Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

V >> Various >> Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4




His second wife, whom he had married just before his arrest, tried in vain
for his release; she even petitioned the House of Lords on his behalf.
While he lay in prison he could do nothing in the way of his old trade for
the support of his family. He determined, therefore, to take up a new
trade. He learned to make long-tagged thread laces; and many thousands of
these articles were furnished by him to the hawkers. While his hands were
thus busied he had other employments for his mind and his lips. He gave
religious instruction to his fellow-captives, and formed from among them a
little flock, of which he was himself the pastor. He studied indefatigably
the few books which he possessed. His two chief companions were the Bible
and Fox's _Book of Martyrs_. His knowledge of the Bible was such that he
might have been called a living concordance; and on the margin of his copy
of the _Book of Martyrs_ are still legible the ill-spelt lines of doggerel
in which he expressed his reverence for the brave sufferers, and his
implacable enmity to the mystical Babylon.

Prison life gave him leisure to write, and during his first imprisonment he
wrote, in addition to several tracts and some verse, _Grace Abounding to
the Chief of Sinners_, the narrative of his own religious experience. The
book was published in 1666. A short period of freedom was followed by a
second offence and a further imprisonment. Bunyan's works were coarse,
indeed, but they showed a keen mother wit, a great command of the homely
mother tongue, an intimate knowledge of the English Bible, and a vast and
dearly bought spiritual experience. They therefore, when the corrector of
the press had improved the syntax and the spelling, were well received.

Much of Bunyan's time was spent in controversy. He wrote sharply against
the Quakers, whom he seems always to have held in utter abhorrence. He
wrote against the liturgy of the Church of England. No two things,
according to him, had less affinity than the form of prayer and the spirit
of prayer. Those, he said with much point, who have most of the spirit of
prayer are all to be found in gaol; and those who have most zeal for the
form of prayer are all to be found at the alehouse. The doctrinal Articles,
on the other hand, he warmly praised and defended. The most acrimonious of
all his works is his _Defence of Justification by Faith_, an answer to what
Bunyan calls "the brutish and beastly latitudinarianism" of Edward Fowler,
afterwards bishop of Gloucester, an excellent man, but not free from the
taint of Pelagianism.

Bunyan had also a dispute with some of the chiefs of the sect to which he
belonged. He doubtless held with perfect sincerity [v.04 p.0805] the
distinguishing tenet of that sect, but he did not consider that tenet as
one of high importance, and willingly joined in communion with pious
Presbyterians and Independents. The sterner Baptists, therefore, loudly
pronounced him a false brother. A controversy arose which long survived the
original combatants. The cause which Bunyan had defended with rude logic
and rhetoric against Kiffin and Danvers has since been pleaded by Robert
Hall with an ingenuity and eloquence such as no polemical writer has ever
surpassed.

During the years which immediately followed the Restoration, Bunyan's
confinement seems to have been strict. But as the passions of 1660 cooled,
as the hatred with which the Puritans had been regarded while their reign
was recent gave place to pity, he was less and less harshly treated. The
distress of his family, and his own patience, courage and piety, softened
the hearts of his judges. Like his own Christian in the cage, he found
protectors even among the crowd at Vanity Fair. The bishop of the diocese,
Dr Barlow, is said to have interceded for him. At length the prisoner was
suffered to pass most of his time beyond the walls of the gaol, on
condition, as it should seem, that he remained within the town of Bedford.

He owed his complete liberation to one of the worst acts of one of the
worst governments that England has ever seen. In 1671 the Cabal was in
power. Charles II. had concluded the treaty by which he bound himself to
set up the Roman Catholic religion in England. The first step which he took
towards that end was to annul, by an unconstitutional exercise of his
prerogative, all the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics; and in
order to disguise his real design, he annulled at the same time the penal
statutes against Protestant nonconformists. Bunyan was consequently set at
large.[6] In the first warmth of his gratitude he published a tract, in
which he compared Charles to that humane and generous Persian king, who,
though not himself blest with the light of the true religion, favoured the
chosen people, and permitted them, after years of captivity, to rebuild
their beloved temple.

