiming, " I will not, I will not." His 

 reading of the Scriptures was never relaxed, 

 and filled as his mind was with unconnected 

 passages, they associated occasionally with 

 his feelings in singular unions, and wrought 

 in him the firm conviction of suggestions 

 now by the devil, and now by the Deity. 

 Gifford, his master in theology, died in 

 1655, and soon after, Bunyan occasionally 

 held- forth in the Baptist chapel, and was 

 furnished by the elders with a sort of roving 

 commission into the neighbourhood, where 

 he laboured long and zealously. In 1657 

 he was subjected to a prosecution ; for the 

 establishment, when Presbyterian, as little 

 approved of intinerancy, as when Episcopa- 

 lian after the Restoration. How he escaped, 

 at this period does not appear ; but he was 

 one of the first victims of the bishops on 

 their being replaced. He refused to give 



M.M. New Series VOL. X. No. 56. 



up his vagrant preachings, and was thrown 

 into prison at Bedford, where he continued 

 twelve year's ; but was suffered, through the 

 kindness of the gaoler, and, of course, the 

 connivance of the magistracy, to attend 

 meetings ; and a year or two before his 

 final discharge, he was appointed minister, 

 and suffered to act as minister at the Bap- 

 tist chapel. He Uved sixteen years after 

 his release, though but little is known of 

 his after-career, except that he continued 

 connected with his chapel, and every year 

 visited London, where he drew immense 

 congregations. He died at sixty, in the 

 year 1688. Besides the Pilgrim's Progress, 

 he was the author of the Holy War, not, 

 except in subject, at all inferior to Pilgrim's 

 Progress, and sundry controversial and 

 devotional pieces, filling a couple of 

 folio volumes. " His connexion with the 

 Baptists," says Mr. Southey, "was eventually 

 most beneficial to him ; had it not been 

 for the encouragement which he received 

 from them he might have lived and died a 

 tinker ; for even when he cast off, like a 

 slough, the coarse habits of his early life, 

 his latent powers could never, without some 

 such encouragement and impulse, have 

 broken through the thick ignorance with 

 which they were incrusted." Coming once 

 out of his pulpit, some of his friends went 

 to shake hands, and tell him what a sweet 

 sermon he had delivered " Aye," said he, 

 " you need not remind me of that ; the 

 devil told me of it before I was out of the 

 pulpit." 



The work is handsomely got up, and con- 

 tains several extraordinary embellishments 

 by Martin. 



Travels through the Crimea, Turkey, 

 and Egypt, in 1825-28, 2 vots. 8vo., by the 

 laie James Webster, Esq., of the Inner 

 Temple. These are the posthumous papers 

 of a young but very intelligent traveller, 

 relative, many of them, to countries visited 

 of late years by hundreds, and described by 

 scores ; whilst others concern regions less 

 frequented, and of course the account is 

 more welcome such as some parts of Po- 

 lish Russia and the Crimea. Mr. Webster's 

 fate is a melancholy one. A Scotchman by 

 birth, and educated at St. Andrew's,- he was 

 very early distinguished for zealous devo- 

 tion to his books, and for the extent of his 

 acquirements. Destined for the law, he 

 prosecuted his legal studies in London, and 

 at two-and-twenty went to the Continent, 

 meaning to pass a twelvemonth in visiting 

 different parts of Europe, previously to 

 commencing his career at the bar. As usual, 

 where the means of indulgence are at hand, 

 one tour prompted another, and Europe was 

 soon too narrow a scene to bound his ex- 

 panding views. He proceeded to Egypt, 

 and after reaching the Cataracts, and con- 



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