This _descent_, he said, was “well known to _many_.” Was not that a fact? If it was _then_ “well known to many,” how has the knowledge of it died out in his _Church_ and neighbourhood? A fact like that could not have been _forgotten_ within two centuries, during which time Banyan’s memory, with all relating to it, has been cherished more and more, unless it had been, at some time, wilfully or tacitly _suppressed_; and an attempt made to connect him even with the aristocracy of the country! I have never seen or heard of an allusion to any of his relations, although the great probability is that there was an “extensive ramification” of them. The reason I have assigned for that is that “very probably his being a tinker was, with friends and enemies, a circumstance so altogether discreditable as to render any investigation of the kind perfectly superfluous” (Dis. p. 517). {11c} “A low and inconsiderable generation.” What did that phrase mean? And as if that were not sufficient, he added that “his father’s house” was “of that _rank_ that is _meanest_ and _most despised_ of _all_ the families in land”; and still not satisfied with that, he continued:— “Another thought came into my mind, and that was, whether we [his family and relations] were of the Israelites or no? For finding in the Scriptures that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I, if I were one of this race [how significant is the expression!] my soul must needs be happy. Now again, I found within me a great longing to be resolved about this question, but could not tell how I should. At last I asked my father of it, who told me, No, we [his father included] were not.” In my Disquisition on the Gipsies I said:— “Such a question is entertained by the Gipsies even at the present day, for they naturally think of the Jews, and wonder whether, after all, their race may not, at some time, have been connected with them. I have heard the same question put by Gipsy lads to their parent (a very much mixed Gipsy), and it was answered thus:—‘We must have been among the Jews, for some of our ceremonies are like theirs.’” (p. 511).