Part 1

Chapter 14,044 wordsPublic domain

Transcribed from the 1882 James Miller edition by David Price, email [email protected]

JOHN BUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES.

JAMES SIMSON,

_Editor of_

“SIMSON’S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES,”

_and Author of_

“CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATURAL HISTORY AND PAPERS ON OTHER SUBJECTS”; “CHARLES WATERTON”; “THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND JOHN BUNYAN”; “THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES AND THE GIPSIES”; AND “REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD AT INVERKEITHING, OR LIFE AT A LAZARETTO.”

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“According to the fair play of the world, Let me have audience.”—SHAKSPEARE.

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PREFACE.

Although what is contained in the following pages should explain itself, a few prefatory remarks may not be out of place. In the _Scottish Churches and the Gipsies_ I said that, “in regard to the belief about the destiny of the Gipsies,” “almost all have joined in it, as something established”—that “the Gipsies ‘cease to be Gipsies’ by conforming, in a great measure, with the dress and habits of others, and keeping silence as to their being members of the race;” and that “in bringing forward this subject for discussion and action I thus find the way barred in every direction.” Although I have said that the belief about the disappearance, or rather the _extinction_, of the race has been tacitly if not formally maintained by almost everyone, “no one seems inclined to give a reason for this belief in regard to the destiny of the Gipsies, nor an intelligible definition of the word Gipsy.”

This is the position in which the Gipsy problem stands to-day. The latest work on the subject which I have seen is that of _The Gipsies_ (New York, 1882), by Mr. Leland, so fully reviewed in the following pages. He leaves the question, in its most important meaning, just where he found it; and confesses that it has “puzzled and muddled” him. In 1874 I wrote in _Contributions to Natural History_, _etc._, as follows:—

“What becomes of the Gipsies is a question that cannot be settled by reference to any of Mr. Borrow’s writings, although these contain a few incidental remarks that throw some light on it when information of a positive and circumstantial nature is added” (p. 120).

In offering to a London journal the double-article on _Mr. Leland on the Gipsies_ I said, on the 30th May, 1882:—

“I admit that it is a very difficult and delicate matter for a journal to ‘go back on’ a position once taken up on any question; but I think that if you admit the intended article the point will be gained, without any responsibility on the part of the journal or editor;” and that the insertion of it would put the journal “in its proper position before the world, without recanting anything.” I further wrote that “Purely literary journals must necessarily labour under great disadvantages when called on to notice a book on a very special subject, unless they can find a writer who can do it for them.”

If all that has been written on the Gipsies “ceasing to be Gipsies,” under any circumstances, “be allowed to go uncontradicted, it will become rooted in the public mind, and gather credit as time goes by, making it daily more difficult to set it aside, and allow truth to take its place”—as I wrote in reply to two fulsome eulogies on Charles Waterton.

There are various phenomena connected with the subject of the Gipsies; not the least striking one being the popular impression about the _extinction_ of the _race_ by its _changing its habits_, which has been arrived at without investigation and evidence, and against all analogy and the “nature of things.” So fully has this idea taken possession of the public mind that a hearing on the true position of the question can scarcely be had. One purpose this has served, that it has saved the public almost every serious thought or care in regard to its duty towards the race, and relieved it of every _ultimate_ responsibility connected with it. But that is not a becoming position for any people to occupy—that of getting rid of its obligations by ignoring them. In 1871 I wrote thus:—

“The subject of the Gipsies, so far as it is understood . . . presents little interest to the world if it means only _a certain style of life_ that may _cease at any moment_; in which case it would be deserving of little notice.”

But all of the aspects connected with the popular idea of a Gipsy are of interest and importance when they represent the primitive condition of a people who sooner or later pass into a more or less settled condition, and look back to the style of life of their ancestors. In this respect the Gipsies differ from most of the wild races, inasmuch as they become perpetuated, especially in English-speaking countries, by those of more or less mixed blood. In regard to that I wrote thus in the Disquisition on the Gipsies:—

“The fact of these Indians, and the aboriginal races found in the countries colonized by Europeans, disappearing so rapidly, prevents our regarding them with any great degree of interest. This circumstance detracts from that idea of dignity which the perpetuity and civilization of their race would inspire in the minds of others” (p. 446).

