His state, during two years and a half, | his own mind had become clear and was generally the most horrible that cheerful, for persons afflicted with rethe human mind can imagine. "Iligious melancholy. walked," says he, with his own peculiar eloquence, “to a neighbouring town; and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell into a very deep pause about the most fearful state my sin had brought me to; and, after long musing, I lifted up my head; but methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give me light; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did band themselves against me. Methought that they all combined together to banish me out of the world. I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell among them, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Oh, how happy now was every creature over I! for they stood fast, and kept their station. But I was gone and lost." Scarcely any madhouse could produce an instance of delusion so strong, or of misery so acute.

Mr. Southey, who has no love for the Calvinists, admits that, if Calvinism had never worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan's works, it would never have become a term of reproach. In fact, those works of Bunyan with which we are acquainted are by no means more Calvinistic than the articles and homilies of the Church of England. The moderation of his opinions on the subject of predestination gave offence to some zealous persons. We have seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of which is named Hephzibah, written by some raving supralapsarian preacher who was dissatisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim's Progress. In this foolish book, if we recollect rightly, the Interpreter is called the Enlightener, and the House Beautiful is Castle Strength. Mr. Southey tells us that the Catholics had also their Pilgrim's Progress, without a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is the Director, and the House Beautiful Grace's Hall. It is surely a remarkable proof of the power of Bunyan's genius, that two religious parties, both of which regarded his opinions as heterodox, should have had recourse to him for assistance.

It was through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, overhung by darkness, peopled with devils, resounding with blasphemy and lamentation, and passing amidst quagmires, snares, and pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, that Bunyan journeyed to that bright and fruitful land of Beulah, in which he sojourned during the latter There are, we think, some characters period of his pilgrimage. The only and scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress, trace which his cruel sufferings and which can be fully comprehended and temptations seem to have left behind enjoyed only by persons familiar with them was an affectionate compassion the history of the times through which for those who were still in the state in Bunyan lived. The character of Mr. which he had once been. Religion Greatheart, the guide, is an example. has scarcely ever worn a form so calm His fighting is, of course, allegorical; and soothing as in his allegory. The but the allegory is not strictly prefeeling which predominates through served. He delivers a sermon on imthe whole book is a feeling of tender-puted righteousness to his companions; ness for weak, timid, and harassed and, soon after, he gives battle to Giant minds. The character of Mr. Fearing, of Mr. Feeble-Mind, of Mr. Despondency and his daughter Miss Muchafraid, the account of poor Littlefaith who was robbed by the three thieves, of his spending money, the description of Christian's terror in the dungeons of Giant Despair and in his passage through the river, all clearly show how strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after

Grim, who had taken upon him to back the lions. He expounds the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah to the household and guests of Gaius; and then he sallies out to attack Slaygood, who was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in his den. These are inconsistencies; but they are inconsistencies which add, we think, to the interest of the narrative. We have not the least doubt that Bunyan

had in view some stout old Greatheart | Restoration to the Revolution, were of Naseby and Worcester, who prayed merely forms preliminary to hanging, with his men before he drilled them, drawing, and quartering. Lord Hatewho knew the spiritual state of every good performs the office of counsel for dragoon in his troop, and who, with the prisoners as well as Scroggs himthe praises of God in his mouth, and a self could have performed it. two-edged sword in his hand, had turned to flight, on many fields of battle, the swearing, drunken bravoes of Rupert and Lunsford.

"JUDGE. Thou runagate, heretic, and
traitor, hast thou heard what these honest
gentlemen have witnessed against thee?
"FAITHFUL. May I speak a few words in
own defence?

my
JUDGE. Sirrah, sirrah! thou deservest
to live no longer, but to be slain immedi-
ately upon the place; yet, that all men may
see our gentleness to thee, let us hear what
thou, vile runagate, hast to say.”

Every age produces such men as By-ends. But the middle of the seventeenth century was eminently prolific of such men. Mr. Southey thinks that the satire was aimed at some particular individual; and this seems by no means No person who knows the state trials improbable. At all events, Bunyan can be at a loss for parallel cases. Inmust have known many of those hypo-deed, write what Bunyan would, the crites who followed religion only when baseness and cruelty of the lawyers of religion walked in silver slippers, when those times "sinned up to it still," and the sun shone, and when the people even went beyond it. The imaginary applauded. Indeed he might have trial of Faithful, before a jury comeasily found all the kindred of By-posed of personified vices, was just and ends among the public men of his merciful, when compared with the real time. He might have found among trial of Alice Lisle before that tribunal the peers my Lord Turn-about, my where all the vices sat in the person of Lord Time-server, and my Lord Fair- Jefferies. speech; in the House of Commons, Mr. The style of Bunyan is delightful to Smooth-man, Mr. Anything, and Mr. every reader, and invaluable as a study Facing-both-ways; nor would "the to every person who wishes to obtain a parson of the parish, Mr. Two-tongues," wide command over the English lanhave been wanting. The town of Bed-guage. The vocabulary is the vocaford probably contained more than one bulary of the common people. There politician who, after contriving to raise is not an expression, if we except a an estate by seeking the Lord during few technical terms of theology, which the reign of the saints, contrived to would puzzle the rudest peasant. We keep what he had got by persecuting have observed several pages which do the saints during the reign of the not contain a single word of more than strumpets, and more than one priest two syllables. Yet no writer has said who, during repeated changes in the more exactly what he meant to say. discipline and doctrines of the church, For magnificence, for pathos, for vehehad remained constant to nothing but ment exhortation, for subtle disquisihis benefice. tion, for every purpose of the poet, the One of the most remarkable pas-orator, and the divine, this homely sages in the Pilgrim's Progress is that in which the proceedings against Faithful are described. It is impossible to doubt that Bunyan intended to satirise the mode in which state trials were conducted under Charles the Second. The license given to the witnesses for the prosecution, the shameless partiality and ferocious insolence of the judge, the precipitancy and the blind rancour of the jury, remind us of those odious mummeries which, from the

