Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/106

 68 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS He was born at Elstow, in Bedfordshire, in 1628; and, to use his own words, his " father's house was of that rank which is the meanest and most despised of all the families of the land." His father was a tinker, and the son followed the same calling, which necessarily brought him into association with the lowest and most depraved classes of English society. The estimation in which the tinker and his occupation were held in the seventeenth century, may be learned from the quaint and humorous description of Sir Thomas Overbury. " The tinker," saith lie. "is a movable, for he hath no abiding in one place ; he seems to be de- vout, tor his life is a continual pilgrimage, and sometimes, in humility, goes bare- foot, therein making necessity a virtue; he is a gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back ; or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance with him. He is always furnished with a song, to which his hammer, keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder of the kettle-drum ; where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets. The companion of his travel is some foul, sunburnt quean, that, since the terrible statute, has recanted gypsyism, and is turned pedlaress. So marches he all over England, with his bag and baggage ; his conversation is irreprovable, for he is always mending. He observes truly the statutes, and therefore had rather steal than beg. He is so strong an enemy of idleness, that in mending one hole he would rather make three than want work ; and when he hath done, he throws the wallet of his faults behind him. His tongue is very voluble, which, with canting, proves him a linguist. He is entertained in every place, yet enters no farther than the door, to avoid suspicion. To conclude, if he escape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a beggar." Truly, but a poor beginning for a pious life was the youth of John Bunyan. As might have been expected, he was a wild, reckless, swearing boy, as his father doubtless was before him. " It was my delight," says he, " to be taken captive by the devil. I had few equals, both for cursing and swearing, lying and blasphem- ing." Yet, in his ignorance and darkness, his powerful imagination early lent terror to the reproaches of conscience. He was scared, even in childhood, with dieams of hell and apparitions of devils. Troubled with fears of eternal fire and the malignant demons who fed it in the regions of despair, he says that he often wished either that there was no hell, or that he had been born a devil himself, that he might be a tormentor rather than one of the tormented. At an early age he appears to have married. His wife was as poor as him- self, for he tells us that they had not so much as a dish or spoon between them ; but she brought with her two books on religious subjects, the reading of which seems to have had no slight degree of influence on his mind. He went to church regularly, adored the priest and all things pertaining to his office, being, as he says, "overrun with superstition." On one occasion a sermon was preached against the breach of the Sabbath by sports or labor, which struck him at the mo- ment as especially designed for himself ; but by the time he had finished his din- ner he was prepared to " shake it out of his mind, and return to his sports and gaming." One day, while standing in the street, cursing and blaspheming, he met with