gory, in which the metaphorical fiction is sustained with all the minuteness of a real story. In Dr. Patrick's the same plan is generally announced as arising from the earnest longing of a traveller, whom he calls Philotheus or Theophilus, whose desires are fixed on journeying to Jerusalem as a pilgrim. After much distressing uncertainty, caused by the contentions of pretended guides, who recommend different routes, he is at length recommended to a safe and intelligent one. Theophilus hastens to put himself under his pilotage, and the good man gives forth his instructions for the way, and in abundant detail, so that all the dangers of error and indifferent company may be securely avoided; but in all this, very little care is taken even to preserve the appearance of the allegory: in a word, you have, almost in plain terms, the moral and religious precepts necessary to be observed in the actual course of a moral and religious life. The pilgrim, indeed, sets out upon his journey, but it is only in order again to meet with his guide, who launches further into whole chapters of instructions, with scarcely a reply from the passive pupil. It is needless to point out the extreme difference between this strain of continued didactics, rather encumbered than enlivened by a starting metaphor, which, generally quite lost sight of, the author recollects every now and then, as if by accident-and the thoroughly life-like manner in which John Bunyan puts the adventures of his pil grim before us. Two circumstances alone strike us as trenching somewhat on the manner of him of Elstow: the one is where the guide awakens some sluggish pilgrims, whom he finds sleeping by the way; the other is where their way is crossed by two horsemen, who insist upon assuming the office of guide. The one is a pleasing talker, excellent company by reason of his plea sant humour, and of a carriage very pleasant and inviting; but they observed he had a sword by his side, and a pair of pistols before him, together with another instrument hanging at his belt, which was formed for pulling out of eyes.' + The pilgrims suspected this well-armed cavalier to be one of that brood who will force others into their own path, and then put out their eyes in case they should forsake it. They have not got rid of their dangerous compa nion, by whom the Romish church is indicated, when they are accosted by a man of a quite different shape and hu

Parable of the Pilgrim, chapter xxx. +Ibidem, chapter xxxiv.

mour, more sad and melancholy, more rude, and of a heavier wit also, who crossed their way on the right-hand.' He also (representing, doubtless, the Presbyterians or Sectaries) pressed them with eagerness to accept his guidance, and did little less than menace them with total destruction if they should reject it. A dagger and a pocket-pistol, though less openly and ostentatiously disposed than the arms of the first cavalier, seem ready for the same purposes; and he, therefore, is repulsed, as well as his neighbour. These are the only pas sages in which the church dignitary might be thought to have caught for a moment the spirit of the tinker of Bed ford. Through the rest of his parable, which fills a well-sized quarto volume, the dean no doubt evinces considerable learning, but, compared to Bunyan, may rank with the dullest of all possible doc tors; a worthy neighbour, indeed, and a marvellous good bowler-but for Alexander, you see how 'tis.' Yet Dr. Patrick had the applause of his own time. The first edition of his Parable appeared, as has been mentioned, in 1678; and the sixth, which now lies before us, is dated 1687.‡

Mr. Southey introduces the following just eulogium on our classic of the common people:

"Bunyan was confident in his own powers of expression; he says→ thine only way

Before them all, is to say out thy say In thine own native language, which no man Now useth, nor with ease dissemble can. And he might well be confident in it. His is a homespun style, not a manufactured one; and what a difference is there between its homeliness, and the flippant vulgarity of the Roger L'Estrange and Tom Brown school! If it is not a well of English undefiled to which the poet as well as the philologist must repair, if they would drink of the living waters, it is a clear stream of current English-the vernacular speech of his age, sometimes indeed in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plainness and its strength. To this natural style Bunyan is in some degree beholden for his general popularity;-his language is every where level to the must ignorant reader, and to the meanest capacity: there is a homely reality about it; a nursery tale is not more intelligible, in its manner of narration, to a child. Another cause of

