Mansex Fine: Religion, Manliness and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century British Culture by David Alderson (review)

134BOOK REVIEWS and he upheld the need for religious confessions, arguing that they were a way to make religious views public and that they did not constrain consciences. Van Eijnatten holds that van den Honert's views represented a confessional irenicism while Stinstra propounded a radical or spiritualist irenicism. Stinstra had a broad view of freedom of conscience that included the complete freedom to publicly express and teach the beliefs that one held. Stinstra, in particular , defended each individual's freedom to make public his own interpretation of the Bible. The importance of van den Honert's Oratio, on the other hand, was that it extended ecclesiastical and confessional toleration into the civil sphere and saw all Christians as brothers in Christ and fellow Christian citizens. Thus Stinstra's views on toleration fell within the Christian tradition of free prophecy, while van den Honert's views were a part of the tradition of Christian colloquy that encouraged rational discussion of the points made by various confessions. Among the influences on the thought of both men van Eijnatten points to the Remonstrant theologians Philip van Limborch, Jean Leclerc, and Johannes Drieberge, as well as to John Locke, the Dutch humanist and legal scholar Gerard Noodt (l647-1725),Hugenot exilesJean Barbeyrac (16471744 ) and Pierre Coste (1668-1747), and Benjamin Hoadly (1676-1761), latitudinarian Bishop of Bangor. Van Eijnatten has performed a great service by making these irenic texts available and by providing such a helpful as well as insightful introduction to them. Andrew Frx Lafayette College Late Modern European Mansex Fine: Religion, Manliness and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century British Culture. By David Alderson. (Manchester: Manchester University Press. Distributed by St. Martin's Press, New York. 1998. Pp. Lx, 207. $79.95.) The subject of Alderson's book is very broad, but the texts used to support his thesis are mainly literary works of the Romantic and Victorian periods. He starts with Burke and ends with Wilde, but I believe it is Wilde's work and trial that provide the paradigm for this study. Alderson states his thesis on the last page of his text: Grounded in an Anglican ethico-political sensibility which claimed to reconcile (Protestant) autonomy and (Catholic) submissiveness, ideals of manly self-possession became integral to a national/racial character which was believed to possess a historical and global purpose and was defined in opposition to its unstable and feminised European others, the Celts. The 'naturalness' of manly values resided in their largely undogmatic anathematisation of a generalisable atavistic principle of 'excess '—political, emotional, sexual—manifestations which were indicative of a lack of self-control which required quasi-patriarchal or even coercive correction, (p. 170) BOOK REVIEWS135 If I read this correctly, it means that Catholics were suspect of being effeminate. I wonder that anyone besides Alderson would view the Irish in such a way. The portrayal of the Irish in Punch, which Alderson uses, is of a simian type, one notch above the apes (they wore clothes and smoked). Kingsley who is central to Alderson's thesis, described them as "wild" but chaste since they were married off as teenagers. Poor Newman comes in for some familiar abuse, but historians will have a hard time with appeals to the unconscious and the dreams of others applied to Newman. The charge that he was effeminate has been scotched every time it has been stated, most recently by Pope John Paul II, who declared him to be Venerable. A possible clue to Alderson's confusion is his using charges against Anglo-Catholics to bolster his case against Catholics, and the case against the "Puseyites," as they were known, is tentative. Protestants feared for the honor of their women because the Catholic clergy were believed to be sexual predators (p. 82), but all of this undermines Alderson's thesis. Kingsley did have an attitude toward the celibate. Even St. Paul does not escape his censure. But James Froude, a primary source for Kingsley's attack on Newman's integrity, praised Newman for his manliness, as would anyone who has studied his life and work. The author lists a host of friends and authors as his guide to a complex period . I wonder...