to

possess, what may be said of scarcely | any other uninspired composition, the same peculiar freshness however frequently it be read. Of other works we seem to grow weary, but of this never. Many have attempted to imitate it; none have ever succeeded. In a period not the most favourable, it might be imagined, to the success of such a work, it ran speedily through many editions, including 100,000 copies; was translated into several languages; and found its way into the library of the very monarch under the enactments of whose reign the despised author had so long suffered. By every succeeding age it has been equally, if not increasingly prized. And in all probability the latest generation will have to say of the author, with as much truth as the present, that by it "he yet speaketh." But, as just hinted, it is a work which may be looked upon in a more important aspect still. The extent of influence which it shall be found to have exercised in the actual conduct of pilgrims from the " City of Destruction," to "Mount Zion," we cannot estimate; for that will not be understood till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed.

times, to an incapability of distinguishing ideal impressions from actual ones: with such reality did they present themselves, that they seemed to affect him, as Dr. Southey says, "more forcibly than impressions from the external world." From want of attention to this characteristic, he has sometimes been understood as describing what he really thought to be supernatural sights and sounds, when such was not at all his intention. But to proceed. In the present paper, we shall confine ourselves to a single particular.

It is, then, we conceive, one very re markable feature in the early moral his tory of John Bunyan, and which exer cised an important influence upon his whole future life, that he was the subject of deep convictions, for a very long period prior to any experimental acquaintance with that converting grace which ultimately turned him from the power of sin unto God.

In early life, he ran to no ordinary length in a career of wild iniquity. Whatever may have been said in extenuation by some of his biographers, this is sufficiently apparent from his own narrative. "From a child I had but few equals for What, then, was the previous mental cursing, swearing, lying, and blasphemand moral history of the author of this ing the holy name of God. So settled remarkable production? for it would seem and rooted was I in these things, that that John Bunyan was nearly, if not they became a kind of second nature to quite forty years of age when he wrote me. I did let loose the reins of my lust, the "Pilgrim's Progress." This becomes and delighted in all transgressions against a question of the greatest interest. And the law of God; so that until I came to we have, to guide our research, an inte- the state of marriage, I was the very resting but somewhat extraordinary piece ringleader of all the youth that kept me of autobiography, requiring, it may be, company, in all manner of vice and unto be read with some caution, but cer- godliness." He was, however, from his tainly written with the most minute and earliest years, familiar with much of the unimpeachable fidelity, and with no other language, at least, of Scripture ; acquaintend in view but the glory of that "grace" ed, it would seem, with some who knew which "abounded" to the subject of it. Not and feared God; and surrounded by many that we need enter at any length into its who made, outwardly, a very particular details. A few leading, but remarkable profession of religion. His conscience particulars, will, we apprehend, furnish a was, therefore, so far enlightened as to be sufficient clue to the whole subject. It is ill at ease. His cup of sinful pleasure was requisite, however, to keep in view what dashed with many a bitter draught; and were evidently the natural endowments both in his waking reveries, and in his of the author's mind. That he possessed "dreams" by night, was he haunted by much shrewd and vigorous good sense, is the forebodings of a coming judgment, at once apparent; nor less so, that there which his lively imagination readily picwas combined with it a remarkable frank-tured as full of horror and "fiery indignaness and honesty of disposition, leading him almost instinctively to shrink from hypocrisy, even at the time that he did

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It is somewhat remarkable, that when he en-tered the army, all mad and reckless in sin as he was, it was to the parliamentary forces that he attached himself, where, not only was the discipline

not shrink from open and avowed ungod-strict, but he would at least hear much reading liness. But his chief mental peculiarity was an ardent and vivid imagination, amounting, it would almost seem, at

of the Scriptures, religious conversation, and prayer. See "Hume's History of England," vol. vii. He can scarcely be supposed to have been influ-enced by principle on either side..

