Seventeenth- Century Quakers
Tins book has been a labour of love, and in it Mrs. Holdsworth has put together what might be called a short history of the Quakers from about 165o to 1695, with emphasis on the Penington-Penn group. It cannot really be described as a study of Gulielma Springett, since very little is known about her ; even Dr. H. J. Cadbury's researches have been unable to add anything substantial to our knowledge. Our main source of information is still the autobiography of Thomas Ellwood—in many ways the most charming and attractive of the early Quakers—who was so long and so fruitlessly in love with her. His picture is vivid and alive (he tells us far more than Penn himself ever did) ; and if it is flattering, though there is no reason to suppose that it is, who would blame a lover?
But if there is nothing new to be told us about " Guli," this book does at least give us the setting in which she lived, and in which we know her to have been a characteristic figure—a setting described with whole-hearted admiration. It can be recommended to anyone who has yet to make his entry into this strange and moving world of devotion persecuted by malice, of love harried by injustice and of honesty treacherously attacked. The figure which, perhaps, stands out the most plainly is that of Isaac Penington, Gulielma's step- father, so often and so lengthily imprisoned for his virtues. Here, too, shine Mary Penington, Thomas Ellwood, with others, and we get glimpses of the Foxes. We hear much of prison and are given a short account of the famous Bushell trial, where the jury, headed by Bushell, defied the judge before whom Penn and Meade were tried. To anyone familiar with the broad scene, this is a charming handbook containing a fair taste of what is to be found in more compendious volumes. The little book, written by a Quaker (one supposes) for Quakers, allows no breath of criticism of any of their actions to intrude, suggests no suspicions of their dissensions. It is indeed a pious tribute, and to dwell on any omissions would be ungracious.
The dominating figure is, inevitably, that of William Penn, a very great man and a fascinatingly complex character, so complex that he does not stand out plainly : Mrs. Holdsworth's sketch is necessarily too brief to do more than indicate the main points of his life, and she dwells only on his first early struggles, mainly with his father. Perhaps more might have been made of the influence Amyraut had upon him, of the spur Algernon Sidney—who is not mentioned—may have provided, and of the inner conflict ; and though his lasting works are brought into the picture, nothing is said of his equally charac- teristic " reasonings with the opposers." But the story is in the main there, and that is the chief thing. To anyone who is not a Quaker, but who has at some time plunged himself into that corner of the seventeenth century, the book will be a pleasant reminder of more arduous journeys ; and Quakers themselves, one thinks, will add it happily to the shelf containing Brailsford, Braithwaite, Webb, Janney and other, less easily digestible, historians. BONAMY DOBREE.
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