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HUMANITIES 405 society, an anticipation of the reassuring idea that any man can be President' (p 187). On p 179 I would wish to excise Freud's homosexual interpretation of a memory or fantasyI recalled by Leonardo da Vinci from his early youth, about an encounter with a vulture who hit his lips with its tail; for I fear that Freud would have interpreted similarly if the bird had been a buzzard or raven. Her treatment of the Thrush includes a good discussion of the difficulty interpreters of earlier literature have in deciding whether the bird referred to is the songthrush or the mistlethrush . She concludes, however, with a puzzled comment on Robert Frost's poem 'Come in,' where the thrush of course sings differently. Frost's response is to the woodthrush. I have indicated that the book's range results in lack of focus, and that in the worst parts the desire to be popular interferes with scholarly selection and reliability. I have indicated likewise that much of the book is learned and excellent. It should not merely be dipped into, like a coffee-table book, but read and consulted. (F. DAVID HOENIGER) S.K. Heninger, Jr. The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams ofthe Universe The Huntington Library, 1977. xviii, 209, illus. $17.50 Working from Renaissance books in five of the world's great libraries, though chiefly from those owned by the Bodleian and the Huntington (where the book was written), Professor Heninger of the University of British Columbia has produced not only a very beautiful and interesting book, but one which makes eaSily accessible to all readers much information concerning pre-modern astronomy and geography that has hitherto remained the exclusive property of specialists. As stated modestly in the author's preface, this is not a history of cosmology, or even of Renaissance cosmology, but rather a synoptic retrospective view of designs of the universe that were available to readers of books before and at the dawn of modem science. For more than a century after Copernicus presented his revolutionary astronomy (1543) a strong desire persisted to link the macrocosm with the microcosm through analogies, philosophical theories, and mystical speculations, chiefly medieval in origin. That desire is reflected in schemes dating from well into the seventeenth century, though works by Galileo and Kepler had already launched the modern scientific era; such schemes provide picturesque links between the earliest and the latest pictures reproduced, described, and analysed by the author. Thus the record of scientific progress is here complemented by a concurrent train of dreams and visions of men who reached to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire. Nothing of quite this scope has preViously been attempted , perhaps because most scholars are strongly inclined either to the 406 LETTERS IN CANADA 1978 poetic or to the scientific view of nature and have been unwilling (or unable) to strike a balance. It is hardly surprising that a Renaissance scholar should break the iceI and with that enthusiasm and catholicity of interests which characterized the two centuries between early printed books and Newton's Principia. The title might lead one to expect in this book only pictures, fanciful as well as mathematical; and indeed those selected for reproduction would alone have justified its existence. They are accompanied, however, by a lucid and well-organized text that provides useful information not only about the competing astronomical systems but also about some symbolisms , familiar enough to readers during the Renaissance but now almost forgotten (apart from a few associated with astrology). Some artists of the timeI as the author points out, felt free to create their own universes; so did some scientists and philosophers, yielding to the longing for a pervading unity or a universal harmony. A fascinating dimension is added to the work by textual portrayal of the tension between symbolism and science in the Renaissance. Against criticisms that might be offered of a few statements concerning matters lying in the reviewer's special province the author is protected by his prefatory disclaimer of writing a history - and even if he were not, they would be mere pedantry in view of what he has accomplished . (STILLMAN DRAKE) Thomas H. Cain. Praise...

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