Before he left his prison he had begun the book which has made his name
immortal.[7] The history of that book is remarkable. The author was, as he
tells us, writing a treatise, in which he had occasion to speak of the
stages of the Christian progress. He compared that progress, as many others
had compared it, to a pilgrimage. Soon his quick wit discovered innumerable
points of similarity which had escaped his predecessors. Images came
crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words, quagmires
and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, soft vales, sunny pastures,
a gloomy castle, of which the courtyard was strewn with the skulls and
bones of murdered prisoners, a town all bustle and splendour, like London
on the Lord Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a rule could make
it, running on up hill and down hill, through city and through wilderness,
to the Black River and the Shining Gate. He had found out, as most people
would have said, by accident, as he would doubtless have said, by the
guidance of Providence, where his powers lay. He had no suspicion, indeed,
that he was producing a masterpiece. He could not guess what place his
allegory would occupy in English literature; for of English literature he
knew nothing. Those who suppose him to have studied the _Faery Queen_ might
easily be confuted, if this were the proper place for a detailed
examination of the passages in which the two allegories have been thought
to resemble each other. The only work of fiction, in all probability, with
which he could compare his _Pilgrim_ was his old favourite, the legend of
Sir Bevis of Southampton. He would have thought it a sin to borrow any time
from the serious business of his life, from his expositions, his
controversies and his lace tags, for the purpose of amusing himself with
what he considered merely as a trifle. It was only, he assures us, at spare
moments that he returned to the House Beautiful, the Delectable Mountains
and the Enchanted Ground. He had no assistance. Nobody but himself saw a
line till the whole was complete. He then consulted his pious friends. Some
were pleased. Others were much scandalized. It was a vain story, a mere
romance, about giants, and lions, and goblins, and warriors, sometimes
fighting with monsters, and sometimes regaled by fair ladies in stately
palaces. The loose atheistical wits at Will's might write such stuff to
divert the painted Jezebels of the court; but did it become a minister of
the gospel to copy the evil fashions of the world? There had been a time
when the cant of such fools would have made Bunyan miserable. But that time
was past; and his mind was now in a firm and healthy state. He saw that in
employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, he was only
following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself;
and he determined to print.

The _Pilgrim's Progress_ was published in February 1678. Soon the
irresistible charm of a book which gratified the imagination of the reader
with all the action and scenery of a fairy tale, which exercised his
ingenuity by setting him to discover a multitude of curious analogies,
which interested his feelings for human beings, frail like himself, and
struggling with temptations from within and from without, which every
moment drew a smile from him by some stroke of quaint yet simple
pleasantry, and nevertheless left on his mind a sentiment of reverence for
God and of sympathy for man, began to produce its effect. In puritanical
circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded, that effect
was such as no work of genius, though it were superior to the _Iliad_, to
_Don Quixote_ or to _Othello_, can ever produce on a mind accustomed to
indulge in literary luxury. A second edition came out in the autumn with
additions; and the demand became immense. The eighth edition, which
contains the last improvements made by the author, was published in 1682,
the ninth in 1684, the tenth in 1685. The help of the engraver had early
been called in; and tens of thousands of children looked with terror and
delight on execrable copperplates, which represented Christian thrusting
his sword into Apollyon, or writhing in the grasp of Giant Despair. In
Scotland, and in some of the colonies, the _Pilgrim_ was even more popular
than in his native country. Bunyan has told us, with very pardonable
vanity, that in New England his dream was the daily subject of the
conversation of thousands, and was thought worthy to appear in the most
superb binding. He had numerous admirers in Holland, and amongst the
Huguenots of France.

He continued to work the gold-field which he had discovered, and to draw
from it new treasures, not indeed with quite such ease and in quite such
abundance as when the precious soil was still virgin, but yet with success,
which left all competition far behind. In 1680 appeared the _Life and Death
of Mr Badman_; in 1684 the second part of the _Pilgrim's Progress_. In 1682
appeared the _Holy War_, which if the _Pilgrim's Progress_ did not exist,
would be the best allegory that ever was written.

Bunyan's place in society was now very different from what it had been.
There had been a time when many dissenting ministers, who could talk Latin
and read Greek, had affected to treat him with scorn. But his fame and
influence now far exceeded theirs. He had so great an authority among the
Baptists that he was popularly called Bishop Bunyan. His episcopal
visitations were annual. From Bedford he rode every year to London, and
preached there to large and attentive congregations. From London he went
his circuit through the country, animating the zeal of his brethren,
collecting and distributing alms and making up quarrels. The magistrates
seem in general to have given him little trouble. But there is reason to
believe that, in the year 1685, he was in some danger of again occupying
his old quarters in Bedford gaol. In that year the rash and wicked
enterprise of Monmouth gave the government a pretext for prosecuting the
nonconformists; and scarcely one eminent divine of the Presbyterian.
Independent [v.04 p.0806] or Baptist persuasion remained unmolested. Baxter
was in prison: Howe was driven into exile: Henry was arrested.