dialect, the dialect of plain working men, was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed.

Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer.

To our refined forefathers, we suppose, and no man can justly complain that Lord Roscommon's Essay on Trans- he is shut out from it. lated Verse, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's Essay on Poetry, appeared of this contrivance for shifting the

We cannot but admire the ingenuity

burden of the proof from those to whom it properly belongs, and who would, we suspect, find it rather cumbersome. Surely no Christian can deny that every human being has a right to be allowed every gratification which produces no harm to others, and to be spared every mortification which produces no good

to be compositions infinitely superior to the allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times; and we are not afraid to say, that, though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty in a very eminent degree. One of to others. Is it not a source of mortithose minds produced the Paradise fication to a class of men that they are Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress. excluded from political power? If it be, they have, on Christian principles, a right to be freed from that mortification, unless it can be shown that their exclusion is necessary for the averting of some greater evil. The presumption is evidently in favour of toleration. It is for the prosecutor to make out his case.

CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE
JEWS. (JANUARY, 1831.)
Statement of the Civil Disabilities and Pri-
vations affecting Jews in England. 8vo.
London: 1829.

The strange argument which we are considering would prove too much even THE distinguished member of the for those who advance it. If no man House of Commons who, towards the has a right to political power, then close of the late Parliament, brought neither Jew nor Gentile has such a forward a proposition for the relief of right. The whole foundation of gothe Jews, has given notice of his inten-vernment is taken away. But if gotion to renew it. The force of reason, vernment be taken away, the property in the last session, carried the measure and the persons of men are insecure ; through one stage in spite of the oppo- and it is acknowledged that men have sition of power. Reason and power a right to their property and to perare now on the same side; and we sonal security. If it be right that the have little doubt that they will con- property of men should be protected, jointly achieve a decisive victory. In and if this can only be done by means order to contribute our share to the of government, then it must be right success of just principles, we propose that government should exist. Now to pass in review, as rapidly as pos- there cannot be government unless sible, some of the arguments, or phrases some person or persons possess political claiming to be arguments, which have power. Therefore it is right that some been employed to vindicate a system person or persons should possess pofull of absurdity and injustice. litical power. That is to say, some

The constitution, it is said, is essen-person or persons must have a right to tially Christian; and therefore to admit political power. Jews to office is to destroy the constitution. Nor is the Jew injured by being excluded from political power. For no man has any right to power. A man has a right to his property; a man has a right to be protected from personal injury. These rights the law allows to the Jew; and with these rights it would be atrocious to interfere. But it is a mere matter of favour to admit any man to political power;

It is because men are not in the habit of considering what the end of government is, that Catholic disabilities and Jewish disabilities have been suffered to exist so long. We hear of essentially Protestant governments and essentially Christian governments, words which mean just as much as essentially Protestant cookery, or essentially Christian horsemanship. Government exists for the purpose of

keeping the peace, for the purpose | legislate for a Christian community, of compelling us to settle our disputes but that a legislature composed of by arbitration instead of settling them Christians and Jews should legislate by blows, for the purpose of compelling for a community composed of Chrisus to supply our wants by industry in- tians and Jews. On nine hundred stead of supplying them by rapine. and ninety-nine questions out of a This is the only operation for which thousand, on all questions of police, the machinery of government is pecu- of finance, of civil and criminal law, of liarly adapted, the only operation which foreign policy, the Jew, as a Jew, has wise governments ever propose to them- no interest hostile to that of the Chrisselves as their chief object. If there is tian, or even to that of the Churchany class of people who are not inter-man. On questions relating to the ested, or who do not think themselves ecclesiastical establishment, the Jew interested, in the security of property and the Churchman may differ. But and the maintenance of order, that they cannot differ more widely than class ought to have no share of the the Catholic and the Churchman, or powers which exist for the purpose of the Independent and the Churchman. securing property and maintaining The principle that Churchmen ought order. But why a man should be less to monopolize the whole power of the fit to exercise those powers because he state would at least have an intelliwears a beard, because he does not eat gible meaning. The principle that ham, because he goes to the synagogue Christians ought to monopolize it has on Saturdays instead of going to the no meaning at all. For no question church on Sundays, we cannot con- connected with the ecclesiastical insticeive. tutions of the country can possibly come before Parliament, with respect to which there will not be as wide a difference between Christians as there can be between any Christian and any Jew.

