The Life of John Bunyan Part 3

Meanwhile his captivity is sweetened by the thought of what it was that brought him there:--

"I here am very much refreshed To think, when I was out, I preached life, and peace, and rest, To sinners round about.

My business then was souls to save By preaching grace and faith, Of which the comfort now I have And have it shall till death.

That was the work I was about When hands on me they laid.

'Twas this for which they plucked me out And vilely to me said,

'You heretic, deceiver, come, To prison you must go, You preach abroad, and keep not home, You are the Church's foe.'

Wherefore to prison they me sent, Where to this day I lie, And can with very much content For my profession die.

The prison very sweet to me Hath been since I came here, And so would also hanging be If G.o.d would there appear.

To them that here for evil lie The place is comfortless; But not to me, because that I Lie here for righteousness.

The truth and I were both here cast Together, and we do Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast Each other, this is true.

Who now dare say we throw away Our goods or liberty, When G.o.d's most holy Word doth say We gain thus much thereby?"

It will be seen that though Bunyan's verses are certainly not high-cla.s.s poetry, they are very far removed from doggerel. Nothing indeed that Bunyan ever wrote, however rugged the rhymes and limping the metre, can be so stigmatized. The rude scribblings on the margins of the copy of the "Book of Martyrs," which bears Bunyan's signature on the t.i.tle-pages, though regarded by Southey as "undoubtedly" his, certainly came from a later and must less instructed pen. And as he advanced in his literary career, his claim to the t.i.tle of a poet, though never of the highest, was much strengthened. The verses which diversify the narrative in the Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" are decidedly superior to those in the First Part, and some are of high excellence. Who is ignorant of the charming little song of the Shepherd Boy in the Valley of Humiliation, "in very mean clothes, but with a very fresh and well-favoured countenance, and wearing more of the herb called Heartsease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet?"--

"He that is down need fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble, ever shall Have G.o.d to be his guide.

I am content with what I have, Little be it or much, And, Lord, contentment still I crave, Because Thou savest such.

Fulness to such a burden is That go on Pilgrimage, Here little, and hereafter Bliss Is best from age to age."

Bunyan reaches a still higher flight in Valiant-for-Truth's song, later on, the Shakesperian ring of which recalls Amiens' in "As You Like It,"

"Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me. . .

Come hither, come hither,"

and has led some to question whether it can be Bunyan's own. The resemblance, as Mr. Froude remarks, is "too near to be accidental."

"Perhaps he may have heard the lines, and the rhymes may have clung to him without his knowing whence they came."

"Who would true Valour see, Let him come hither, One here will constant be, Come wind, come weather.

There's no discouragement Shall make him once relent His first avowed intent To be a Pilgrim.

Who so beset him round With dismal stories, Do but themselves confound His strength the more is.

No lion can him fright, He'll with a giant fight, But he will have a right To be a Pilgrim.

Hobgoblin nor foul fiend Can daunt his spirit, He knows he at the end Shall life inherit.

Then fancies fly away He'll fear not what men say, He'll labour night and day To be a Pilgrim."

All readers of "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Holy War" are familiar with the long metrical compositions giving the history of these works by which they are prefaced and the latter work is closed. No more characteristic examples of Bunyan's muse can be found. They show his excellent command of his native tongue in racy vernacular, homely but never vulgar, and his power of expressing his meaning "with sharp defined outlines and without the waste of a word."

Take this account of his perplexity, when the First Part of his "Pilgrim's Progress" was finished, whether it should be given to the world or no, and the characteristic decision with which he settled the question for himself:--

"Well, when I had then put mine ends together, I show'd them others that I might see whether They would condemn them, or them justify; And some said Let them live; some, Let them die.

Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so; Some said it might do good; others said No.

Now was I in a strait, and did not see Which was the best thing to be done by me; At last I thought since you are thus divided I print it will; and so the case decided;"

or the lines in which he introduces the Second Part of the Pilgrim to the readers of the former part:--

"Go now, my little Book, to every place Where my first Pilgrim hath but shown his face: Call at their door: If any say, 'Who's there?'

Then answer that Christiana is here.

If they bid thee come in, then enter thou With all thy boys. And then, as thou knowest how, Tell who they are, also from whence they came; Perhaps they'll know them by their looks or name.

But if they should not, ask them yet again If formerly they did not entertain One Christian, a pilgrim. If they say They did, and were delighted in his way: Then let them know that these related are Unto him, yea, his wife and children are.

Tell them that they have left their house and home, Are turned Pilgrims, seek a world to come; That they have met with hards.h.i.+ps on the way, That they do meet with troubles night and day."

How racy, even if the lines are a little halting, is the defence of the genuineness of his Pilgrim in "The Advertis.e.m.e.nt to the Reader" at the end of "The Holy War."