referred, and then his mind all at once the ungodliest fellow for swearing that oscillated back again to the opposite ex- she ever heard in all her life; and that I treme. Convicted of utter moral impo- by thus doing was able to spoil all the tence in endeavouring to maintain even youth in the whole town, if they came the appearance of a consistent religious but in my company." By this reproof he course, he abandoned it at once; and, was so stung and silenced that, no less to knowing no higher aid, rashly concluded his own astonishment than that of all that to arrive at any other comfort than who knew him, it proved the commencethat which sin could furnish, was out of ment of a second reformation, more enthe range of possibility. He therefore tire, and certainly more durable than the came to the awful resolution (his case, first. Both of its character and extent, alas! is not singular,) of yielding himself we may form some judgment by the folup to "work all iniquity with greediness." lowing brief notices. It was a "great and Well may we pause to adore the riches famous alteration" in his life and manof the goodness and longsuffering of ners, 66 as great as for Tom of Bedlam to God, and exclaim with the prophet, become a sober man." He now became "Who is a God like unto thee, who "" par- a brisk talker in religion," took " great donest iniquity, transgression, and sin?" delight in reading some parts of the word whilst reading in his own language the of God;" he "loved to be talked of as one record of his feelings at this time, "Hea that was truly godly;" he even abanven was gone already, so that on that I doned several vain, although not directly must not think; wherefore I found within sinful amusements. His mind was much me great desire to take my fill of sin, fixed in meditation upon the things of still studying what sin was yet to be com- eternity. He "did set the commandmitted, that I might taste the sweetness ments before him as his way to heaven:" of it; and I made as much haste as I if now and then he broke one, he was could to fill my belly with its delicacies, sorry for it; promised to do better next lest I should die before I had my desires; time, and "there got help again;" at for that I feared greatly. In these things least "he thought he pleased God as well I protest before God that I lie not, nei- as any man in England;" during all which ther do I frame this sort of speech; these time, however, "for about a twelvemonth, were really, strongly, and with all my or more," he "was ignorant of the corrupheart, my desires. The good Lord, whose tions of his nature;" he "knew not Jesus mercy is unsearchable, forgive my trans- Christ, nor grace, nor faith, nor hope." gressions." Happily, however, this terrific state of mind did not continue very long, and by one of those remarkable incidents in his life, because one of the most unlikely to bring about such a result, was poor Bunyan driven back again to the task of cleansing himself, of weaving a covering for his pollution, out of the "filthy rags" of his own righteousness, or else of resorting to some minor expedient to ease his unquiet mind, when foiled in the attempt. We recur to his narrative. "Now, therefore, I went on in sin with great greediness of mind, still grudging that I could not be satisfied with it as I would. This did continue with me about a month, or more; but, one day, as I was standing at a neighbour's shop window, and there cursing and swearing, and playing the madman, after my wonted manner, there sat within, the woman of the house, who heard me; who, though she was a very loose and ungodly wretch, yet protested that I swore and cursed at that most fearful rate, that she was made to tremble to hear me ; and told me, further, that I was

But we need not proceed. How well, how experimentally prepared must one who had gone through such a course as this, have been, not only to describe, as he has done, so graphically, that turning out of the way to the mountain, which burns with fire, to the blackness and darkness, and tempest of Sinai, so natural to every child of Adam; but likewise to detect and lay open all those refuges of lies, those various deceitful coverings whereby so many, roused to some sense of their danger, and the supreme importance of religion, but putting away from them the remedy which God has provided, seek successfully, and sometimes fatally, to deceive themselves, and impose upon others. The characters, amongst many, of Pliable, Formalist, Hypocrisy, Talkative, By-ends, etc., will readily occur to the reader's recollection. And last, not least, that of Ignorance, who is represented as supporting his character as a pilgrim to the very end of his journey, but of whose fearful doom we read at last, when the whole allegory concludes in words few and simple; but considering their

