and great need was there that it should have been so. The Useful Knowledge Society, starting on the principle of perfect neutrality in politics and religion, was obliged to keep strict watch against the entrance of all attempt even to look over the hedge. There were two—we believe only two—instances of what we have called personality. The first was in the article 'Bunyan.' It is worth while to extract all that is said—in an article of thirty lines—about a writer who is all but universally held to be the greatest master of allegory that ever wrote:—
'His works were collected in two volumes, folio, 1736–7: among them 'The Pilgrim's Progress' has attained the greatest notoriety. If a judgement is to be formed of the merits of a book by the number of times it has been reprinted, and the many languages into which it has been translated, no production in English literature is superior to this coarse allegory. On a composition which has been extolled by Dr. Johnson, and which in our own times has received a very high critical opinion in its favour [probably Southey], if is hazardous to venture a disapproval, and we, perhaps, speak the opinion of a small minority when we confess that to us it appears to be mean, jejune and wearisome.'
—If the unfortunate critic who thus individualized himself had been a sedulous reader of Bunyan, his power over English would not have been so jejune as to have needed that fearful word. This little bit of criticism excited much amusement at the time of its publication: but it was so thoroughly exceptional and individual that it was seldom or never charged on the book. The second instance occurred in the article 'Socinians.' It had been arranged that the head-words of Christian sects should be intrusted to members of the sects themselves, on the understanding that the articles should simply set forth the accounts which the sects themselves give of their own doctrines. Thus the article on the Roman Church was written by Dr. Wiseman. But the Unitarians were not allowed to come within the rule: as in other quarters, they were treated as the gypsies of Christianity. Under the head 'Socinians'—a name repudiated by themselves—an opponent was allowed not merely to state their alleged doctrines in his own way, but to apply strong terms, such as 'audacious unfairness,' to some of their doings. The protests which were made against this invasion of the understanding produced, in due time, the article 'Unitarians,' written by one of that persuasion. We need not say that these errors have been amended in the English Cyclopædia: and our chief purpose in mentioning them is to remark, that this is all we can find on the points in question