"Some say the Pilgrim's Progress is not mine, Insinuating as if I would s.h.i.+ne In name or fame by the worth of another, Like some made rich by robbing of their brother; Or that so fond I am of being sire I'll father b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; or if need require, I'll tell a lie or print to get applause.

I scorn it. John such dirt-heap never was Since G.o.d converted him. . .

Witness my name, if anagram'd to thee The letters make _Nu hony in a B_.

IOHN BUNYAN."

How full of life and vigour his sketch of the beleaguerment and deliverance of "Mansoul," as a picture of his own spiritual experience, in the introductory verses to "The Holy War"!--

"For my part I, myself, was in the town, Both when 'twas set up, and when pulling down; I saw Diabolus in possession, And Mansoul also under his oppression.

Yes, I was there when she crowned him for lord, And to him did submit with one accord.

When Mansoul trampled upon things divine, And wallowed in filth as doth a swine, When she betook herself unto her arms, Fought her Emmanuel, despised his charms: Then I was there, and did rejoice to see Diabolus and Mansoul so agree.

I saw the prince's armed men come down By troops, by thousands, to besiege the town, I saw the captains, heard the trumpets sound, And how his forces covered all the ground, Yea, how they set themselves in battle array, I shall remember to my dying day."

Bunyan's other essays in the domain of poetry need not detain us long.

The most considerable of these--at least in bulk--if it be really his, is a version of some portions of the Old and New Testaments: the life of Joseph, the Book of Ruth, the history of Samson, the Book of Jonah, the Sermon on the Mount, and the General Epistle of St. James. The attempt to do the English Bible into verse has been often made and never successfully: in the nature of things success in such a task is impossible, nor can this attempt be regarded as happier than that of others. Mr. Froude indeed, who undoubtingly accepts their genuineness, is of a different opinion. He styles the "Book of Ruth" and the "History of Joseph" "beautiful idylls," of such high excellence that, "if we found them in the collected works of a poet laureate, we should consider that a difficult task had been accomplished successfully." It would seem almost doubtful whether Mr. Froude can have read the compositions that he commends so largely, and so much beyond their merit. The following specimen, taken haphazard, will show how thoroughly Bunyan or the rhymester, whoever he may be, has overcome what Mr. Froude regards as an almost insuperable difficulty, and has managed to "spoil completely the faultless prose of the English translation":--

"Ruth replied, Intreat me not to leave thee or return; For where thou goest I'll go, where thou sojourn I'll sojourn also--and what people's thine, And who thy G.o.d, the same shall both be mine.

Where thou shalt die, there will I die likewise, And I'll be buried where thy body lies.

The Lord do so to me and more if I Do leave thee or forsake thee till I die."

The more we read of these poems, not given to the world till twelve years after Bunyan's death, and that by a publisher who was "a repeated offender against the laws of honest dealing," the more we are inclined to agree with Dr. Brown, that the internal evidence of their style renders their genuineness at the least questionable. In the dull prosaic level of these compositions there is certainly no trace of the "force and power" always present in Bunyan's rudest rhymes, still less of the "dash of genius" and the "sparkle of soul" which occasionally discover the hand of a master.

Of the authenticity of Bunyan's "Divine Emblems," originally published three years after his death under the t.i.tle of "Country Rhymes for Children," there is no question. The internal evidence confirms the external. The book is thoroughly in Bunyan's vein, and in its homely naturalness of imagery recalls the similitudes of the "Interpreter's House," especially those expounded to Christiana and her boys. As in that "house of imagery" things of the most common sort, the sweeping of a room, the burning of a fire, the drinking of a chicken, a robin with a spider in his mouth, are made the vehicle of religious teaching; so in this "Book for Boys and Girls," a mole burrowing in the ground, a swallow soaring in the air, the cuckoo which can do nothing but utter two notes, a flaming and a blinking candle, or a pound of candles falling to the ground, a boy chasing a b.u.t.terfly, the cackling of a hen when she has laid her egg, all, to his imaginative mind, set forth some spiritual truth or enforce some wholesome moral lesson. How racy, though homely, are these lines on a Frog!--

"The Frog by nature is but damp and cold, Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be Croaking in gardens, though unpleasantly.

The hypocrite is like unto this Frog, As like as is the puppy to the dog.

He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride.

And though this world is that which he doth love, He mounts his head as if he lived above.

And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither seeketh Jesus nor His yoke."

There is some real poetry in those on the Cuckoo, though we may be inclined to resent his harsh treatment of our universal favourite:--

"Thou b.o.o.by says't thou nothing but Cuckoo?

The robin and the wren can that outdo.

They to us play thorough their little throats Not one, but sundry pretty tuneful notes.