The Poet Laureate may, perhaps, like to hear that Dr. Patrick introduces into his parable a very tolerable edition of that legend of the roasted fowls recalled to life by St. James of Compostella, of which he himself has recently given us so lively and amusing a metrical ver

sion.

his popularity is, that he taxes the imagination as little as the understanding. The vividness of his own, which, as his history shows, sometimes could not distinguish ideal impressions from actual ones, occasioned this. He saw the things of which he was writing as distinctly with his mind's eye as if they were in deed passing before him in a dream. And the reader perhaps sees them more satisfactorily to himself, because the outline only of the picture is presented to him; and the author having made no attempt to fill up the details, every reader supplies them according to the measure and scope of his own intellectual and imaginative powers."

error.

Mr. Southey, observing with what general accuracy this apostle of the people writes the English language, not withstanding all the disadvantages under which his youth must have been passed, pauses to notice one gross and repeated 'The vulgarism alluded to,' says the laureate, consists in the almost uniform use of a for have-never marked as a contraction, e.g. might a made me take heed-like to a been smothered.' Under favour, however, this is a sin against orthography_rather than grammar: the tinker of Elstow only spelt according to the pronunciation of the verb to have, then common in his class; and the same form appears a hundred times in Shakspeare. We must not here omit to mention the skill with which Mr. Southey has restored much of Bunyan's masculine and idiomatic English, which had been gradually dropped out of successive impressions by careless, or unfaithful, or what is as bad, conceited correctors of the press.

The speedy popularity of the Pilgrim's Progress had the natural effect of inducing Bunyan again to indulge the vein of allegory in which his warm imagination and clear and forcible expression had procured him such success. Under this impression, he produced the second part of his Pilgrim's Progress; and well says Mr. Southey, that none but those who have acquired the ill habit of always reading critically, can feel it as a clog upon the first. The first part is, indeed, one of those delightfully simple and captivating tales which, as soon as finished, we are not unwilling to begin again. Even the adult becomes himself like the child who cannot be satisfied with the repetition of a favourite tale, but harasses the story-telling aunt or nurse, to know more of the incidents and characters. In this respect Bunyan has contrived a contrast, which, far from exhausting his subject, opens new sources.

of attraction, and adds to the original impression. The pilgrimage of Christiana, her friend Mercy, and her children, commands sympathy at least as powerful as that of Christian himself, and it materially adds to the interest which we have taken in the progress of the husband, to trace the effects produced by similar events in the case of women and children.

"There is a pleasure," says the learned editor, "in travelling with another companion the same ground-a pleasure of reminiscence, neither inferior in kind nor degree to that which is derived from a first impression. The characters are judiciously marked: that of Mercy, particularly, is sketched with an admirable grace and simplicity; nor do we read of any with equal interest, excepting that of Ruth in Scripture, so beautifully, on all occasions, does the Mercy of John Bunyan unfold modest humility regarding her own merits, and tender veneration for the matron Christiana."

"The distinctions between the first and second part of the Pilgrim's Progress are such as circumstances render appropriate; and as John Bunyan's strong mother wit enabled him to seize upon correctly. Christian, for example, a man, and a bold one, is represented as enduring his fatigues, trials, and combats, by his own stout courage, under the blessing of heaven: but to express that species of inspired heroism by which women are supported in the path of duty, notwithstanding the natural feebleness and timidity of their nature, Christiana and Mercy obtain from the interpreter their guide, called Great-heart, by whose strength and valour their lack of both is supplied, and the dangers and distresses of the way repelled and over

come.

"The author hints, at the end of the second part, as if it might be his lot to go this way again;' nor was his mind that light species of soil which could be exhausted by two crops. But he left to another and very inferior hand the task of composing a third part, containing the adventures of one Tender Conscience, far unworthy to be bound up, as it sometimes is, with John Bunyan's matchless parable."

'Tis necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic, every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer.

Shaftesbury Criticism.

Botes of a Reader.

LACONICS.

(From Maxwell. By Theodore Hook.) Professional People.

