A Milton Chronology (review)

287 Short Notices Campbell, Gordon, A Milton Chronology (Author Chronologies 6), Basingstoke and N e w York, Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1997; cloth; pp. xii, 255; R.R.P. US$55.00. Author chronologies serve as essential works of rapid reference but they are also valuable reminders that historical events unfold in time. This volume, sixth in the series, a painstaking compilation prefaced by details of the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the law courts, fulfils that double vocation. Its juxtapositions and contrasts are fascinating. Milton's paternal grandfather was a recusant, his father loaned money, and wrote music, songs and poetry—footsteps in which the son followed. Milton's Cambridge nickname was "The Lady'; in Paris he was helped by the arch Anglo-Catholic Viscount Sligo; in Italy Milton was friendly with an English Benedictine, Italian friars and other Catholics. His brother Christopher was a royalist supporter. Milton's i l l health, 'almost m y perpetual enemy', was worsening at the same time as workload for the Council of State increased, and he was grieving over several family deaths; nevertheless he translated one psalm each day during one week in August 1653. The chronology also reveals the pattern of increasing criticism of Milton from 1654, ranging from the political strictures of Edward Hyde to personal abuse for his writings on divorce (a 'shallow brained puppy', 'a N o d d y that writ a book of wifing'): Chronological juxtapositions also illustrate the way lives were lived through stirring times: during twenty days of December 1648 the secretary of a Florentine academy wrote to Milton, Colonel Pride forcibly purged Parliament, Milton celebrated his fortieth birthday and Parliament voted to bring Charles. I to trial. The chronology also casts light well beyond Milton. The Protestant sympathies of the Prince of 288 Short Notices Taranto and an elective monarchy in Poland recall political and religious flux elsewhere in Europe. A few small infelicities stand out in this careful compilation. For 29 March/8 April 1651 the sum given as 'half should be 'almost half'. A modern medical comment on Milton's blindness would be helpful (p. 112). The glossary should include more than legal terms, and the index needs strengthening: John Cotton, Elizabeth Milton, the regicide William Purefoy, the Hotham family and many others are missing, the indexing is too general (one entry for the Pye family simply reads '87124 '), and principal institutions and events are not included. A final observation: Milton's chronology reveals the sombre thread of Parliament's designated monthly day of fasting and public humiliation for h u m a n sinfulness, including massacres in other countries; it also provides the context in which such days of public reflection made sense. Barry Collett Department of History University of Melbourne Dekker, Thomas, John Ford and William Rowley, The Witch of Edmonton (New Mermaids), ed. Arthur F. Kinney, London, A. C. Black, 1998; paper; pp. xl, 115; 6 b / w illustrations; R.R.P. £5.99. The Witch of Edmonton is a solid example of the accessible studentfriendly texts N e w Mermaids aims to provide. Arthur Kinney's introduction is traditional, offering key information on the collaborating authors and the background of the play before moving on to a critical discussion. Those looking for daring analysis will not find it here. Instead Kinney provides an extensive discussion on the play's structure and themes, paying particular attention to its representation of the tragic and comic effects of constraining social forces. His thesis is that 'the playwrights, throughout TTie Witch ofEdmonton, expose the limitations of a rural early modern English village which is organised by class and privilege and whose activity, therefore, fosters intrigue and deception' (p. xxii). In support of this Kinney provides an extensive description of the town of Edmonton as it was in the early ...