Note 16b — PREFACE.

It would be interesting to learn from Mr. Brown, 1st. When, and under what circumstances, he took up this question in regard to Bunyan; 2d. What regard he paid to the subject of the Gipsies in general, as published; 3d. Whether he made any personal inquiries in regard to it; 4th. Whether he read anything, and what, in favour of Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race; 5th. How he came to maintain that because the name of Bunyan existed in England before the Gipsies arrived in it, therefore Bunyan was not one of the race; 6th. Whether he knows of Gipsies bearing native surnames, and even of one with a foreign surname; 7th. What reason he had for supposing that Thomas Bonyon, in 1542, had no Gipsy blood in his veins, or that his descendants for several generations did not pass into the Gipsy current in society, as explained; 8th. Where Mr. Brown resided before he settled at Bedford, and how long he has been there. 9th. What traditions he found in the town and neighbourhood bearing on Bunyan’s descent, and whether there are people there averse to its being asserted that Bunyan was what might be called of the ordinary native English race; 10th. Are there none there who object to its being said that Bunyan’s family was a broken-down branch of the aristocracy, titled or untitled, that most probably entered England from Normandy, under William the Conqueror? 11th. What are the reasons for saying that Bunyan was not of the Gipsy race? 12th. Might not any person be of the Gipsy race, notwithstanding it was not even surmised, much less proved, by any one acquainted with the Gipsy subject, and much more so by one apparently totally ignorant of it? 13th. Since Bunyan was an Englishman under any circumstances, why should anyone claim him to have been entirely of the native or ordinary blood, till it is proved that part of his blood belonged to the Gipsy race, that entered Great Britain not later than 1506—no regard being shown to what he said he “was and was not, and his calling and surroundings”? 14th. Has Mr. Brown’s object, from first to last, been exclusively that of proving Bunyan not to have been of the Gipsy race? 15th. In that case, should he not, while occupying the pulpit of Bunyan, look upon his “mission” as most sacred, and “laying aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset him,” “give no sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids” till he was satisfied who Bunyan really was, and acknowledge him accordingly?