NONE of our fellow-creatures enjoy life more than the successful member of one

of the learned professions. There is, it is true, constant toil; but there are constant excitement, activity, and enthusiasm; at least, where there is not enthusiasm in a profession, success will never come—and as to the affairs of the world in general, the divine, the lawyer, and the medical man, are more conversant and mixed up with them, than any other human beings-cabinet ministers themselves, not excepted.

The divine, by the sacred nature of his calling, and the higher character of his duties, is, perhaps, farther removed from an immediate contact with society; his labours are of a more exalted order, and the results of those labours not open to ordinary observation; but the lawyer in full practice knows the designs and devices of half our acquaintance; it is true, professional decorum seals his lips, but he has them all before him in his "mind's eye,”—all their litigations and littlenesses, -all their cuttings, and carvings, and contrivings. He knows why a family, who hate the French with all the fervour of British prejudice, visits Paris, and remains there for a year or two; he can give a good reason why a man who delights in a well preserved property in a sporting country, with a house well built and beautifully situated, consents to "spare it," at a reduced price, to a man for whom he cares nothing upon earth and looks at the world fully alive to the motives, and perfectly aware of the circumstances, of

three-fourths of the unconscious actors by whom he is surrounded.

The eminent medical man stands, if not upon higher ground, at least in a more interesting position. As he mingles with the gay assembly, or visits the crowded ball, he knows the latent ills, the hidden, yet incurable disorders of the laughing throng by which he is encircled; he sees premature death lurk ing under the hectic flush on the cheek of the lovely Fanny, and trembles for the fate of the kind-hearted Emily, as he beholds her mirthfully joining in the mazy dance. He, too, by witnessing the frequently recurring scenes of death, beholds the genuine sorrow of the bereaved wife, or the devoted husband and can, by the constant unpremeditated exhibitions of fondness and feeling, ap

A dark hole of a counting-house, with long-legged stools, writing out lettersa couple of clerk chaps, cocked up upon stuck full of dirty papers, hanging a smoky fireplace-two or three files, against the wall-an almanack, and a high-railed desk, with a slit in a panel, with "bills for acceptance" painted over it." They are the chaps "wot" makes time-bargains-they speculate for thousands, having nothing in the world-and then at the wind-up of a week or two, pay each other what they call the difference: that is to say, the change between what they cannot get, and what they have not got.

Brighton.

Brighton will be as good a residence as any other; there's nobody there knows much of either of you; and the place has got so big, that you may be as snug as you please; a large town and a large party, are the best possible shelters for love matters. Ay, go to Brighton-the prawns for breakfast, the Wheatears (as the Cockneys delicately call them, without knowing what they are talking about) for dinner, and the lobsters for supper, with a cigar, and a little ginnums and water, whiffing the wind, and sniffing the briny out of one of the bow-window balconies-that's it

Brighton's the place, against the world.

were such as, in the case of any ordinary person, could not be considered otherwise than disastrous and humiliating. He had, in the course of one short year, gone through every variety of domestic misery;-had seen his hearth ten times profaned by the visitations of the law, and been only saved from a prison by the privileges of his rank. He had alienated (if, indeed, they had ever been his) the affections of his wife; and now, rejected by her, and condemned by the world, was betaking himself to an exile which had not even the dignity of appearing voluntary, as the excommunicating voice of society seemed to leave him no other resource. Had he been of that class of unfeeling

and self-satisfied natures from whose hard surface the reproaches of others fall pointless, he might have found in insensibility a sure refuge against reproach; but, on the contrary, the same sensitiveness that kept him so awake to the applauses of mankind rendered him, in a still more intense degree, alive to their censure. Even the strange, perverse pleasures which he felt in painting himself unamiably to the world did not prevent him from being both startled and pained when the world took him at his word; and, like a child in a mask before a looking-glass, the dark semblance which he had half in sport, put on, when reflected back upon him from the mirror of public opinion, shocked even himself.