If the “ordinary inhabitant” considers for a moment what his feelings are for everything Gipsy, so far as he understands it, he will realize in some degree the responding feelings of the Gipsies, whatever their positions in life. These create two currents in society—the native and the Gipsy; so that the Gipsy element by marrying with the Gipsy element, or in the same way drawing in and assimilating the native blood with it, keeps the Gipsy current in full flow, and distinct from the other. The Gipsy element, mixed as it is in regard to blood, never having been acknowledged, necessarily exists incognito, and in an outcast condition, however painful it is to use such an expression towards people that have lived so long in the British Isles, and are frequently of unquestionable standing in society; with nothing, in many instances, to distinguish them outwardly from the rest of the population, but possessing signs and words, and a cast of mind peculiar to themselves, that is, a sense of tribe and a soul of nationality, which remain with their descendants.

This subject is not conventional, but will doubtless sooner or later become such, as there are things conventional to-day that were not such lately. In that respect the discussion or even the sentiments of a prominent person or journal can make a thing conventional; such is the nature of a highly complex society anywhere. With reference to this matter I wrote to the journal alluded to in the following terms:—

“Surely the strange and unfortunate Gipsy race and its various off-shoots have not sinned beyond the forgiveness of the rest of their fellow-creatures, so that what represents a relatively-large body of British subjects cannot be acknowledged even by name; leaving to others to look upon or associate with them as each member of the native race may see fit.”

One would naturally think that the inhabitants of Great Britain would at least take some little interest in what might be called their “coloured population;” and hold in respect _some_ of its members who could doubtless tell us much that is interesting on the subject of the Gipsies, so that that should not be a reproach to them which would be a credit to others. To do so, and have the people, in some form or other, acknowledged, is due to the spirits of research and philanthropy that characterize this age. I admit that there are many difficulties attending a movement of this kind. These I have explained fully on previous occasions, and I need not repeat them here.

In regard to John Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race, I find that I stated the question in _Notes and Queries_ on the 12th December, 1857; so that it has stood over, like a “case in Chancery” under the old system, for a quarter of a century, unattended to!

This little publication is intended in the first place for the British Press, although I cannot be expected to send every journal a copy of it. Each publication in its sphere has an influence, which should be exercised in the way indicated; for here there is no opening for the display of those passions that too frequently enter into discussions generally. For myself personally (the last to be considered), although it is thirty-one years since I left Great Britain, I should still have some rights there; and especially among high-toned people, who should remember that one of the ends for which they were created was to see justice done to an absent person.

NEW YORK, _July_ 1, 1882.

JOHN BUNYAN. TWO LETTERS TO AN ENGLISH CLERGYMAN. {7}

YOUR letter of the 14th April reached me after some delay. When you wrote it I presume you had not given your fullest consideration to the question raised by you. For when John Bunyan said that his “father’s house was of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the land,” and that they were “not of the Israelites,” that is, “not Jews,” he could not possibly have meant that they were what are generally called “natives of England.” Who in Bunyan’s time were the “meanest and most despised of _all_ the families in the land”? No one can doubt that they were the Gipsies, who were numerous and well known to Bunyan. Does it not then follow that this particular Bunyan family were Gipsies, in whatever ways and at whatever times its blood may have got mixed with native, and whatever its social development? And who then living in England—when Jews were excluded from it—would have taken so much trouble as Bunyan did—that is, exhausted every means at his command—to ascertain whether their family were Jews but Gipsies? This Bunyan did, and recorded the fact of his having done it after he had become an old man. Here we have no alternative but to conclude that _John_ Bunyan’s family were of the Gipsy race; whatever natives of a similar surname there might have been in the county or neighbourhood before the Gipsies arrived there. It is even possible in this case, as it has taken place in others, that a native family had been changed into a Gipsy one by the male representative of it marrying a Gipsy, but not necessarily one following an outdoor life, and having the issue passed into the Gipsy tribe in the ordinary way of society. There is neither proof to show nor reason for holding that John Bunyan’s family, in the face of what he told us, were _not_ Gipsies, but of the ordinary race of Englishmen; for which reason I think that an honourable minded man should not maintain it, nor allow it to be asserted in his presence.

