the funeral pile after it was set on fire; and of others who, having revived before the pile was kindled, returned home on foot.*

Particular ceremonies have been adopted by all nations to mark their mourning for the dead, although these have varied widely in different countries. The Jews, during the whole period of mourning, were to cease from washing or anointing themselves, or changing their clothes. Those ceremonies, on ordinary occasions, lasted seven days; but in the case of the death of an eminent person, as in those of Moses and Aaron, they were to be continued for a month.+

The ceremonies by which the Greeks used to express their sorrow upon the death of their friends, and on other occasions, were various and uncertain. Hence it was that mourners in some cities demeaned themselves in the very same manner with persons who in other places designed to express joy; for the customs of one city being different from those of another, it sometimes happened that what in one place was meant for an expression of mirth, was in others a token of sorrow. It seems, however, to have been a general and constant rule amongst them to recede as much as possible from their ordinary customs, by which change they thought it would appear that some extraordinary calamity had befallen them. They also tore, cut off, and sometimes shaved their hair.‡

The period of mourning among the Romans, on the part of men, or of distant relatives, appears to have been but short. Widows were, however, bound to mourn for their husbands for an entire year. §

The Romans while mourning kept themselves at home, avoiding every entertainment and amusement, neither cutting their hair nor beard. They dressed themselves in black, which

* Adam's Roman Antiquities, 447.

+ Dr Cox's Manners and Customs of the Israelites, p. 106.

Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. ii., 196, 198.

§ Pliny's Letters, b. iv., ep. 2, and b. vi., ep. 34.

latter custom is supposed to have been borrowed from the Egyptians. Sometimes they attired themselves in skins, laying aside every kind of ornament, not even lighting a fire, which was esteemed an ornament to a house. The women on these occasions laid aside their gold and purple. Under the republic they dressed in black like the men. But under the emperors, when party-coloured clothes came in fashion, they wore white in mourning.*

A feast of ghosts and phantoms, called Lemuria, was solemnised the 9th day of May, in order to pacify the manes of the dead, who were supposed to pay visits at night, with the ill-natured object of tormenting the living. The institution of this feast is ascribed to Romulus, who, to get rid of the ghost of his brother Remus, whom he had ordered to be murdered, and which was constantly paying him visits, ordered a feast, called after his name, Remuria and Lemuria. Sacrifices were offered for three nights together, during which time all the temples of the gods were shut up, and no weddings were allowed to take place. The principal ceremony which was used at this sacrifice was of rather a singular nature. About the middle of the night, the person who offered, being barefooted, made a signal, having the fingers of his hand joined to his thumb, whereby he fancied that he kept off the phantom or bad spirit. Then he washed his hands in spring water, and putting black beans into his mouth, threw them behind him, uttering these words, "I deliver myself and mine by these beans," making withal, we are told, a melancholy noise, with pans and other brass vessels, which they used to strike one against the other, desiring the ghosts to withdraw, and repeating nine times together an urgent request that they would retire in peace without any more disturbing the living,† a solicitation with which it appears that the ghosts were, on all ordinary cases at least, either so polite or so obliging as to comply.

I have now completed the survey which I have been

* Adam's Roman Antiquities, 451.

+ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, tit. "Lemuria."

attempting of the manner of life and daily occupations of the people of the ancient world; during which I have endeavoured to trace the progress of civilisation from its earliest dawn to the period when it had attained a height and a glory, very little, if at all, inferior to the splendour with which it beams forth in the present enlightened age. What an insight into human nature is thus afforded! How striking a view of the inner mind of society is by this means unfolded to our mental vision! How varied is the prospect in each direction; and how chequered is the scene which lies open before us! How different does the world, when beheld under this phase, appear to what we in these days see it; and yet at the same time how strikingly similar, and even identical. It is in the one moment the same and altogether another orb. The people and their institutions vary much from our own; but human nature itself is still precisely what it was, and what it ever will be. Mankind and their various callings are ever changing, according as circumstances influence their career. But the nature of man is ever and alike unchangeable, although events may affect its aspect. The grand, and stately, and wondrous machinery is what it originally was, however its operations may vary according to the agents by whom it is stimulated to activity.