"Thus surrounded by vexations, and thus deeply feeling them, it is not too much to say, that any other spirit but his own would have sunk under the struggle, and lost, perhaps, irrecoverably, that level of self-esteem which alone affords a stand against the shocks of fortune. But in him, -furnished as his mind was with reserves of strength, waiting to be called out,-the very intensity of the pressure brought relief by the proportionate reaction which it frailties been visited with no more than produced. Had his transgressions and their due portion of punishment, there can be little doubt that a very different result would have ensued. Not only would such an excitement have been in

sufficient to waken up the new energies still dormant in him, but that consciousness of his own errors, which was for ever livelily present in his mind, would, under such circumstances, have been left, undisturbed by any unjust provocation, to work its usual softening and, perhaps, humbling influences on his spirit. But,-luckily, as it proved, for the further triumphs of his genius,

no such moderation was exercised. The storm of invective raised around him, so utterly out of proportion with his offences, and the base calumnies that were everywhere heaped upon his name, left to his wounded pride no other resource than in the same summoning up of strength, the same instinct of resistance to injustice, which had first forced out the energies of his youthful genius, and was now destined to give him a still bolder and loftier range of its powers.

*

"But the greatest of his trials, as, well as triumphs, was yet to come. The last stage of this painful, though glorious, course, in which fresh power was, at every step, wrung from out of his soul, was that at which we are now arrived, his marriage and its results, without which, dear as was the price paid by him in peace and character, his career would have been incomplete, and the world still left in ignorance of the full compass of his genius. It is indeed worthy of remark, that it was not till his domestic circumstances began to darken around him that his fancy, which had long been idle, again arose upon the wing, both the Siege of Corinth and Parisina having been produced but a short time before the separation. How conscious he was, too, that the turmoil which followed was the true element of his restless spirit may be collected from several passages of his letters, at that period, in one of which he even mentions that his health had become all the better for the conflict:-" It is odd,' he says, but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits, and sets me up

for the time.'

"This buoyancy it was—this irrepressible spring of mind,-that now enabled him to bear up not only against the assaults of others, but what was still more difficult, against his own thoughts and feelings. The muster of all his mental resources to which, in self-defence, he had been driven, but opened to him the yet undreamed extent and capacity of his powers, and inspired him with a proud confidence, that he should yet shine down these calumnious mists, convert censure to wonder, and compel even those who could not approve to admire.

The route which he now took, through Flanders and by the Rhine, is best traced in his own matchless verses, which leave a portion of their glory on all that they touch, and lend to scenes, already clothed with immortality by na

FULL-BOTTOMED WIGS.

THE full-bottomed wigs which unfortu, nately envelope and cloud some of the most distinguished portraits of former days, were in fashion during the reigns of our William and Mary. Lord Bolingbroke was one of the first that tied them up, with which the queen was much offended, and said to a by-stander, "he would soon come to court in his night-cap." Soon after, tie wigs, instead of being an undress, became the high court dress. Н. В. А.

A WINDOW THE CAUSE OF A WAR. WHEN the Palace of Trianon was build

ing for Louis XIV. at the end of Versailles' Park, that monarch went to inspect it, accompanied by Louvois, secretary of war, and superintendent of the building. Whilst walking arm in the windows was out of shape, and arm with him, he remarked that one of

smaller than the rest-this Louvois de

Louis

nied, and asserted that he could not perceive the least difference. XIV. having had it measured, and finding that he had judged rightly, treated

Louvois in a contumelious manner before his whole court. This conduct so incensed the minister, that when he arrived home he was heard to say, that he would find better employment for a monarch than that of insulting his favourites he was as good as his word, for by his insolence and haughtiness he insulted the other powers, and occasioned the bloody war of 1688.

IN 1306, Bruce having taken shelter in the Isle of Arran, sent a trusty person into Carrick, to learn how his vassals stood affected to his cause; with instructions, that, if he found them disposed to assist him he should make a signal at a time appointed, by lighting