You say that the “rank” Bunyan spoke of was “the rank of tinkers, not the race of Gipsies.” But tinkering was his calling, while the word rank was only applicable to “his father’s house,” who probably did not all follow tinkering for a living. I do not think that Bunyan used the word tinker anywhere in his writings; the only allusion to it apparently being at the scene before Justice Hale, when his wife said, “Yes, and because he is a tinker, and a poor man, therefore he is despised and cannot have justice.” In my Disquisition on the Gipsies and elsewhere I attached weight to the fact of Bunyan having been a tinker, as illustrative and confirmatory proof of his having been a Gipsy, when the name of Gipsy was so severely proscribed by law; in consequence of which the Gipsies would call themselves tinkers, to evade the legal and social responsibility. At the present day it is exceedingly difficult to ascertain who English tinkers are or were originally. They will all deny that they are or were ever related to the Gipsies; and the Gipsies proper will do the same. I attach no weight to the loose assertions either way made by people promiscuously, who know little or nothing of the subject, or merely have a theory to maintain. All this I have already very fully put in print.

In your letter is a phrase that sounds a little unpleasantly to my ear. You say, “However, whatever may have been Bunyan’s pedigree, he merits honour as a man;” which seems to imply that his memory would have been disgraced if he had been of the Gipsy race. Why should that have been a disparagement? This is the entire question at issue. How could we have expected Bunyan to have said plainly that he was a member of the Gipsy race in the face of the legal and social responsibility attaching to the name, as I have illustrated at great length on various occasions?

I may exaggerate the feeling in question when I say that no publication will admit the subject into its columns, nor any one allude to it publicly, or even privately, without something like losing social caste. As a consequence, no member of the race that can help it will own the blood unless he wants it to be known for his benefit. The rest of it, in its various mixtures of blood, characters, and positions in life, are born and live and die incognito so far as the rest of the world are concerned. This is a state of things that should not exist in England; but there seems no remedy for it unless the question can meet with discussion, and be taken up by persons of influence in whom the public has confidence. As I have said on another occasion, “The question at issue is really not one of evidence, but of an unfortunate feeling of caste,” that bars the way against all investigation and proof. John Bunyan’s nationality forms only a part of the subject of the “Social Emancipation of the Gipsies,” but a very important part of it; but all that might be said of it has no meaning to such as, looking neither to the right nor the left, will listen to no representation of any kind of Gipsy but such as they have been accustomed to see in the open air in England.

It would be uncandid on my part if I refrained from saying that Bedford and its people have been cited before the bar of the world to show reason why John Bunyan should not be admitted to have been “the first (that is known to the world) of eminent Gipsies, the prince of allegorists, and one of the most remarkable of men and Christians.” They have an opportunity of receiving, first or last, the illustrious pilgrim, not as the progeny of (as some have thought) native English vagabonds, but as a Great Original in whatever light he might be looked at.

In opposition to this view of the great dreamer, we have the ferocious prejudice of caste against the name of Gipsy, that leads a person to feel, if not to say, “May I lose my right hand and may I be struck dumb if I admit that he was one of the race.” To him the subject of the Gipsies, in the development of the race from the tent upwards, and in its complex ramifications through society, has no interest. To comprehend it might even be beyond his capacity. To have it investigated and understood, and the people acknowledged, if it implied that John Bunyan was to be included as one of them, is what he will never countenance; on which account his wish is that the subject may remain in perpetual darkness. Proof is not what he wants, nor will he say what it should consist of. As regards John Bunyan personally, we have never had an explanation of what he told us he and his father’s family were and were not; but we may yet see it treated with fanciful interpretations and comments. Then it has been said at random that he was “not a Gipsy, but a tinker,” without considering who the tinkers really were, and forgetting that a person could have been both a tinker and a Gipsy; tinkering having been the Gipsy’s representative calling. Then we have the assertion that he could not have been a Gipsy because of his fairish appearance, and because his surname existed in England before the race arrived in it; and consequently that no one having a fairish appearance and bearing a British name can or could have been a Gipsy! Then we are told that people following, more or less, the established ways of English life during 120 years before the birth of Bunyan could not possibly have been related in any way to the Gipsies! And finally, certificates of marriages, births and deaths of people bearing British names, taken from a parish register, settle the question that people bearing them were not and could not have been others than ordinary natives of the British Isles, in no way related to the Gipsies! In that respect I wrote in the Appendix to the _Reminiscences_ as follows:—

“The whole trouble or mystery in regard to Bunyan is solved by the simple idea of a Gipsy family settling in the neighbourhood of native families of influence, whose surname they assumed, and making Elstow their headquarters or residence, as was the uniform custom of the tribe all over Great Britain. This circumstance makes it a difficult matter, in some instances, to distinguish, by the Christian and surnames in county parish registers, ‘which was which,’ so far back as the early part of the seventeenth century” (p. 82).

