VI. Bunyan’s Debt to the Puritans.
But if the Sussex jury was not visionary, except for the panel, neither was that at Mansoul! What a text is this for the next biographer of Bunyan, if he have the courage to enter upon it! To suggest that the great dreamer was not a reprobate in his youth, and thus spoil the contrast between his converted and unconverted life, was a perilous act on Lord Macaulay’s part. To insinuate that he had a not altogether unpleasant time of it in the Bedford gaol, that he could have his friends to visit him, and, on the face of it, ink, paper, and quills to set down his meditations, even this is enough to set a section of political and religious society about our ears. But to hint that his character names were not wholly the offspring of his imagination, not thought out in the isolation of his dreary captivity, and not pictured in his brain, while his brain-pan was lying upon a hard and comfortless pallet—this, I know, not very long ago would have brought a mob about me! In the present day, I shall only be smiled upon with contempt, and condemned to a righteous ignominy by the superior judgment of the worshippers of John Bunyan!
Nevertheless I ask, were the great mass of Bunyan’s character names the creation of his own brain, or were they suggested by the nomenclature of his friends or neighbours in the days of his youth? It is the peculiarity of the names in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Siege of Mansoul,” that they suggest the incidents of which the bearers are the heroes. But, in a large proportion of cases, these names already existed. Born in 1628, Bunyan saw Puritan character names at their climax. Living at Elstow, he was within the limits of the district most addicted to the practice. He had seen Christian and Hopeful, Christiana and Mercy, of necessity long before he was “haled to prison” at Bedford. The four fair damsels, Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence, may and must have in part been his companions in his boyish rambles years before he met them in the Valley of Humiliation; and if afterwards, in the Siege of Mansoul, he turned Charity into a man, he was only doing what godfathers and godmothers had been doing for thirty years previously. The name and sweet character of Faithful might be a personal reminiscence, good Father Honest a quondam host on one of his preaching expeditions, and Standfast, “that right good pilgrim,” an old Pædo-Baptist of his acquaintance. The shepherds Watchful, Sincere, and Experience, if not Knowledge, were known of all men, in less pastoral avocations. And as for the men that were panelled in the trial of the Diabolonians, we might set them side by side with the Sussex jury, and certainly the contrast for oddity would be in favour of the cricketing county. Messrs. Belief, True-heart, Upright, Hate-bad, Love-God, See-truth, Heavenly-mind, Thankful, Good-work, Zeal-for-God, and Humble have all, or well-nigh all, been quoted in this chapter, as registered by the church clerk a generation before Do-right, the town-clerk of Mansoul, called them over in court. “Do-right” himself is met by “Do-good,” and the witness “Search-truth” by “Search-the-Scriptures.” Even “Giant Despair” may have suffered convulsions in teething in the world of fact, before his fits took him in the world of dreams; and his wife “Diffidence” will be found, I doubt not, to have been at large before Bunyan “laid him down in a den.” Where names of evil repute come—and they are many—we do not expect to see their duplicates in the flesh. Graceless, Love-lust, Live-loose, Hold-the-world, and Talkative were not names for the Puritan, but their contraries were. Grace meets the case of Grace-less, Love-lust may be set by “Fly-fornication,” and Live-loose by “Live-well” or “Continent.” Hold-the-world is directly suggested by the favourite “Safe-on-high;” Talkative, by “Silence.”
That John Bunyan is under debt to the Puritans for many of his characters must be unquestionable; and were he living now, or could we interview him where he is, I do not doubt we could extract from him, good honest man, the ready admission that in the names of the personages that flit before us in his unapproachable allegory, and which have charmed the fancy of old and young for so many generations, he was merely stereotyping the recollections of childhood, and commemorating, so far as sobriquets were concerned, the companionships of earlier years.
VII. The Influence of Puritanism on American Nomenclature.
Baptismal nomenclature to-day in the United States, especially in the old settlements, bears stronger impressions of the Puritan epoch than the English. Their ancestors were Puritans, who had fled England for conscience’ sake. Their life, too, in the West was for generations primitive, almost patriarchal, in its simplicity. There was no bantering scorn of a wicked world to face; there was no deliberate effort made by any part of the community to restore the old names. To this day the impress remains. Take up a story of backwood life, such as American female writers affect so much, and it will be inscribed “Faith Gartney’s Girlhood,” or “Prudence Palfrey.” All the children that figure in these tales are “Truth,” or “Patience,” or “Charity,” or “Hope.” The true descendants of the early settlers are, to a man, woman, and child, even now bearers of names either from the abstract Christian graces or the narratives of Holy Scripture. Of course, the constant tide of immigration that has set in has been gradually telling against Puritan traditions. The grotesque in name selection, too, has gone further in some of the more retired and inaccessible districts of the States than the eastern border, or in England generally, where social restraints and the demands of custom are still respected. If we are to believe American authorities, there are localities where humour has certainly become grim, and the solemn rite of baptism somewhat burlesqued by a selection of names which throw into the shade even Puritan eccentricity.
Look at the names of some of the earliest settlers of whom we have any authentic knowledge. We may mention the Mayflower first. In 1620 the emigrants by this vessel founded New Plymouth. This led to the planting of other colonies. Among the passengers were a girl named Desire Minter, a direct translation of Desiderata, which had just become popular in England; William Brewster, the ruling elder; his son Love Brewster, who married, settled, and died there in 1650, leaving four children; and a younger son, Wrestling Brewster. The daughters had evidently been left in England till a comfortable home could be found for them, for next year there arrived at New Plymouth, in the Ann and Little James, Fear Brewster and Patience Brewster. Patience very soon married Thomas Prince, one of the first governors. On this same memorable journey of the Mayflower came also Remember, daughter of Isaac Allerton, first assistant to the new governor; Resolved White, who married and left five children in the colony; and Humility Cooper, who by-and-by returned to England.
A little later on, in the Ann and Little James, again came Manasseh Faunce and Experience Mitchell. In a “List of Living” in Virginia, made February 16, 1623, is Peaceable Sherwood. In a “muster” taken January 30, 1624, occur Revolt Morcock and Amity Waine.
There is a conversation in “The Ordinary”—a drama written in 1634 or 1635, by Cartwright, the man whose “body was as handsome as his soul,” as Langbaine has it—which may be quoted here. Hearsay says—
“London air,
Methinks, begins to be too hot for us.
Slicer. There is no longer tarrying here: let’s swear
Fidelity to one another, and
So resolve for New England.
Hearsay. ’Tis but getting
A little pigeon-hole reformed ruff——
Slicer. Forcing our beards into th’ orthodox bent——
Shape. Nosing a little treason ’gainst the king,
Bark something at the bishops, and we shall
Be easily received.”
Act iv. sc. 5.