The points of difference between Christianity and Judaism have very much to do with a man's fitness to be a bishop or a rabbi. But they have no more to do with his fitness to be a magistrate, a legislator, or a minister of finance, than with his fitness to be a cobbler. Nobody has ever thought of compelling cobblers to make any declaration on the true faith of a Christian. Any man would rather have his shoes mended by a heretical cobbler than by a person who had subscribed all the thirty-nine articles, but had never handled an awl. Men act thus, not because they are indifferent to religion, but because they do not see what religion has to do with the mending of their shoes. Yet religion has as much to do with the mending of shoes as with the budget and the army estimates. We have surely had several signal proofs within the last twenty years that a very good Christian may be a very bad Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In fact the Jews are not now excluded from political power. They possess it; and as long as they are allowed to accumulate large fortunes, they must possess it. The distinction which is sometimes made between civil privileges and political power is a distinction without a difference. Privileges are power. Civil and political are synonymous words, the one derived from the Latin, the other from the Greek. Nor is this mere verbal quibbling. If we look for a moment at the facts of the case, we shall see that the things are inseparable, or rather identical.

That a Jew should be a judge in a Christian country would be most shocking. But he may be a juryman. He may try issues of fact; and no harm is done. But if he should be suffered to try issues of law, there is an end of the constitution. He may sit in a box plainly dressed, and return verdicts. But that he should sit on the proposed is, not that the Jews should bench in a black gown and white wig,

But it would be monstrous, say the persecutors, that Jews should legislate for a Christian community. This is a palpable misrepresentation. What is

The sun of

and grant new trials, would be an have no political power. abomination not to be thought of England is set for ever if the Catholics among baptized people. The distinction is certainly most philosophical. What power in civilized society is so great as that of the creditor over the debtor? If we take this away from the Jew, we take away from him the security of his property. If we leave it to him, we leave to him a power more despotic by far than that of the king and all his cabinet.

exercise political power. Give the Catholics every thing else; but keep political power from them. These wise men did not see that, when every thing else had been given, political power had been given. They continued to repeat their cuckoo song, when it was no longer a question whether Catholics should have political power or not, when a Catholic Association bearded the Parliament, when a Catholic agitator exercised infinitely more authority than the Lord Lieutenant.

For

It would be impious to let a Jew sit in Parliament. But a Jew may make money; and money may make members of Parliament. Gatton and If it is our duty as Christians to exOld Sarum may be the property of a clude the Jews from political power, it Hebrew. An elector of Penryn will must be our duty to treat them as our take ten pounds from Shylock rather ancestors treated them, to murder them, than nine pounds nineteen shillings and banish them, and rob them. and eleven pence three farthings from in that way, and in that way alone, can Antonio. To this no objection is made. we really deprive them of political That a Jew should possess the sub-power. If we do not adopt this course, stance of legislative power, that he should command eight votes on every division as if he were the great Duke of Newcastle himself, is exactly as it should be. But that he should pass the bar and sit down on those mysterious cushions of green leather, that he should cry "hear" and "order," and talk about being on his legs, and being, for one, free to say this and to say that, would be a profanation sufficient to bring ruin on the country.

That a Jew should be privy-councillor to a Christian king would be an eternal disgrace to the nation. But the Jew may govern the money-market, and the money-market may govern the world. The minister may be in doubt as to his scheme of finance till he has been closeted with the Jew. A congress of sovereigns may be forced to summon the Jew to their assistance. The scrawl of the Jew on the back of a piece of paper may be worth more than the royal word of three kings, or the national faith of three new American republics. But that he should put Right Honourable before his name would be the most frightful of national calamities.

It was in this way that some of our politicians reasoned about the Irish Catholics. The Catholics ought to

we may take away the shadow, but we must leave them the substance. We may do enough to pain and irritate them; but we shall not do enough to secure ourselves from danger, if danger really exists. Where wealth is, there power must inevitably be.

The English Jews, we are told, are not Englishmen. They are a separate people, living locally in this island, but living morally and politically in communion with their brethren who are scattered over all the world. An English Jew looks on a Dutch or a Portuguese Jew as his countryman, and on an English Christian as a stranger. This want of patriotic feeling, it is said, renders a Jew unfit to exercise political functions.

The argument has in it something plausible; but a close examination shows it to be quite unsound. Even if the alleged facts are admitted, still the Jews are not the only people who have preferred their sect to their country. The feeling of patriotism, when society is in a healthful state, springs up, by a natural and inevitable association, in the minds of citizens who know that they owe all their comforts and pleasures to the bond which unites them in one community. But, under a partial and oppressive government, these asso