(Vol. ii., pp. 476. 518.; Vol. iii., p. 70.)
The best portrait of John Bunyan was drawn and engraved by White, to the
_Holy War_, 1682. The original drawing, and a fine impression of the
engraving, is preserved in the illustrated Grainger's _History of England_,
in the print-room at the British Museum. It was copied in folio for
Bunyan's _Works_. It has been recently copied for Mr. Bogue's elegant
edition of the _Pilgrim_, and for the first complete edition of Bunyan's
_Works_, now publishing by Messrs. Blackie and Sons, Glasgow. A fac-simile
was engraved for an edition of the _Pilgrim_, by Mr. Pickering, 8vo. 1849.
That the great allegorist was not the author of _Heart's Ease_ in _Heart
Trouble_ is perfectly clear, not only that the style is very different, but
from the author being known. It was first published in 1690, under the
initials of J. B., and the Epistle is dated "From the house of my
pilgrimage, March, 1690." Bunyan died in August, 1688. Mr. Palmer, in his
_Calamy_, vol. ii. p.16., states that the author was James Birdwood.
Whether Bunyan was acquainted with Hobbes depends upon the authority of a
small volume of _Visions of Heaven and Hell_, published under the name of
Bunyan. In this it is represented that he saw poor Hobbes in hell, and
recognised an old acquaintance.
The earliest edition of _The Visions_ which I have been able to discover,
is at "London: printed for Edward Midwinter, at the Looking Glass upon
London Bridge, price, bound, one shilling;" without date. It was printed
early in the reign of George I.; this is seen in an advertisement of books
at the end, among which is _The Lives of the Monarchs of England to his
present Majesty King George_. It is entitled, _The Visions of John Bunyan,
being his last remains_. There is no account of either of this, or the
_Heart's Ease_, in _The Struggler for the Preservation of Mr. John Bunyan's
Labours_. This gives a list of forty-three works published by him, and of
seventeen left by him at his decease for publication. If _The Visions_ were
written by him, it must have escaped the search of his widow and surviving
friends; but the style at once proves that it was not a production of his
prolific pen. Bunyan's style was remarkably simple and plain. The following
phrases extracted from _The Visions_ will carry conviction to every
reader:--
"Mormo's of a future state," "metempsychosis of nature," "nefandous
villanies," "diurnal and annual," "my visive faculty,"
"soul-transparent and diaphonous," "translucid ray," "terrene
enjoyments," "our minds are clarified," "types both of the ante and
post-diluvian world," "the tenuity thereof," "the aereal heavens,"
"effluxes of divine glory," "all aenigmas," "corruscations of his divine
nature," "Solomon's mystick epithalamium," "the epiphonema,"
"propinquity in nature," "diversified refractions," "too bright and too
diaphonous," "sweet odes and eniphalamics," "amarantine crown," "bright
corruscancy," "palinodies and elegies," "no cataplasm," "eccentricks
quite exterminate," "mutual assassinates," &c. &c.
Such phrases and terms plain John Bunyan utterly despised. They prove, as
does the whole plan of the treatise, that it must have been a very
different man to the author of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ who wrote these
_Visions_.
{90} It is not likely that Hobbes and Bunyan were acquainted; they lived in
distant parts of the country. Bunyan's _Pilgrim_, which was the foundation
of his wide-spread fame, was not published till 1678, when the Leviathan
philosopher was ninety years of age; he died in 1679. Hobbes' company were
the learned and illustrious among men,--the Des Carteses, Gassendis, and
Wallises of his age; while Bunyan associated with the despised
Nonconformists. Nor is is likely that Bunyan read the _Leviathan_; Dent's
_Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, The Practice of Piety_, Fox's _Martyrs_,
and, above all, his Bible, constituted his library during his imprisonment
for conscience-sake, which lasted from 1660 to 1672. Had he suffered from
Hobbes's philosophy, he would have proclaimed it upon the house-tops,
especially in his _Grace Abounding_, that others might have been guarded
from such dangerous scepticism. The _Vision_ of Hobbes was doubtless
intended to render the forgery more popular.