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This account has been very generally statement proved true indeed, but his received and credited. Dissatisfied, how- motive most probably was to keep the ever, with it, and with the various con- plant from being discovered, as he offered tradictions of travellers on the subject, to go himself, bring back what was requiMr. Schomburgk determined to acquire, site, and prepare the poison. Off, howif possible, a full knowledge, not only of ever, the travellers started. "Our path the mode of preparing the poison, but of became every moment wilder. We had its origin, and this, as he informs us, to cross several mountain streams, which he was fortunate enough to accomplish, flowed in deep beds, precipitating_at during his first expedition in the interior their banks ferruginous matter. Our Inof British Guiana. 66 "I collected," he dians thought they had mistaken the says, "at Pirara, the largest Macusi vil-track, but as we arrived at a stream which lage I ever visited, every information on ran rapidly over the sloping ground, exthe subject, and the result was, that the hibiting gigantic shelves, we observed plant grew on the Conocon or Canuku that several paths united; and crossing mountains. On our return from the ca- the brook, our guides stopped, and pointtaract of the Rupununi, I ascertained, at ing to a ligneous twiner, which wound a settlement of Wapisiana Indians, on itself snake-like from tree to tree, they the eastern bank of the Rupununi, in called out urari, the name of the plant, in three degrees north latitude, that a jour- the tongue of our guides." In a note, ney of one day and a half would bring Mr. Schomburgk observes, with respect me there." to the name urari, that the Caribs, in pronouncing the R, frequently exchange the letter with L, and it may thus have happened that the name wurali has arisen. The Macusis, who are acknowledged to be the best manufacturers of this remarkable substance, call it decidedly urari The same name it bears among the Tarumas, Wapisianas, Aricunas, and various other tribes of the interior. The term wouraly is corrupted.

After engaging native guides, the traveller started, accompanied by lieutenant Haining, on the morning of the 25th of December, in search of the "mysterious plant." The direction taken was to the south, over pathless savannahs, until the Rupununi presented a fordable place. Here the mountains stretched their foot to the river's bank: instead of ascending them, the guide led them through a wild pass, to the margin of an extensive arid plain. Here they turned northward, traversing plains covered with wood, shrubs, and coarse grass, and bounded on each side by the mountains, also frequently crossed by streams. Of these, some were dried up; of others, the water gushed along with turbulence over a rocky bed. "Their banks were covered with creepers and twiners of the extensive families of Convolvulacea, Bignoniacea, and Eupatoriæ: a beautiful reed raised its panicle high above the creeping plants; it was the Gynerium saccharoides, which the Indians use for their arrows."

After a walk of upwards of five miles, the travellers began a toilsome ascent up the mountains, in some places so steep, and so interrupted by huge blocks of granite, and fallen trees, as to render it necessary to use the hands as well as the feet; and after eight hours' laborious exertion, they reached a few huts on Mount Mamesua, inhabited by Wapisianas, which was their halting place for the night. Here they were strongly urged by their Indian host, Oronappi, not to proceed farther, as the road was dreadful: his

Mr. Schomburgk did not find the plant in flower, but bearing fruit, and he at once perceived that it was a new species of Strychnos, to which he gave the appropriate specific title of toxifera. A description of this plant may be summed up as follows: A ligneous twiner, hitherto only found on the granitic mountains of Canuku or Conocon, bordering the extensive savannahs of the rivers Rupununi, Mahu, and Takutu. At its root, it is of the thickness of a man's arm, and covered with a rough ash-coloured bark, marked with fissures. It winds round the trees, and often reaches a height of thirty or forty feet, before dividing into branches. The branches are rounded and opposite at their origins. The branchlets of these are densely covered with ferruginous hair. On these and between the leaves are tendrils, mostly single, sometimes divided, The leaves are opposite, ovate-oblong, acuminate, entire, from an inch and a half to four inches long, on a very short stalk, and covered with ferruginous hair.

The fruit is a berry, of the size of a large apple, often twelve inches in circumference, of a globular figure, covered with a smooth hard rind, of a bluish green