BUNYAN

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BURGOYNČ

Bun'yan, John, author ņf The Pilgrim's Progress, was born near Bedford, England, in 1628. His father was a tinker, and John was trained to that craft. He was very-fond of dancing on the village green and of ringing the church bells—things he afterward thought sinful. He served in the army for some time during the English Civil War, though only 16 years old. After the war .he married a poor girl and became deeply interested in religion. He began to preach to the poor people in the villages around Bedford, and, getting into discussions with the Quakers, in 1656 he published a book against them. It was a remarkable book for an uneducated craftsman to write. This led to further discussion and the publication of other works, Bunyan being finally arrested and imprisoned. He was in prison 12 years, though he was continually told that he would be set free if he would give up preaching; to which he replied : " If you let me go to-day, I will preach again to-morrow." He supported himself and his family while in prison by making lace, the remainder of his time being spent in reading the Bible, preaching to the other prisoners and writing religious papers and books. He finally was released in 1672, and preached for three years, after which he was again put in prison, but was let out again six months later. While he was in prison the second time he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress. He became pastor of the Bedford Church, where he remained 16 years, dying in 1Ŏ88. The Pilgrim's Progress at once became very famous and has since been translated into nearly a hundred languages.

Bur'bank, Luther ( 1849-), American horticulturist, noted for his experiments in raising new varieties of flowers, fruits and vegetables. Born on a farm at Lancaster, Mass., he acquired a farm of his own at Lunenburg, Mass., and began his interesting experiments, later on removing to Santa Rosa, Cal. Here the climatic conditions have enabled him to prosecute his useful labors and won him fame in developing attractive varieties of peaches, plums, apples and prunes, together with choice roses, calla-lilies, etc.

Burdett-Coutts, Lady. In 1814 there was born in Ramsburg, Wiltshire, England, a little girl named Angela, the daughter of Sir Thomas Burdett, a celebrated parliamentarian, and granddaughter of Thomas Coutts, a London banker. At the age of 22 she inherited a great fortune and became head of a banking firm that was second only to the Bank of England. People expected her to take a high place at the young queen's court and to marry a duke or prince. Instead she quietly set about the task of bringing light and hope to the swarming millions of East London. At a cost of $450,000 she built St. Stephen's

Church, the first institutional church in the world. It combined the religious function with the social settlement. Other churches, schools, model tenements, scholarships in universities, evening schools, penny dinners for poor school children, a fishing school and fleet for famine-stricken west Ireland and a great market-house in the slums of East London, followed in rapid succession. Then plain Angela Burdett added her grandfather's name to her own and the Queen made her a baroness—the only woman of the people ever raised to the peerage in Great Britain. As Lady Burdett-Coutts, she secured the Children's Charter from Parliament, to protect children from cruelty; also a law to stop cruelty to animals. In a time of cholera she cleaned East London and forced new sanitary laws. She assisted starving Irish peasants to emigrate and carried on relief work in the Turko-Russian War. For 70 years she was the friend of the queen and of every celebrated man and woman of her time, from Charles Dickens to the Duke of Wellington. Walter Besant made her the heroine of his novel All Sorts and Conditions of Men. At the age of 68, she married her private secretary, Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett, who took her name and entered parliament to further her ideas of public good. She died m 1907 at the age of 93, universally mourned.

Burdette', Robert Jones, American journalist, humorist and lecturer, was born in Pennsylvania in 1844. In the Civil War he served with the 47th Illinois volunteers as a private, and was for a time connected with the Peoria Transcript. Later on, he became associate editor of the Burlington (Iowa) Hawkeye, where his humorous sketches won him an audience far and wide. Some of these sketches have been separately published under the title of Hawkeyes and Other Hawkeyetems. He has also amused many widely-scattered audiences from the lecture platform; and occasionally has even been heard from the pulpit in country churches of the Baptist denomination. His humor is, as a rule, clean and wholesome.

Burgoyne (būr-goin'), John, an English general during the American Revolution, was born in 1723. He entered the army in a subordinate position, and in 1762 gained a reputation as a brigadier-general in Portugal. He became a member of Parliament in 1761. He was present at Boston during the battle of Bunker Hill, and sent a description of it to England. In 1777 he was made commander of the British army in Canada, and at once began the campaign in northern New York, which ended in his surrender to the American army at Saratoga. (See Saratoga.) On his return to England the king refused to see him, and the popular anger against him was great. He then wrote an account of