Dr. McFarland used to sometimes say, "Who knows but you were sent here to write an allegory for the present age, as bunyan was sent to Bedford Jail to write his allegory?"
"Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard's Trial, and Self-Defence from the Charge of Insanity"
Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard
Mr. Browning, finally, has used the indications bunyan gives, of the incident taking place on a very hot day, so as to combine the sense of spiritual stirring with one of unwholesome and grotesque physical excitement; and this, as he describes it, is the genuine key-note of the situation.
"A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)"
Mrs. Sutherland Orr
bunyan had no knowledge of the 'higher criticism'; he read into the Bible a great many dogmas which were not there, and accepted rather questionable historical data.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen