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Page 20
Charminster.
* * * * *
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. {519} 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.
Query, was this punishment peculiar to cooks guilty of poisoning? And
when did the latest instance occur?
L.H.K.
_Meaning of "Mocker."_--To-day I went into the cottage of an old man, in
the village of which I am curate, and finding him about to cut up some
wood, and he being very infirm, I undertook the task for him, and
chopped up a fagot for his fire.
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