The pamphlet addressed to the “University Men of England” explains itself. I think that ministers of the Church of England should do more for the subject of the Gipsies, in the light in which I have presented it, than could be expected from those of other denominations.

With the hope that I have written nothing that can be considered in any way personally offensive, I remain, etc.

II.

In regard to what might be called the “nationality” of John Bunyan I said, in my letter of the 5th May, that “the question at issue is really not one of evidence, but of an unfortunate feeling of caste that bars the way against all investigation and proof.” I do not know what the congregation of Bunyan’s Church at Bedford consists of, but I presume it is composed of humble people, engaged in making a living and bringing up their children becomingly, and indulging in the simple conventionalities suitable to their positions in life. To ask them even to entertain the question whether the great dreamer was of the Gipsy race would apparently horrify them in their simplicity; and it might be useless to attempt to explain matters so as to “convert” them to a belief in it. Proof is perhaps not what such people want, nor would they all be likely to be able to say what it should consist of, or to appreciate it if it was laid before them. It is from no lack of charity or politeness on my part that I say this, and that I would attach little weight to what they might say were they to assert that it is only proof they require to satisfy them that John Bunyan was of the Gipsy race; or that the fact of it has not been proved. He was either of the Gipsy race, of mixed blood, or of the ordinary English one. What proof is there that he was of the latter one? If there is no proof of his having been of the ordinary English race, why assert it, and deny that he was of the Gipsy one, and refuse to investigate the meaning of what he said himself and people were and were not, which, if language has any meaning, clearly showed that he was of the Gipsy race? Why assume, without investigation, that he was not that, but of the ordinary English race, even in the face of his calling having been that of a tinker?

If the congregation of Bunyan’s chinch and the people living in the neighbourhood of it have a difficulty in judging of evidence in a matter like this, they can have none in explaining, in a general or more or less crude way at least, their feelings of antipathy to the idea of the illustrious pilgrim having been of the Gipsy race; and drawing the logical conclusion that he was not likely to have said plainly that he was one of it, in the face of the storm of indignation that seems to be entertained to-day; an indignation which is so great that it has not yet found expression.

If some highly educated men have missed the hinge on which the Gipsy question turns—that the race perpetuates itself in a settled condition, irrespective of character and other circumstances—and have had a difficulty in realizing it in all its bearings, we can easily excuse the congregation of Bunyan’s church for holding views similar to those of the community at large, on a subject that is more or less complex in its nature. But they can never expect to do justice to it unless they approach it with every desire to do what is proper, and not with the rooted aversion with which it has hitherto been regarded. What Bunyan told us of himself and family he said was “well known to many”; and he seems to have assumed that it was, or would have been, understood by the world. I have even suggested that he had been more precise with some of his friends, who might (as they very probably would) have suppressed what he told them in regard to the nationality of himself and his “father’s house.” If he had publicly said plainly that he was of the Gipsy race, that would have been a _fact_, which required no _proof_. But there was no necessity or occasion for him to have said what he did.

It appeals to every principle of fair play and abstract reason that a race that has been in Great Britain for 375 years must be considered in many respects British, whatever its origin, or whatever the habits of some of it may be. It would be very wrong to show and perpetuate a prejudice against the name, or blood as such, however little or however much there may be of it in the person possessing and claiming it. Everything else being equal, such a man, instead of having a prejudice entertained for him, is entitled to a greater respect than should be shown to another who labours under no such prejudice in regard to his blood. Apply this principle to Bunyan and he will stand higher than he has done. He was evidently a man that was “chosen of God” to shine brilliantly among the children of a common parent; and it becomes all of us to acknowledge him. It is to be hoped that the congregation of the church of which he was the honoured pastor will approach this subject at least with wariness, and not, against all evidence, reject him who was a divine instrument for the benefit of humanity, in its highest concernment; merely because he was a member of a particular “family in the land,” which has never yet been acknowledged in any shape or form, however numerous it is.

MR. LELAND ON THE GIPSIES. {11a}

THE _History of the Gipsies_, by Walter Simson, which I edited and published in 1865, was ready for the press in 1858. In a prefatory note to it I said:—

“In the present work the race has been treated of so fully and elaborately, in all its aspects, as in a great measure to fill and satisfy the mind, instead of being, as heretofore, little better than a myth to the understanding of the most intelligent person.”

In 1872 Mr. Leland published his work on _The English Gipsies and their Language_, in which no reference was made to mine, [that is, my part of it]. {11b}