Page:The pilgrims progress as originally published by John Bunyan ; being a facsimile of the first edition (1878).djvu/12

ii frequently both inaccurate and inconsistent, from a modern point of view; but to this, which is scarcely a peculiarity, we have to add a very irregular use of capital letters, the greatest profusion of italics, the employment now of asterisks and now of letters for reference to the notes, and the use of certain characters differing in form from modern letters, and not commonly used in books of the seventeenth century. The italic k and the st which occur in the Introduction, are examples of these obsolete letters; and the ꝛ in the word, at the head of every page, is of very rare occurrence.

But this edition has other characteristics which render its interest still more vital. The marginal comments, which some modern editors have seen fit to omit, are there in all their quaint force: in one case the temper of Christian, as described in the text, is summarized in the sidenote thus "Christian snibbeth his Fellow"; in another place Bunyan ejaculates in the margin, "O brave Talkative"; and in numerous