The Enigma of John Bingley's Poem "The Fair Quakers" (1712) and a Challenge to Quaker Historians (review)

Book Reviews65 appreciablenumberslargelybecausetheyevolvedinto"protodenominations" incorporating both an institutionalized authority and an agency structure. His argument complements the conclusion of H. Larry Ingle (FirstAmong Friends) that George Fox's major achievementlay in the circumscription of the movement's early individualism through the development ofan institutional structure that provided the discipline and unity required for survival in Restoration England. Greaves traces the fortunes of Nonconformity in general in this period but concentrates on the activities of the two protodenominations. In the chapters devoted solely to Quakers, the treatment is both sympathetic and detailed. Irish Friends are seen to espouse theirvalues steadfastly in spite of persecution, while developing structures to regulate the movement of individuals and families to new locations, to provide self-censorship in publication, to furnish appropriate education for their children, and to enforce standards of conduct in such varied activities as dress, house furnishing, attendance at meetings, marriage, and occupational choices. The author's observation of occasional failures in these matters adds a realistic dimension, as manufacturers and traders have to be regularly reminded not to engage in business transactions at national meetings, a Friend is admonished for contending for truth while drunk, some are disciplined for sexual offenses, and others are warned not to yoke themselves unequally in marriage in terms of age "and otherwise." At appropriatepoints , theEnglish and Irish experiences are compared: early Irish polity was not identical to that in England, and unlike their English counterparts Irish Quakers rarely provided charity to people of other faiths. This substantial volume, winner of the American Society of Church History's Outler Prize, occupies a significant place beside the earlier related works of Sean Connolly and Phil Kilroy. There is not much more one could hope for in Greaves' book, except perhaps maps, illustrations, and most importantly a bibliography. But cost-conscious publishers are not always keen on such additional features or on extending volumes beyond 472 pages. In any case, God's Other Children is an invaluable work which also provides the setting and raises great expectations for the forthcomingpublication ofGreaves' biographyofAnthony Sharp (Stanford University Press) and Kenneth Carroll's projected work on William Edmundson. T.L UnderwoodUniversity of Minnesota, Morris The Enigma ofJohnBingley's Poem "The Fair Quakers" (1712) anda Challenge to Quaker Historians. By Derek Forbes. Foreword by Lorna 66Quaker History Paulin. Southsea, Hampshire, UK: Blot Publishing, 1996. xiii + 70 pp.£4.85 ($8.50). In 1713, an anonymous poem of 376 lines called The Fair Ouakers was published in London. Written in an urbane neoclassical style of somewhat tongue-in-cheek literary allusions such as "the sacred nymphs ofthe Pierian spring" and the "soft God of Love," the poem catalogues nineteen beauties identified by initials, as in "Fair P-m next behold, serenely gay, Pleasing as Summer's Shades and mild as May." There is nothing except the title to identify the women as Quakers, nothing in the first edition to identify the author more specifically than as an enamoured swain, and nothing to mark the poem as out of the ordinary except perhaps for the introductory elevenline poetic address to the author signed by R.S., who Forbes argues is quite likely Richard Steele, the noted essayist and dramatist. However, at least one person took the poem seriously as a comment on Quakers, for in 1714 a known Quaker, Josiah Martin of Peel Meeting, London, published "Remarks on a Poem, Intituled The Fair Quakers," a sober prose dialogue attacking the "Licentious Poem" for such faults as its appeal to "Heathen Deities" which "Multitudes ... of Men and Women" have suffered cruel tortures for denying, and for its stimulation of pride. A third publication followed the next year reprinting the original poem, now called in the singular"The FairQuaker," naming the author, John Bingley, and including a doleful elegy on his death from unrequited love. This is a minor event in literary and Quaker history, yet one which deserves to be preserved and which will interest some students of these subjects. Derek Forbes, a Friend himself who has written other pamphlets on Quaker subjects, has provided a service in publishing the poem, Martin's reply, and the elegy, together with the little that is known of the...