The world, he said, is a big place; but people are always forgetting what a variety of humanity it contains. Two hundred years ago, the authorities of Bedford made it very unpleasant for one John Bunyan, because they thought they knew everything, and could not imagine that a common street workman might know more. The trade of a tinker seems an unpromising preparation for a literary career. A tinker in Bedford to-day would not find himself much flattered by the attentions paid him, especially if he happened to be an old gaol-bird as well. So much the more creditable to Bunyan the ascendancy he gained. If he mended pots as well as he made sentences he was the best tinker that ever travelled.
Bunyan had no worldly notions. His doctrine was that men were not saved by any good they might do—a doctrine that would ruin the morals of any commercial establishment in a month! He declared himself the "chief of sinners;" but judged by his townsmen he was a stout-hearted, stout-minded, scrupulous man.
He was not a pleasant man to know. He had an unrelenting sincerity which often turned into severity. Yet he had much tenderness. He had a soul like a Red Indian's—all tomahawk and truth, until the literary passion came and added humour to it. He demands in his vigorous doggerel:—
May I not write in such a style as this,
In such a method, too, and yet not miss
My end, thy good? Why may it not be done?
Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.
Like all men of original genius, this stout-minded pot-mender had unbounded confidence in himself. He was under no delusion as to his own powers. No man knew better what he was about. He could take the measure of all the justices about him, and he knew it. Every shallow-headed gentleman in Bedfordshire towns and villages was made to wince under his picturesque and satiric tongue. To clergymen, bishops, lawyers, and judges he gave names which all his neighbours knew. Mr. Pitiless, Mr. Hardheart, Mr. Forget-good, Mr. No-truth, Mr. Haughty—thus he named the disagreeable dignitaries of the town of Mansoul.
At first he was regarded by his "pastors and masters" as a mere wilful, noisy, praying sectary. Very soon they discovered that he was a fighting preacher. As tinker or Christian he always had his sleeves turned up. When he had to try his own cause he put in the jury-box Mr. True-Heart, Mr. Upright, Mr. Hate-Bad, Mr. See-Truth, and other amiable persons. His witnesses were Mr. Know-All, Mr. Tell-True, Mr. Hate-Lies, Mr. Vouch-Truth, Mr. Did-See. His Town Clerk was Mr. Do-Right, the Recorder was Mr. Conscience, the gaoler was Mr. True-Man, Lord Understanding was on the bench, and the Judge bears the dainty name of the "Golden-headed Prince."
Bunyan's adversaries are always a bad set. They live in Villain's Lane, in Blackmouth Street, or Blasphemer's Row, or Drunkard's Alley, or Rascal's Corner. They are the sons of one Beastly, whose mother bore them in Flesh Square: they live at the house of one Shameless, at the sign of the Reprobate, next door to the Descent into the Pit, whose retainers are Mr. Flatter, Mr. Impiety, Mr. False-Peace, Mr. Covetousness, who are housed by one Mr. Simple, in Folly's Yard.
Bunyan had a perfect wealth of sectarian scurrility at his command. His epithets are at times unquotable and ferocious. When, however, his friends are at the bar, the witnesses against them comprise the choicest scoundrels of all time—Mr. Envy, Mr. Pick-thank, and others, whose friends are Lord Carnal-Delight, Lord Luxurious, Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, and similar villanous people of quality. The Judge's name is now Lord Hate-Good. The Jury consist of Mr. No-Good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-Lust, Mr. Live-Loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. Hate-Light, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, and Mr. Implacable, with Mr. Blindman for Foreman.
Never was such an infamous gang impanelled. Rancour and rage and vindictiveness, and every passion awakened in the breasts of the strong by local insolence and legal injustice, is supplied by Bunyan with epithets of immense retaliative force. He is the greatest name-maker among authors. He was a spiritual Comanche. He prayed like a savage. He said himself, when describing the art of the religious rhetorician—an art of which he was the greatest master of his time:—
You see the ways the fisherman doth take
To catch the fish; what engines doth he make!
Behold! how he engageth all his wits,
Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets;
Yet fish there be that neither hook nor line,
Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine;
They must be grop'd for, and be tickled too,
Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do.