Most important and most interesting is it, moreover, in the comprehensive survey thus taken of the progress of mankind from the infancy of the race itself, to trace out, and to keep ever clearly in view, the steady, and powerful, and ceaseless operation of those grand elements of civilisation, through whose mighty and mysterious, though invisible agency, the advancement of society, and the elevation of mankind have hitherto been so far effected; and through whose all-important instrumentality in the course of ages, when the appointed period for this shall have been prepared and shall be reached, will eventually be accomplished the civilisation of the world.*

* Civilisation considered as a Science.

HISTORICAL NOTICES OF JOHN BUNYAN.

BY GEORGE HURST, Esq.,

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

As Mayor of Bedford when the statue of John Bunyan, presented to that town by the Duke of Bedford, was lately inaugurated, I was led to devote some attention to the history of the great dreamer. During my investigations I was led to the conclusion that his biographers have fallen into

some errors.

It is commonly stated that Bunyan was, about the year 1728, born at Elstow, a village near Bedford; this statement is certainly incorrect. He was born at Harrowden, a hamlet belonging to Cardington, a parish subsequently famous as the residence of the celebrated philanthropist, John Howard. The place is called Bunyan End, but it is now a ploughed field. It is not surprising that the mistake should have occurred, since the hamlet of Harrowden adjoins Elstow, and Bunyan, immediately after his marriage, occupied the cottage in the village which has been designated as his birth-place.

Mr Offor in his memoir, quoting from Bunyan's account of himself, concludes that he was "a travelling tinker, probably a gipsy;" and Bunyan, referring to his descent, styles it "low and contemptible." But the probability is that his father belonged to the class of village tradesmen. The tinkers were wandering people, who lived in tents, which they erected on the road-side or on waste ground; but Bunyan and his father were settled inhabitants, and conducted trade as braziers, then called tinkers, as the occupation consisted chiefly in repairing culinary vessels.

In Bunyan's time each village had its weaver, carpenter, blacksmith, wheel-wright, and other artificers, who, with

small farmers and graziers, formed a class which ranked between the labourer and yeoman or farmer who cultivated his own land. Watchmakers and bell-founders occasionally conducted their occupations in remote villages. A bellfounder of repute carried on business at Wootton, a rural village about five miles from Bedford, and where the name of Bunyan frequently occurs in the parish register. The modest turn of Bunyan's mind would dispose him to speak of himself with marked humility, and he would shrink from exalting his position or parentage beyond its reality.

It has been represented by several of his biographers that Bunyan's education was defective, an opinion founded on his statement in "Grace Abounding," that "his parents put him to school to learn both to read and to write; but that he soon lost the little that he learned." But he must have received as good an education as, at this period, was usually given to children of his class. Mr Blower, whose researches have been very extensive in matters relating to Bunyan, is of opinion that he studied at the Bedford Grammar School. This is confirmed by a passage in the preface to the "Scriptural Poems," in which Bunyan describes himself as "a mechanic guided by no rule, but what he gained in a grammar school."

The Bedford Grammar School was a free foundation for the inhabitants of the town, so that Bunyan's parents must have paid for his instruction, and we may accordingly infer that they were in moderate circumstances.

He

Bunyan, as a youth, entered into the rural sports and amusements of the period. He was fond of bell-ringing, dancing, "the game of cat," and other amusements. seems, indeed, to have alternated between merriment and religious despondency. He writes, "The Lord, even in my childhood, did scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions." And again: "Often after I have spent this and the other day in sin, I have, in my bed, been greatly afflicted, while asleep, with the apprehensions of devils and wicked spirits who still, as I then thought,