Two eminent Baptists, with whom Bunyan had been engaged in controversy,
were in great peril and distress. Danvers was in danger of being hanged;
and Kiffin's grandsons were actually hanged. The tradition is that, during
those evil days, Bunyan was forced to disguise himself as a wagoner, and
that he preached to his congregation at Bedford in a smock-frock, with a
cart-whip in his hand. But soon a great change took place. James II. was at
open war with the church, and found it necessary to court the dissenters.
Some of the creatures of the government tried to secure the aid of Bunyan.
They probably knew that he had written in praise of the indulgence of 1672,
and therefore hoped that he might be equally pleased with the indulgence of
1687. But fifteen years of thought, observation and commerce with the world
had made him wiser. Nor were the cases exactly parallel. Charles was a
professed Protestant; James was a professed Papist. The object of Charles's
indulgence was disguised; the object of James's indulgence was patent.
Bunyan was not deceived. He exhorted his hearers to prepare themselves by
fasting and prayer for the danger which menaced their civil and religious
liberties, and refused even to speak to the courtier who came down to
remodel the corporation of Bedford, and who, as was supposed, had it in
charge to offer some municipal dignity to the bishop of the Baptists.

Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution.[8] In the summer of 1688 he
undertook to plead the cause of a son with an angry father, and at length
prevailed on the old man not to disinherit the young one. This good work
cost the benevolent intercessor his life. He had to ride through heavy
rain. He came drenched to his lodgings on Snow Hill, was seized with a
violent fever, and died in a few days (August 31). He was buried in Bunhill
Fields; and many Puritans, to whom the respect paid by Roman Catholics to
the reliques and tombs of saints seemed childish or sinful, are said to
have begged with their dying breath that their coffins might be placed as
near as possible to the coffin of the author of the _Pilgrim's Progress_.

The fame of Bunyan during his life, and during the century which followed
his death, was indeed great, but was almost entirely confined to religious
families of the middle and lower classes. Very seldom was he during that
time mentioned with respect by any writer of great literary eminence. Young
coupled his prose with the poetry of the wretched D'Urfey. In the
_Spiritual Quixote_, the adventures of Christian are ranked with those of
Jack the Giant-Killer and John Hickathrift. Cowper ventured to praise the
great allegorist, but did not venture to name him. It is a significant
circumstance that, for a long time all the numerous editions of the
_Pilgrim's Progress_ were evidently meant for the cottage and the servants'
hall. The paper, the printing, the plates, were all of the meanest
description. In general, when the educated minority and the common people
differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority
finally prevails. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ is perhaps the only book about
which the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the common
people.

The attempts which have been made to improve and to imitate this book are
not to be numbered. It has been done into verse; it has been done into
modern English. The Pilgrimage of Tender Conscience, the Pilgrimage of Good
Intent, the Pilgrimage of Seek Truth, the Pilgrimage of Theophilus, the
Infant Pilgrim, the Hindoo Pilgrim, are among the many feeble copies of the
great original. But the peculiar glory of Bunyan is that those who most
hated his doctrines have tried to borrow the help of his genius. A Catholic
version of his parable may be seen with the head of the virgin in the
title-page. On the other hand, those Antinomians for whom his Calvinism is
not strong enough, may study the Pilgrimage of Hephzibah, in which nothing
will be found which can be construed into an admission of free agency and
universal redemption. But the most extraordinary of all the acts of
Vandalism by which a fine work of art was ever defaced was committed in the
year 1853. It was determined to transform the _Pilgrim's Progress_ into a
Tractarian book. The task was not easy; for it was necessary to make two
sacraments the most prominent objects in the allegory, and of all Christian
theologians, avowed Quakers excepted, Bunyan was the one in whose system
the sacraments held the least prominent place. However, the Wicket Gate
became a type of baptism, and the House Beautiful of the eucharist. The
effect of this change is such as assuredly the ingenious person who made it
never contemplated. For, as not a single pilgrim passes through the Wicket
Gate in infancy, and as Faithful hurries past the House Beautiful without
stopping, the lesson which the fable in its altered shape teaches, is that
none but adults ought to be baptized, and that the eucharist may safely be
neglected. Nobody would have discovered from the original _Pilgrim's
Progress_ that the author was not a Paedobaptist. To turn his book into a
book against Paedobaptism, was an achievement reserved for an
Anglo-Catholic divine. Such blunders must necessarily be committed by every
man who mutilates parts of a great work, without taking a comprehensive
view of the whole.

