why? She said she doubted he would hang her. I told her that I would intercede for her life, and would make use of other friends too, and do the like; but she told me she durst not venture that. 'Well,' said I, 'shall I send to your master, while you abide out of sight, and make your peace with him before he sees you?' and with that I asked her master's name. But all that she said in answer to this was, 'Pray let it alone till I come to you again.' So away she went, and neither told me her master's name, nor her own. This is about ten or twelve years since, and I never saw her again.”

An anecdote is also related of a Quaker who called to see him, not long before his release, hoping perhaps to make a convert of the pilgrim. He thus addressed him: "Friend John, I am come to thee with a message from the Lord, and after searching in all the prisons in England, I am glad I have found thee at last." Friend,” replied Bunyan," thou dost not speak truth in saying the Lord sent thee to seek me; for the Lord knows I have been in Bedford jail these twelve years, and if he had sent thee, he would have sent thee here directly."

66

Bunyan's books and his pen doubtless occupied most of his leisure hours, and served to relieve the tedium of his confinement. Of the

former his collection was remarkably select, consisting most of the time of two books only, -the Bible, and the Book of Martyrs. This, however, was doubtless the result of choice rather than of necessity. His copy of the Book of Martyrs is still in existence: it is of the edition of 1641, and is printed in black letter, in three folio volumes. He has written his name in a stout print-hand on the title-page of each volume. One of these autographs (a fac-simile of which is given on the next page) is dated 1662, and must therefore have been written during his imprisonment. Under several of the prints he has inserted some doggerel rhymes, which must have been among his first attempts in that way. Miserable as they are, "he no doubt," says Dr. Southey, "found difficulty enough in tinkering them to make him proud of his work when it was done; for otherwise he would not have written them in a book which was the most valuable of all his goods and chattels." We give two of the verses, with a fac-simile of one, which will serve as specimens of Bunyan's orthography and penmanship in early life, for they must undoubtedly, as Dr. Southey remarks, have been written some years before the autograph of 1662, if not before the publication of his first tract.

The first was inserted under a print entitled, "The Description of the Popes Councell holden at Rome, in which appeared a monstrous Owle, to the utter defacing of the Pope and all his Clergie." See the note on page 331.

"Doth the owle to them apper

Which put them all into a fear

Will not the man and trubel crown
Cast the owle into the ground."

The following was written under a print representing the martyrdom of Thomas Hawkes, who, having promised his friends to lift up his hands before he died, in token that his mind was kept in peace, after his speech was gone, raised his scorched arms in triumph toward heaven.

"hear is one stout and strong in deed

he doth not waver like as doth a reed,
a Sighn he give them yea last of all
that are obedant to the hevenly call."

Justice to Bunyan, however, requires us to remark here, that he lived "before the age of spelling-books," and that in his day persons of the highest distinction might be found whose orthography was quite as loose as his.*

*The following literal extract from a letter, written in 1700, by the celebrated Lady Rachel Russell, will substantiate this remark. She is giving an account of the damages occasioned by a storm. "hampshire is al deso

Some of Bunyan's best works, including the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress, were among the fruits of his imprisonment; so that that event, in the providence of God, "fell out rather to the furtherance of the gospel ;" for though by it he was for a few years debarred the public exercise of his ministry, yet by means of these books he has continued to preach, and preach effectively too, to countless thousands, for now more than one hundred and fifty years, and will doubtless continue to do so to the end of time. No thanks, however, are due to his persecutors for this result. They "meant not so, neither did their heart think so."

It was doubtless to this legacy to the church that Bunyan refers in the following passage, where, in one of his happiest appropriations of Scripture language, he applies to his own case the words of the sacred writer in recording David's contributions toward the building of the temple. 1 Chron. xxvi, 27. It occurs at the close of his Brief Account of his Imprisonment.

66

Many more of the dealings of God toward me

lation.

devon-house scapet better than any house I heare of. Many kiled in country as wel as in towne. Lady penelope wickless kiled in her bed at ther country house, and he in ye sam bed saved, a piece of timber faling betweene his legs, and keept of ye bricks."