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APPENDIX. 



self, that its members, as it were, or 

 in a sense, " skulk through life like 

 thieves, conspirators, or assassins, 

 afraid of being apprehended by all 

 they meet with," in the event of these 

 coming to learn all about them, 

 however good their characters may 

 be. 



When one has a doubt about the 

 spelling of a word he writes it vari- 

 ously, one under the other, and 

 generally picks out the correct one. 

 In the same way let him attempt 

 arguments in favour of the native and 

 Gipsy hypotheses as regards John 

 Bunyari's nationality, and all he can 

 say of the former will be something 

 like the trifling remarks to be found 

 in Blackwood 's Magazine for May, 

 1866, in which it is said: 



"John Bunyan was so exceedingly 

 plain-spoken, that he would most likely 

 have called himself a Gipsy if he were 

 really one," (p. 158). 



In my Disquisition on the Gipsies, 

 I wrote : 



"I do not ask for an argument in 

 favour of Bunyan not being a Gipsy, but 

 a common Englishman, for an argu- 

 ment of that kind, beyond such remarks 

 as I have commented on, is impractica- 

 ble ; 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," 

 (p. 



It is a law in literature, indeed it 

 is common-sense, that if nothing 

 can be said in favour of one of two 

 hypotheses, and everything in favour 

 of the other, the latter must be ac- 

 cepted as the truth; and this we 

 have in the one that Bunyan was a 

 Gipsy. All that is wanting to change 

 the hypothesis into a fact would be 

 Bunyan's verbal acknowledgment, 

 which the legal and social proscrip- 

 tion of the race and name would 

 prevent him making, and which 

 strengthens the Gipsy hypothesis as 

 such; so that if we have not his 

 formal confession, we have his infer- 

 ential admission, as circumstantial 



evidence, which is better than as- 

 sertions either way, when a man's 

 estate, character, or life is at stake. 



That Bunyan was a member of 

 the Gipsy tribe, doubtless speaking 

 its language in great purity, is what, 

 I think, no one that has a regard to 

 reason and self-respect should deny, 

 after the evidence is laid before him. 

 The principal difficulties in the way 

 of receiving him as a Gipsy are the 

 prejudice against the name, and the 

 aversion, as well as the great diffi- 

 culty, however willing, inherent in 

 human nature, to adjust its ideas to 

 a new state of things on a subject 

 that should have been settled two 

 centuries ago. In that respect it is 

 to be hoped that men of such stand- 

 ing as the Duke of Bedford and 

 the Dean of Westminster, who have 

 taken so much interest in Bunyan. 

 will not prove " capable of being in- 

 fluenced by other motives than a 

 regard for the evidence, in coming 

 to a decision on the important mat- 

 ter at issue" (p. 161). Such a state 

 of mind might be looked for in that 

 part of society who take their opin- 

 ions from others, or follow their 

 caprices or passions when anything 

 that is novel, and opposed to popu- 

 lar ideas and prejudices, is brought 

 forward, and who are forever shut- 

 ing their stable doors after their 

 horses have been stolen. 



In the History of the Gipsies an 

 elaborate argument was given in 

 favour of John Bunyan having been 

 a Gipsy, with full information of how 

 and when the race assumed the 

 names common to the natives of the 

 soil. I repeated the argument in 

 Contributions , and again in Notes 

 and Queries, on the 3d of March, 

 1875, and printed the article as an 

 appendix to the book (which see), 

 in reply to The Book of the Bun- 

 yan Festival and the Sunday Maga- 

 zine for January, 1875; in both of 

 which there was a great flourish 

 of trumpets over the discovery 

 that there were people of the name 

 of Bunyan (variously spelt) in Bed- 



