d about him, we
have only an occasional glimpse, here and there, in his narrative. It
is the story of his inward life only that he relates. What had time
and place to do with one who trembled always with the awful
consciousness of an immortal nature, and about whom fell alternately
the shadows of hell and the splendors of heaven? We gather, indeed,
from his record that he was not an idle on-looker in the time of
England's great struggle for freedom, but a soldier of the Parliament
in his young years, among the praying sworders and psalm-singing
pikemen, the Greathearts and Holdfasts whom he has immortalized in his
allegory; but the only allusion which he makes to this portion of his
experience is by way of illustration of the goodness of God in
preserving him on occasions of peril.

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 he, "is a movable, for he hath no abiding in one place;
he seems to be devout, for 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 eve