2n<i S. NO 102., Dec. 12. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



467 



" The same writer goes on to say ; ' In one pas- 

 sage at least — and we think there are more in 

 Bunyan's works — the Gipsies are spoken of in 

 such a way as would be most unlikely if Bunyan 

 thought he belonged to that class of vagabonds.' 

 I am not aware to what the reviewer alludes ; 

 but should . Bunyan even have denounced the 

 conduct of the Gipsies in the strongest terms ima- 

 ginable — called them even vagabonds and what 

 not — would that have been otherwise than 

 what he did with sinners generally ? Should a 

 clergyman denounce the ways and morals of every 

 man of his parish, does that make him think less 

 of being a native of the parish himself? Should 

 a man even denounce his own children as vaga- 

 bonds, does that prevent him being their father ? 

 It is even a common thing to meet with Scottish 

 Gipsies who will speak with apparently the 

 greatest horror of what people imagine to be ex- 

 clusively Gipsies ; and they doubtless do that sin- 

 cerely ; for I know maqy of them who^ have no 

 feelings in common with the ways of the tented 

 Gipsies. • 



"I think I need hardly say anything further 

 to show that Bunyan was a Gipsy. All that is 

 wanted to make him a Gipsy for certainty, is but 

 for him to have added to his account of his de- 

 scent : 'In other words, I am a Gipsy.' But I 

 have given reasons to show that such verbal ad- 

 mission on his part was, in a measure, impossible. 

 I do not ask for an argument to show that Bunyan 

 was not a Gipsy ; for an argument to show that 

 he was not a Gipsy is impracticable ; but what I 

 ask for is, an exposition of the animus of the man 

 who does not wish that he should have been a Gipsy. 

 That he was a Gipsy is beyond a doubt. To the 

 genius of a poor Gipsy, and the grace of God com- 

 bined, the world is indebted for the noblest pro- 

 duction that ever proceeded from an uninspired 

 man. Impugn it whoso list. 



" Of the FilgriwLs Progress, Mr. Macaulay, in 

 his happy manner, writes : ' For magnificence, for 

 pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle dis- 

 quisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator 

 and the divine, this homely dialect — the dialect 

 of plain working men — was perfectly sufficient. 

 There is no book in our literature on which we 

 would so readily stake the fame of the old unpol- 

 luted English language,' as the Pilgrim's Pro- 

 gress : ' no book which shows so well how rich 

 that language is in its own proper wealth, and 

 how little it has been improved by all that it has 



borrowed Though there were many clever 



men in England during the latter half of the 



special license from tiie king, t/ou must stretch by the neck 

 for it. I tell you plainly.' 



" Sir Matthew Hale tells us that on one occasion, at the 

 Suffolk assizes, no less than thirteen Gipsies Avere exe- 

 cuted upon the old Gipsy statutes, a few years before the 

 Restoration. 



seventeenth century, there were only two great 

 creative minds. One of these minds produced 

 the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Pro- 

 gress :'' the work of a poor English tinkering 

 Gipsy. Will Mr. Macaulay embrace the Gipsy, or 

 will he give him the cold shoulder ? Perhaps we 

 may see.* J. S. 



« 55. Allen Street, New York." 



THE GUNPOWDEK PLOT : MISSING PAPERS CON- 

 NECTED WITH IT. 



In the GentlemaiUs Magazine for October, in an 

 article upon this subject, is the following state- 

 ment : — " Some important papers once existing 

 at the State Paper Office are missing." The 

 Times goes still farther. In a similar article 

 (vide the Times of Nov. 5, 1857), we read : — 



" Even the documents in the State Paper Office are 

 not now so complete as they were known to be ; and it is 

 remarkable that precisely those papers which constitute tlie 

 most imporlaiit evidence against Garnet and the other Jesuits 

 are missing." 



Upon referring to Jardine's Narrative of the 

 Gunpowder Plot (published 1857), I find this as- 

 sertion to be taken from the Preface of that book. 

 To give the whole of the passage : — 



" Many important papers which were particularlj' men- 

 tioned and described by Bp. Andrews, Dr. Abbott, Casau- 

 bon, and other contemporary writers, and some of which were 

 copied by Archbishop Sancroft from the originals so lately 

 as the close of the seventeeath century, are not now to 

 be found. It is remarkable that precisely those papers 

 which constitute the most important evidence against 

 Garnet and the other Jesuits are missing. * * * The 

 missing papers of particular importance are the minutes 

 of an overheard conversation between Garnet and Hall 

 in the Tower, dated Feb. 25, 1605-6 ; an intercepted 

 letter from Garnet addressed to the Fathers and Brethren 

 of the Society of Jesus, dated on Palm Sunday ; and an 

 intercepted letter to Greenway, dated April 4, 1C05-6. 

 That all of these papers were in the State Paper Office 

 when Dr. Abbott wrote his Antilogia in 1613 is evident 

 from the copious extracts from them published in that 

 work, and a literal copy of the first of them, made by 

 Archbishop Sancroft many years afterwards from the 

 State Papers, is still in existence." 



Surely this would appear a very grave imputa- 



" * It is very singular that even religious writers 

 should strive to make out that Bunyan was not a Gipsj'. 

 If these writers really have the glory of God at heart, 

 they should rather attempt to prove that he was a mem- 

 ber of this race which has been so much despised and 

 trampled upon. For thereby the grace of God would 

 surely be the more magnified. ' He raiseth even the beg- 

 gar from the dunghill, and exalteth him above princes.' I , 

 shall wait with considerable curiosity to see whether the 

 next editor or .biographer of this illustrious Gipsy will 

 take any notice of the present work ; or whether he will 

 dispose of it somewhat in this strain : • One of Bunyan's 

 modern reviewers, by a strange mistake, construes his self- 

 disparaging admissions to mean that he was the offspring 

 of Gipsies!'" 



