The Farthing Family: A Story of a London Family in The 17th Century (review)

Book Reviews115 culties in our own Society at Lynn and elsewhere"? Again Whittier writes a tidbit diat apparendy escaped Mordell: "True our experience in No. 72 last summer, was calculated to shake our bachelor faith not a litde." Stephen Gould is quoted as implying that a piece which Whittier had written on religion was Hicksiteish, to which Moses Cartland adds, "Thus they stamp Hicksism on everything which does not have a direct testimony of the Savior of man. To clear any composition of being of that doctrine it must recognize the grand laws of the Gospel, for to be silent on that is, in one sense, a crime." Gertrude Cartland is quoted as saying that Whittier told her very positively that Elizabedi Lloyd was die only woman he had ever loved. Moses Cartland describes Philadelphia as a "little world by itself," and states, "A Quarterly Meeting is, to our Society, what the Olympic and other games were to the Greeks." Anna Chace calls Whittier "the Webster of poets — and moreover, what is much in woman's eye, he is handsome." Reference is made to the fact diat, figuratively speaking, Hannah Collins was so horrified by one of Joseph John Gurney's speeches that "each particular hair stood erect like quills upon die fretful porcupine." There is considerable additional correspondence relative to Whittier 's great desire to establish a new Friends periodical "to be friendly but not quite as stiff and ancient as 'The Friend'— something to meet the taste and wants of the Junior Quakers." These letters augment Henry J. Cadbury's "Whittier as Historian of Quakerism" in Byways in Quaker History, on this same proposition. New York CityC. Marshall Taylor The Farthing Family: A Story of a London Family in The 17th Century. By Caroline C. Graveson. London: The Bannisdale Press. 1950. 211 pages. 18s. 6d. TN The Farthing Family, Caroline Graveson has given children and adults a delightful account of die day-to-day events in die life of an ordinary Quaker family of the seventeenth century. Fact and fiction are mingled in diis well-written story. It carries the four Farthing children through the Plague and the Great Fire, die arrests and trials, the separations and the wanderings which most of die first Quakers faced. The author's insight as a teacher is reflected in her understanding portrayal of all of the child characters, as convincing as those of the adults: Old Mole, the applecart hunchback, and his beachcomber son, little lost Jane and her baker rescuer, Carlo Beppi, and Ellis Hookes, the sensitive and devoted Recording Clerk of London Yearly Meeting. Pen sketches by Jacqueline and Dennis James catch the spirit of the 116Bulletin of Friends Historical Association century, and add gready to the charm of the book, which is well printed and attractively protected by a colorful jacket. Caroline Graveson has searched contemporary documents and brings into die story many characters familiar in die annals of Quaker history, as well as such true incidents as diat of die ship The Black Eagle which, widi its cargo of Quaker prisoners, was captured by a Dutch privateer. Informative comments explaining the name of die famous old Quaker meeting place, die "Bull and Mouth," and the reasons for die Quaker testimony against doffing tile hat add to die value of die book as historical material for children. The exciting episode of Avice Farthing's unexpected meeting with King Charles II is one of die high points of die tale, and die problems faced by die family in the terrible days of the Plague and their longing to be of service to their neighbors are so sympathically and realistically described diat die reader shares dieir anxiety. The story is good for reading aloud, and is a faidiful portrayal of Friendly values and spirit. Friends can welcome such a book gratefully into die realm of Quaker fiction, and into die hands of their young people. Friends Historical LibraryDorothy G. Harris of Swarthmore College Briefer Notices By Henry J. Cadbury "Thomas Parke's Student Life in England and Scodand, 17711773 " is contributed by Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., to the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 75 (1951), 237-259. It is...