"Stubs of trees

On which had many wretches hangèd beene,

Whose carcases were scattered on the greene."

The Giant Despair "told them that since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves either with knife, halter, or poison; for why," said he, " should you choose life, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness." Spenser's Despayre, after advancing powerful reasons why the "Red Crosse Knight" should kill himself,

"Brought unto him swords, ropes, poison, fire,

And all that might him to perdition draw."

These similarities do not detract from the merit of the "Pilgrim's Progress," which is unquestionably one of the most remarkable, as well as original, of uninspired works.

Of the earlier editions of Bunyan's "Pilgrim," few copies can be obtained. The only known copy of the third edition was destroyed by a fire at the residence of Mr Offor. Of the first edition, printed in 1678 by Nathaniel Pinder in the Poultry, only one copy is known to exist; it has lately been reproduced in fac-simile.

THOMAS MULOCK: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH.

BY ELIHU RICH, ESQ.,*

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

THOMAS MULOCK was born in Ireland in 1789; not in the north of Ireland, as has been stated, but in or near Dublin, his father having possessed a country house not far distant from that city. His father was an Irishman, and held the official position of comptroller of the stamp-office. His mother was of Swiss extraction, a Miss Hörner, granddaughter of the Burgomaster of Bâle, a tall and stately lady, to whose mental qualities Mr Mulock was more probably indebted for his great natural abilities than to his father, who, however, was a man of good business habits, and of a fine genial temperament. Thomas Mulock was the second of twenty-two children born to this happy pair. When assembled round the family table, they formed so large a company that Mr Mulock was accustomed to compare them, jocularly, to a public meeting.

Though so young a man, during the viceroyalty of the Duke of Richmond (1807-1813), Thomas Mulock was frequently a guest on the most intimate terms at the Castle, as an evidence of which, on one occasion, when he had forgotten his glasses (being extremely short-sighted), the good-natured duke ordered the dinner to be kept waiting while he returned

* We regret to announce that Mr Rich is no longer among us; he died on the 11th June 1875. Born on the 8th October 1818, he entered a house of business in the city of London. He subsequently conducted a private seminary, but latterly devoted himself wholly to literature. For some time he successfully conducted the People's Magazine, and he was a copious contributor to Chambers's Journal and other serials. Of about a hundred volumes which proceeded from his pen, most of them anonymously, the more important are his index to Sweden borg's "Arcana Coelestia," and his illustrated work on the Franco-German war, in two volumes, royal octavo.

home to fetch them. Perhaps he presumed a little on the honour shown to him, for on one occasion, when going to dine at the Castle, he said to his father, "Just post this letter for me; I am in a hurry." The answer was not less characteristic of the father than the request was of the son. Looking at him with a good-humoured smile, the old gentleman simply replied, "I will tell the other servant."

Thomas was destined by his parents for the Church, and arrangements were being made to send him to Trinity College. His own views-influenced perhaps by the gaiety of the Castle-were different. He persuaded his father to let him have the money (about £1000) which would have been spent on his education; and went to seek his fortune in the world in company with his elder sister Sophia. He left Ireland before the expiration of the duke's viceroyalty, most probably in the early part of 1812, and first went to Liverpool, where he entered a commercial house. I have no information as to where he first made the acquaintance of George Canning, but in the election of that year he accompanied him about the town to canvass for votes, and bravely stood by his side on the hustings, when they were both pelted with a merciless shower of rotten eggs, fishbones, and cabbage-stalks. He and Canning were thenceforth stanch friends, and during the next few years Mulock was frequently, if not for long periods, in London, mingling with the fast men and the wits of the period. It was the age of Byron, Campbell, Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Moore, Montgomery, Lockhart, and Croly, not to mention others of less note. Society was very much what the Prince Regent by his example made it. Party spirit ran high, questions of high policy were mingled with the wretched personalities of the Princess of Wales and her royal persecutor, and conspiracy was rife among the populace. Thomas Mulock, however, naturally took his place among men of high attainments, and when he went on the Continent, towards 1820, it was with the serious purpose of lecturing on English literature; and these lectures, judging from all the circumstances, must have been delivered in the

French language. At Paris he alluded in one of his discourses to Canning, and remarked in his dogmatic manner that it was impossible he could ever be prime minister. Looking up, he saw Mrs Canning among the audience. It is probable that she reported the remark to Canning, for on the very night (in 1827) when the king sent for the great statesman to form an administration, he wrote to his friend Mulock from the palace immediately after the interview with his Majesty, and informed him, triumphantly, that he was prime minister.

Mr Mulock was accompanied in his tour on the Continent by the same attached sister who left Ireland with him, and to whose sons, Mr William Villiers Sankey, and Mr Robert Sankey, I am indebted for such of those particulars as I have not heard Mr Mulock himself relate. On the Continent, as in London, he mingled with the eminent men of the period. Among others, he made the acquaintance of Sismondi, Spurzheim, Benjamin Constant, Jomard, and Talma. There also he met with Wordsworth and his sister, who were among the host of travellers that took advantage of the cessation of hostilities to go abroad.

Shortly before Mr Mulock's departure for the Continent, the Literary Gazette had been started by the late Mr Jerdan, who had previously edited the Sun. In the third volume of his autobiography (p. 123), Mr Jerdan speaks of his and Mr Mulock's acquaintance with Prince Louis Napoleon, and adds:

"It is an odd coincidence that I recognise him (Thomas Mulock) as the author of three clever satirical letters in the Gazette, under the signature and in the character of SATAN, which made a noise at the time; which my correspondent was increasing by giving a course of lectures on English Literature at Geneva, and afterwards in London."

These letters of "Satan" are to be found in the Literary Gazette for the year 1820, at pp. 765, 781, and 796, and are headed "Letters from a Distinguished Personage."

Mr

Jerdan, as editor, gives as his reason for inserting them that he had no wish to make so powerful a personage his enemy, and the devil goes on to say, in the first letter, that there is not a kingdom or a court-a city or a village-a family or an individual-over whom he has not occasionally some influence; he has a seat in Parliament, and not infrequently assists at the Privy Council; nay, he can boast of having been more than once on the Bench of Bishops:

"In the supercilious looks of the Churchman as well as in the affected humility of the Dissenter, the lineaments of my countenance may often be distinctly traced. I am sometimes to be seen beneath the broad-brimmed hat of the Quaker, and all the young men about town must have frequently recognised me in a more alluring formpeeping slily from under a straw bonnet, or enveloped in the folds of a silk petticoat."

In the second letter there are touches of satire which might have been written yesterday. After boasting of the crowds of votaries who worship him in all parts of the world, more especially in the Temples of Vanity, Ambition, Pleasure, Fortune, and Fame, and even in the courts of Justice, “Satan" says:

"It is very well known that I am the patron of all those who hold opinions which tend to represent man as an automaton, and the world as a machine; it is not equally notorious that I give the chief impulse to those bodies, so numerous in every country, who substitute by my means their own morbid feelings for the simple precepts of what you call your sacred writings."

Then, after hinting at various forms of fanaticism and superstition, the devil adds: “I may observe that one of my chief amusements is to preside over the ever-varying fashions of female attire," specifying rouge for the face and certain extravagances to improve the figure; nor forgetting laces and flounces and feathers, Spencers and pretty bonnets, and pads of all kinds (the chignon had not then been invented), and the various places, such as balls, routs, and assemblies, where