(M.)

The above article has been slightly corrected as to facts, as compared with
its form in the 9th edition. Bunyan's works were first partially collected
in a folio volume (1692) by his friend Charles Doe. A larger edition (2
vols., 1736-1737) was edited by Samuel Wilson of the Barbican. In 1853 a
good edition (3 vols., Glasgow) was produced by George Offer. Southey's
edition (1830) of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ contained his _Life_ of Bunyan.
Since then various editions of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, many illustrated
(by Cruikshank, Byam Shaw, W. Strang and others), have appeared. An
interesting life by "the author of _Mark Rutherford_" (W. Hale White) was
published in 1904. Other lives are by J.A. Froude (1880) in the "English
Men of Letters" series, and E. Venables (1888); but the standard work on
the subject is _John Bunyan; his Life, Times and Work_ (1885), by the Rev.
J. Brown of Bedford. A bronze statue, by Boehm, was presented to the town
by the duke of Bedford in 1874.

[1] The name, in various forms as Buignon, Buniun, Bonyon or Binyan,
appears in the local records of Elstow and the neighbouring parishes at
intervals from as far back as 1199. They were small freeholders, but all
the property except the cottage had been lost in the time of Bunyan's
grandfather. Bunyan's own account of his family as the "meanest and most
despised of all the families of the land" must be put down to his habitual
self-depreciation. Thomas Bunyan had a forge and workshop at Elstow.

[2] There is no direct evidence to show on which side he fought, but the
balance of probability justifies this view.

[3] There is no means of identifying the place besieged. It has been
assumed to be Leicester, which was captured by the Royalists in May 1645,
and recovered by Fairfax in the next month.

[4] Bunyan had joined, in 1653, the nonconformist community which met under
a certain Mr Gifford at St John's church, Bedford. This congregation was
not Baptist, properly so called, as the question of baptism, with other
doctrinal points, was left open. When Bunyan removed to Bedford in 1655, he
became a deacon of this church, and two years later he was formally
recognized as a preacher, his fame soon spreading through the neighbouring
counties. His wife died soon after their removal to Bedford, and he also
lost his friend and pastor, Mr Gifford. His earliest work was directed
against Quaker mysticism and appeared in 1656. It was entitled _Some Gospel
Truths Opened_; it was followed in the same year by a second tract in the
same sense, _A Vindication of Gospel Truths_.

[5] He was not, however, as has often been stated, confined in the old gaol
which stood on the bridge over the Ouse, but in the county gaol.

[6] His formal pardon is dated the 13th of September 1672; but five months
earlier he had received a royal licence to preach, and acted for the next
three years as pastor of the nonconformist body to which he belonged, in a
barn on the site of which stands the present Bunyan Meeting.

[7] It is now generally supposed that Bunyan wrote his _Pilgrim's
Progress_, not during his twelve years' imprisonment, but during a short
period of incarceration in 1675, probably in the old gaol on the bridge.

[8] He had resumed his pastorate in Bedford after his imprisonment of 1675,
and, although he frequently preached in London to crowded congregations,
and is said in the last year of his life to have been, of course
unofficially, chaplain to Sir John Shorter, lord mayor of London, he
remained faithful to his own congregation.

BUNZLAU, a town of Germany, in Prussian Silesia, on the right bank of the
Bober, 27 m. from Liegnitz on the Berlin-Breslau railway, which crosses the
river by a great viaduct. Pop. (1900) 14,590. It has a handsome market
square, an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and monuments to the
Russian field marshal Kutusov, who died here, and to the poet Martin Opitz
von Boberfeld. The Bunzlau pottery is famous; woollen and linen cloth are
manufactured, and there is a considerable trade in grain and cattle.
Bunzlau (Boleslavia) received its name in the 12th century from Duke
Boleslav, who separated it from the duchy of Glogau. Its importance was
increased by numerous privileges and the possession of extensive mining
works. It was frequently captured and recaptured in the wars of the 17th
century, and in 1739 was completely destroyed by fire. On the 30th of
August 1813 the French were here defeated on the retreat from the Katzbach
by the Silesian army of the allies.

