WAS JOHN BUN VAN A GIPSY? 



159 



the words of his wife, to Sir Matthew 

 Hale, to the people of the present day : 

 " Because he is a tinker, and a poor 

 man, he is despised, and cannot have 



justice." John Bunyan was 



simply a Gipsy of mixed blood, who 

 must have spoken the Gipsy language 

 in great purity ; for, considering the ex- 

 tent to which it is spoken in England 

 to-day, we can well believe that it was 

 very pure two centuries ago, and that 

 Bunyan might have written works even 

 in that language (p. 516). 



To a candid and unprejudiced person, 

 it should afford a relief, in thinking of 

 the immortal dreamer, that he should 

 have been a member of this singular 

 race, emerging from a state of compara- 

 tive barbarism, and struggling upwards, 

 amid so many difficulties, rather than he 

 should have been of the very lowest of 

 our own race ; for in that case, there is 

 an originality and dignity connected with 

 him personally, that could not well at- 

 tach to him, in the event of his having 

 belonged to the dregs of the common 

 natives. Beyond being a Gipsy, it is 

 impossible to say what his pedigree 

 really was. His grandfather might have 

 been an ordinary native, even of fair 

 birth, who, in a thoughtless moment, 

 might have " gone off with the Gipsies ;" 

 or his ancestor, on the native side of the 

 house, might have been one of the 

 "many English loiterers" who joined 

 the Gipsies on their arrival in England, 

 when they were "esteemed and held 

 in great admiration;" or he might 

 have been a kidnapped infant ; or such 

 a " foreign tinker " as is alluded to in 

 the Spanish Gipsy edicts, and in the 

 Act of Queen Elizabeth, in which men- 

 tion is made of " strangers," as distin- 

 guished from natural-born subjects, be- 

 ing with the Gipsies. The last is most 

 probable, as the name, Bunyan, would 

 seem to be of foreign origin. It is, 

 therefore, very likely that there was not 

 a drop of common English blood in 

 Bunyan's veins. John Bunyan belongs 

 to the world at large, and England is 

 only entitled to the credit of the forma- 

 tion of his character. Be all that as it 

 may, Bunyan's father seems to have 

 been a superior, and therefore important, 

 man in the tribe, from the fact, as 

 Southey says, of his having " put his 

 son to school in an age when very few 

 of the poor were taught to read and 

 write " (p. 518). 



The day is gone by when it cannot be 



said who John Bunyan was. In Cow- 

 per's time his name dare not be men- 

 tioned, " lest it should move a sneer." 

 Let us hope that we are living in happier 

 times. Tinkering was Bunyan's occu- 

 pation ; his race the Gipsy a fact that 

 cannot be questioned. His having been 

 a Gipsy adds, by contrast, a lustre to his 

 name, and reflects an immortality upon 

 his character ; and he stands out, from 

 among all the men of the latter half of 

 the seventeenth century, in all his soli- 

 tary grandeur, a monument of the grace 

 of God, and a prodigy of genius. Let 

 us, then, enroll John Bunyan as the first 

 (that is known to the world) of eminent 

 Gipsies, the prince of allegorists, and 

 one of the most remarkable of men and 

 Christians. What others of this race 

 there may be who have distinguished 

 themselves among mankind, are known 

 to God and, it may be, some of the Gip- 

 sies. The saintly Doctor to whom I 

 have alluded was one of this singular 

 people ; and one beyond question, for 

 his admission of the fact cannot be de- 

 nied by any one. Any life of John 

 Bunyan, or any edition of his works, 

 that does not contain a record of the 

 fact of his having been a Gipsy, lacks 

 the most important feature connected 

 with the man that makes everything re- 

 lating to him personally interesting to 

 mankind (p. 523). 



The innkeeper evidently thought him- 

 self in bad company, when our author 

 asked him for the Tinkler's house, or 

 that any intercourse with a Tinkler 

 would contaminate and degrade him. 

 In this light read an anecdote in the 

 history of John Bunyan, who was one of 

 the same people, as I shall afterwards 

 show. In applying for his release from 

 Bedford jail, his wife said to Justice 

 Hale, " Moreover, my lord, I have four 

 small children that cannot help them- 

 selves, of which one is blind, and we 

 have nothing to live upon but the charity 

 of good people." Thereat Justice Hale, 

 looking very soberly on the matter, said, 

 " Alas, poor woman ! " " What is his 

 calling ? " continued the judge. And 

 some of the company, that stood by, 

 said (evidently in interruption, and with 

 a bitter sneer), " A tinker, my lord ! " 

 " Yes," replied Bunyan's wife, " and be- 

 cause he is .a tinker, and a poor man, 

 therefore he is despised, and cannot 

 have justice." Noble woman ! wife of a 

 noble Gipsy ! If the world wishes to 

 know who John Bunyan really was, it 



