Transcribed from the 1882 Maclachlan & Stewart edition byDavid Price,
WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY?
AS DISCUSSEDIN LETTERS SENT TO THE LONDON
DAILY NEWS,
AND NOWPARTICULARLY ADDRESSED TO THE
STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITIES.
BY
JAMES SIMSON,
Editor of
“SIMSON’S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES,”
and Author of
“CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATURAL HISTORYAND PAPERS ON OTHER SUBJECTS”; “CHARLES
WATERTON”; “THE ENGLISHUNIVERSITIES AND JOHN BUNYAN”; “THESCOTTISH
CHURCHES AND THE GIPSIES”;“REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD AT
INVERKEITHING, OR LIFE AT ALAZARETTO”; AND “JOHN
BUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES.”
“According to thefair play of the world,
Let me have audience.”—Shakspeare.
NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER.
EDINBURGH: MACLACHLAN & STEWART.
LONDON: BAILLIÈRÈ, TINDALL& COX.
1882.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
p.3PREFACE.
The title-page of this littlepublication states that it is “particularly addressed tothe students of the universities.” It is based on aHistory of the Gipsies, published in 1865, in a prefatory note towhich it was said that this subject,
“When thus comprehensively treated, forms astudy for the most advanced and cultivated mind, as well as forthe youth whose intellectual and literary character is still tobe formed; and furnishes, among other things, a system of sciencenot too abstract in its nature, and having for its subject-matterthe strongest of human feelings and sympathies.”
This race entered Great Britain before the year 1506, andsooner or later became legally and socially proscribed. Ithas been my endeavour for some years back to have thesocial proscription removed (the legal one havingceased to exist), so that at least the name andblood of this people should be acknowledged by the rest ofthe world, and each member of the race as such treated accordingto his personal merits. The great difficulty I haveencountered in this matter is the general impression that thisrace is confined to a few wandering people of swarthy appearance,who live in tents, or are popularly known as Gipsies; and thatthese “cease to be Gipsies” when they in any way“fall into the ranks,” and dress and live, more orless, like other people. Unfortunately many have sopublicly committed themselves to this view of the subject that itis hardly possible to get them to revise their opinion, and admitthe leading fact of the question, viz.: that the Gipsies do not“cease to be Gipsies” by any change in their style oflife or character, and that the same holds good with theirdescendants. Taking the race or blood