The Literary Correspondence of Bernard Barton (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Penn Family Recipes: Cooking Recipes of William Penn's Wife Gulielma. Edited by Evelyn Abraham Benson. York, Pennsylvania: George Shumway, Publisher. 1966. 213 pages. $7.95. This is a book for the few—but the few will take great delight in it. Here are 144 recipes, covering the entire range of dishes prepared for the table of William Penn and his guests, both in England and America. The recipes include those for meat, fish, fowl, beverage, baked goods, cheese, custards, puddings, preserves, jellies, and candy. Unfortunately, in this day of "mixes," few cooks will wrestle with the actual use of such a recipe as that for "Bisketts. Take a pound of shugar as much flour—put to it as much Rose Water as an egg shell will hold and four or six eggs but hälfe the whites, temper and beat them well, while the oven is heted . . . one or two spunfuls the one of Coliander seeds, the other of Caraway seeds, and Lett the oven bee heted as for Manchets." But it might be fun to try! Evelyn Benson has added an interesting and tender account of the life of Gulielma Maria Springett (1644-1694) with many references concerning "He For Whom She Was Reserved"—William Penn. There are excellent indices and footnotes. The book pleases the eye with its fine printing and illustrations. Towson, MarylandLaVerne Hill Forbush The Literary Correspondence of Bernard Barton. By James E. Barcus. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press. 1966. 154 pages. $5.00. This very pleasant small book is a credit to the publisher and to the editor of the letters. One has confidence in the accuracy of the details because of the careful press work as well as the painstaking work of the author. The introduction is informative and especially helpful because Bernard Barton, although of some importance in limited circles in his time, as a literary figure is very minor indeed. The brief footnotes give the necessary information regarding the recipients of the letters, few of whom are well known. This mildly inspirational poet was a Quaker, born in 1784 of "simple but decent parents" (as the novels of the period would put it). From 1809 he lived in a small Suffolk town remote from the London literary world but in touch with people of taste. From 1819 to 1830, by dint of writing letters of considerable pressure to publishers and friends of publishers, he managed to have printed and occasionally reviewed some eight volumes of verse. Because of their begging nature, one is surprised and mildly dispirited at the forethought, persistence, and frankness of this Quaker whose poems sold only by virtue of their religious and moral subjects and their tone of mild happiness and virtue. 47 48Quaker History The character of the letters has changed by 1830. Barton has apparently lost some of his need for self pushing, and, possibly by correspondence with men greater than himself, has developed his rudimentary humor and enriched his content, although his literary taste (and his own verse) has not improved. His comment on Martin Chuzzlewit is that "you could hardly throw the book aside," but "it is a harrowing, revolting, & excruciating Book." More interesting, however , are his comments on painting. His vocabulary here is more concise and telling; he collected Cotman, Constable, and Old Crome, and wrote with exclamatory marks to a friend, "Edward Fitzgerald has picked up a Titian LandscapeV.l" The reason for the greater verve of the later letters is surely that most of them were written to men from whom he had nothing to gain, and whom he saw frequently as they met about in each others' houses to talk literature and painting. In his introduction, Mr. Barcus gives a wider view of Barton's interests, especially of his Quakerism, than the literary letters in this volume show. Here one finds no great understanding of the vital issues of his time, nor of the deeper significance of his religion. Mr. Barcus tells us, however, that the other than literary letters show him interested in doctrinal questions and out of favor with the British Friend for his hetorodox opinions. Nonetheless, we close this volume with a feeling of...