DID BUNYAN KNOW HOBBES?
I observe a querist wishes to know the artist of the portrait of Bunyan prefixed to his works. I can only myself conjecture Cooper, the miniature painter, but I am also curious about the great author of The Pilgrim's Progress.
First, is Bunyan really the author of "Heart's Ease in Heart's Trouble," and the "Visions of Heaven and Hell," published in his works, and perhaps, excepting "Grace Abounding," the most popular of his received miscellanies? I think not. My reasons are these. The style is very different, and much poorer than his best works. In the "Progress," when he quotes Latin, he modestly puts a side-note [The Latin that I borrow]. In the two tracts mentioned he flashes out a bit of Latin two or three times where he might have much better used English, or in a superfluous way. Also it is curious to know that in his "Visions of Hell" he meets Leviathan Hobbes, the philosopher of Malmesbury. The passage is curious, for if true, and written by Bunyan, it proves him to be personally acquainted with Hobbes. I extract it. After hearing his name called out, Epenetus (the author and visitant of the infernal regions) naturally inquires who it is that calls him. He is answered,—
"I was once well acquainted with you on earth, and had almost persuaded you to be of my opinion. I am the author of that celebrated book, so well known by the title of Leviathan!
"'What! the great Hobbes,' said I, 'are you come hither? Your voice is so much changed, I did not know it.'"
The dialogue which ensues is not worth quoting, as it is from our purpose. But I would ask when was the time when Bunyan "was nearly persuaded to be of Hobbes' opinion?" If he is the author and speaks the truth (and he is notoriously truthful), it must have been in early youth; but surely the philosopher of Malmesbury could not know an obscure tinker. Bunyan cannot speak metaphorically, for he had not read the Leviathan, since he mentions that his only reading in early life, i.e. when he was likely to have embraced freethinking, was the Practice of Piety, and the Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, his wife's dowry. Moreover, he notes particularly the change of voice, a curious circumstance, which testifies personal acquaintance. Hobbes died in 1679; Bunyan in 1688. Were they intimate?
Jas. H. Friswell.
Minor Queries.
Boiling to Death.—Some of your correspondents have communicated instances where burning to death was inflicted as a punishment; and Mr. Gatty suggests that it would prove an interesting subject for inquiry, at what period such barbarous inflictions ceased. In Howe's Chronicle I find the two following notices:
"The 5th of Aprill (1532) one Richard Rose, a cooke, was boiled in Smithfielde, for poisoning of divers persons, to the number of sixteen or more, at ye Bishop of Rochester's place, amongst the which Benet Curwine, gentleman, was one, and hee intended to have poisoned the bishop himselfe, but hee eate no potage that day, whereby hee escaped. Marie the poore people that eate of them, many of them died."—Howe's Chronicle, p. 559.
"The 17th March (1542) Margaret Dany, a maid, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of three households that shee had dwelled in."—Howe's Chronicle, p. 583.