Page:The pilgrims progress as originally published by John Bunyan ; being a facsimile of the first edition (1878).djvu/14

iv peculiarity, &c., above referred to, absolute reproduction has been the one aim. Indeed, as regards typography, the present edition is strictly a lineal descendant of that of 1678; for the type now used has been cast from moulds made in 1720, which were taken from the Dutch type used for that first issue. The paper, too, is a close imitation of that manufactured two centuries ago.

The almost complete disappearance of the first edition, all but four copies, may not perhaps indicate the exact measure of avidity with which the book was taken up; but the subsequent history of the work leaves no doubt as to the effectual manner in which the fertile ground of English religious sentiment absorbed the first seeds cast abroad by the homely Bunyan; and, at all events, those seeds produced such a plentiful crop that it were futile now to attempt to compute how many millions of copies of the world- renowned allegory have been read and thumbed and pondered over in the course of the last two centuries.