“He that fights and runs away
May live to fight another day.”
[79] This was Sir Samuel Luke of Cople-Wood-End, a Parliamentary leader and a man of probity and distinction, supposed to have been the particular subject of Butler’s lampoon. His own letter-book, however (Egerton Magazine, cited by John Brown in his recent Life of Bunyan, p. 45) shows him to have been much more a man of the world than was Butler’s caricature of a “Colonel.”
[80] Samuel Pepys—whom those well up in cockney ways of speech persist in calling “Mr. Peps”—was born 1633; died 1703. His Diary, running from 1660 to 1669, did not see the light until 1825. Since that date numerous editions have been published; that of Bright, the best. See also Wheatley, Samuel Pepys and the World he lived in.
[81] Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, b. 1609; d. 1674. He was a man of large literary qualities, and his History is chiefly prized for its portraits.
[82] John Evelyn, b. 1620; d. 1706.
[83] B. 1628; d. 1688. Editions of the Pilgrim’s Progress are innumerable. Southey and Macaulay have dealt with his biography, and in later times Mr. Froude (“English Men of Letters”) and John Brown (8vo, London, 1885).
[84] Mr. Froude (“English Men of Letters”) entertains an opposite opinion—as do Offor (1862) and Copner (1883). Mr. Brown, however, who is conscientious to a fault, and seems to have been indefatigable in his research, confirms the general opinion entertained by most accredited biographers. See John Bunyan; his Life, Times, and Work, by John Brown, chap. iii., p. 45.
[85] Reference is again made to Life, Etc., by John Brown, Minister of the Church at Bunyan Meeting, Bedford. The old popular belief was strong that Bunyan’s entire prisonship was served in the jail of the bridge. Well-authenticated accounts, however, of the number of his fellow-prisoners forbid acceptance of this belief.
Froude alludes to the question without settling it; Mr. Brown ingeniously sets forth a theory that explains the traditions, and seems to meet all the facts of the case.