BUONAFEDE, APPIANO (1716-1793), Italian philosopher, was born at Comachio,
in Ferrara, and died in Rome. He became professor of theology at Naples in
1740, and, entering the religious body of the Celestines, rose to be
general of the order. His principal works, generally published under the
assumed name of "Agatopisto Cromazione," are on the history of
philosophy:--_Della Istoria e delle Indole di ogni Filosofia_, 7 vols.,
1772 seq.; and _Della Restaurazione di ogni Filosofia ne' Secoli_, xvi.,
xvii., xviii., 3 vols., 1789 (German trans. by C. Heydenreich). The latter
gives a valuable account of 16th-century Italian philosophy. His other
works are _Istoria critica e filosofica del suicidio_ (1761); _Delle
conquiste celebri esaminate col naturale diritto delle genti_ (1763);
_Storia critica del moderno diritto di natura e delle genti_ (1789); and a
few poems and philosophic comedies.

BUOY (15th century "boye"; through O.Fr. or Dutch, from Lat. _boia_,
fetter; the word is now usually pronounced as "boy," and it has been spelt
in that form; but Hakluyt's [v.04 p.0807] _Voyages_ spells it "bwoy," and
this seems to indicate a different pronunciation, which is also given in
some modern dictionaries), a floating body employed to mark the navigable
limits of channels, their fairways, sunken dangers or isolated rocks, mined
or torpedo grounds, telegraph cables, or the position of a ship's anchor
after letting go; buoys are also used for securing a ship to instead of
anchoring. They vary in size and construction from a log of wood to steel
mooring buoys for battleships or a steel gas buoy.

In 1882 a conference was held upon a proposal to establish a uniform system
of buoyage. It was under the presidency of the then duke of Edinburgh, and
consisted of representatives from the various bodies interested. The
questions of colour, visibility, shape and size were considered, and any
modifications necessary owing to locality. The committee proposed the
following uniform system of buoyage, and it is now adopted by the general
lighthouse authorities of the United Kingdom:--

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

(1) The mariner when approaching the coast must determine his position on
the chart, and note the direction of flood tide. (2) The term
"starboard-hand" shall denote that side which would be on the right hand of
the mariner either going with the main stream of the flood, or entering a
harbour, river or estuary from seaward; the term "port-hand" shall denote
the left hand of the mariner in the same circumstances. (3)[1] Buoys
showing the pointed top of a cone above water shall be called conical (fig.
1) and shall always be starboard-hand buoys, as above defined. (4)[1] Buoys
showing a flat top above water shall be called can (fig. 2) and shall
always be port-hand buoys, as above defined. (5) Buoys showing a domed top
above water shall be called spherical (fig. 3) and shall mark the ends of
middle grounds. (6) Buoys having a tall central structure on a broad face
shall be called pillar buoys (fig. 4), and like all other special buoys,
such as bell buoys, gas buoys, and automatic sounding buoys, shall be
placed to mark special positions either on the coast or in the approaches
to harbours. (7) Buoys showing only a mast above water shall be called
spar-buoys (fig. 5).[2] (8) Starboard-hand buoys shall always be painted in
one colour only. (9) Port-hand buoys shall be painted of another
characteristic colour, either single or parti-colour. (10) Spherical buoys
(fig. 3) at the ends of middle grounds shall always be distinguished by
horizontal stripes of white colour, (11) Surmounting beacons, such as staff
and globe and others,[3] shall always be painted of one dark colour. (12)
Staff and globe (fig. 1) shall only be used on starboard-hand buoys, staff
and cage (fig. 2) on port hand; diamonds (fig. 7) at the outer ends of
middle grounds; and triangles (fig. 3) at the inner ends. (13) Buoys on the
same side of a channel, estuary or tideway may be distinguished from each
other by names, numbers or letters, and where necessary by a staff
surmounted with the appropriate beacon. (14) Buoys intended for moorings
(fig. 6) may be of shape and colour according to the discretion of the
authority within whose jurisdiction they are laid, but for marking
submarine telegraph cables the colour shall be green with the word
"Telegraph" painted thereon in white letters.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.