The question may not strike the general reader as one likely to excite deep feeling or to have any special bearing upon the present. There is one gentleman, however, who has set his heart upon proving that the author of the "Pilgrim's Progress" came of this nomadic stock. During the last thirty years he has issued a series of pamphlets on this topic, and he is very much aggrieved that anyone who writes about gipsies or about Bunyan should hesitate to adopt his views.
Mr. James Simson's theory is of course based upon Bunyan's disparaging statement as to his own origin when he speaks of his "father's house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the land." The description is certainly singularly applicable to the gipsies, and Sir Walter Scott, Mr. George Offor, and Mr. C. G. Leland are all inclined to think that Bunyan had some gipsy blood in his veins. The latest biographer of Bunyan, the Rev. John Brown, does not adopt this view, and seems to think that his pedigree points to a Norman origin. The fact that the name was in existence before any known advent of the gipsies to this county is of very slight account. As early as in 1554 we read of "John and George Brown, Egyptians," and thus it is clear that the nomads early found the advantage of having vernacular surnames, whatever might be their own tribal designations.
Bunyan's style of a "brazier" he himself interpreted by the lowlier "tinker." It would, however, surely be rash to assume that none but gipsies exercised that craft in the England of Bunyan's days. That its professors were not held in great social repute is certain, and may have justified Bunyan's reference to his family tree. He does not expressly state that he was of gipsy descent, and in the absence of such a declaration it is a matter difficult -- almost impossible -- to decide.
It is not unlikely that he was of gipsy descent. Further than this few would care to go in the absence of decisive proof. Mr. Simson connects the case of Bunyan with that of the "social emancipation of the gipsies," but it is difficult to learn under what social ban they suffer. Would anyone think any differently of John Bunyan as one of the glories of our literature if it were proved up to the hilt that he and all his ancestors were gipsies of the purest blood?
Mrs. Carlyle is said to have been rather proud of her gipsy descent, but we are not aware that any pains or penalties were visited upon her on that account. There is nothing in the possession of gipsy blood -- as such -- that need bar any "member of the tribe" from entering into any and every vocation open to the rest of the English nation. It is therefore puzzling to understand Mr. Simson's meaning when he says that "the social emancipation of the gipsies, could it be brought about, would be cheap at an expenditure of even £20,000 to a person who had the money to lay out on it."
Images from the past - Gypsies
Hungarian gipsy music
Albanian gipsies
An American in Turkestan
Hunting in India
Foreign retirees in Manchuria
Prejevalsky's Exploration in Mongolia
Was Prejevalsky the father of Stalin?
The Third Asiatic Expedition in Mongolia
Waiting in Ulaan Baatar
