After discussing the foregoing resolves, and arranging by-laws and regulations for the government of a Standing Committee of Public Safety, who were selected from their delegates, the whole proceedings were unanimously adopted and signed. A select committee was then appointed to draw up a more full and definite statement of grievances, and a more formal Declaration of Independence. The delegation then adjourned about two o’clock A.M.
THE KNOW-NOTHINGS.
The recent political organization under this odd title, which presented one of the most singular features that has yet diversified American history, has its archetype in the Church whose progress in this country it was designed to oppose. In Italy there was formerly a strange order of monks calling themselves Fratres Ignorantiæ, “Brothers of Ignorance.” They used to bind themselves by oath not to understand nor to learn any thing, and answered all questions by saying, Nescio, “I do not know.” Their first proposition was, “Though you do not understand the words you speak, yet the Holy Ghost understands them, and the devil flees.” In opposing mental acquirements, they argued thus:—“Suppose this friar studies and becomes a learned man, the consequence will be that he will want to become our superior: therefore, put the sack around his neck, and let him go begging from house to house, in town and country.”
THE ORIGINAL OF BUNYAN’S PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.
The Isle of Man, or the Legal Proceedings in Manshire against Sin, wherein, by way of a continual Allegory, the chief malefactors disturbing both Church and Commonwealth are detected and attached, with their arraignment and judicial trial, according to the laws of England; the spiritual use thereof, with an apology for the manner of handling most necessary to be first read, for direction in the right use of the allegory. By the Rev. Richard Bernard.
An allegory with the above title, originally published more than two hundred years ago, was reprinted in Bristol, England, in 1803. In a note to this edition, addressed to the reader, the editor states that the work is prized as well on account of the ingenuity of the performance as the probability of its having suggested to Mr. John Bunyan the first idea of his Pilgrim’s Progress, and of his Holy War, which was intimated on a leaf facing the title-page, by the late Rev. Mr. Toplady.
The editor says, “That Bunyan had seen the book may be inferred from its extensive circulation, for in one year only after its first publication it ran through seven editions.” He then proceeds to the internal evidence, and points out a supposed similarity between the characters in the two works, as between Wilful Will of the one and Will-be-Will of the other; Mr. Worldly Wiseman of Bunyan and Sir Worldly Wise of Bernard; Soul’s Town of Bernard and Bunyan’s Town of Man’s Soul, &c.
That the book has no very high order of genius to commend it is evident from the fact that it has passed into comparative obscurity. The world does not suffer the works of true prophets to die. Still, there is enough in it to render it worthy of being held in remembrance; and, antedating Bunyan as it does, passing through seven editions immediately after its first publication, presenting some striking analogies with the great master of allegory, and sinking into obscurity before the brighter and more enduring light of the Bedford tinker, its author deserves honorable mention for his attempt to present religious truth in a striking and impressive form at a period when such attempts were rare.
Southey, in his Commonplace Book, gives a long quotation from Lucian’s Hermotimus, to show how Bunyan was anticipated, in the main idea of his allegory, by a Greek writer, as far back as the second century.
Another claimant for this Telemachus of Protestant religious literature has recently been brought to light by Catherine Isabella Curt, who has just published in London a translation of an old French manuscript in the British Museum, which is almost word for word the Pilgrim’s Progress. The manuscript is the work of a clergyman, G de Grideville, who lived in the fifteenth century. Its title, in Norman English, is Pylgremage of the Sowle. The printer, Caxton, who occupied the same position in London as the Etiennes of Paris, published in 1483 a translation of this manuscript, of which the authenticity appears incontestable. It would seem, therefore, that the credit of this celebrated book belongs to France, although France hitherto has shown less appreciation of the original than England has bestowed on the copy.