Briefer Notices

Briefer Notices By Henry J. Cadbury Opal Thornburg contributes to Art in America, 41 (1953) , 22-35, an article on "The Panoramas of Marcus Mote, 1853-1854." Four of these large works so popular a century ago were painted by "the selftaught Quaker artist, Marcus Mote, at Lebanon, Ohio." The subjects were Uncle Tom's Cabin, Paradise Lost and Regained, The Course of Intemperance, and the Course of Creation. None is extant but their character has been recovered in part from newspaper accounts and in part from surviving drawings, portraits, and landscapes, which show Mote's original style. Several of these are handsomely reproduced in the article.» * » Philip Dorfs The Builder: A Biography of Ezra Cornell (New York: Macmillan, 1952, 459 pages) begins with a chapter called "Quaker Heritage." When Ezra "married out" in 1831, De Ruyter (New York) Friends Meeting disowned him. This new biography of the successful industrialist and founder of Cornell University is based upon the thousands of Ezra Cornell Papers preserved by the University. It is full of detail but naturally says less of Quakerism in his later life than did the biography published long ago by his son.» » * William W. Comfort presented to the Huguenot Society a paper on "Anthony Bénézet: Huguenot and Quaker," which was printed in the Proceedings of the Society, 24 (1953), 36-43. It is a comprehensive account of his background, personal life, especially in Philadelphia, and his humanitarian interests. The author acknowledges use of George S. Brookes's biography, to which he refers for further details. One notes the spelling Bénézet used throughout.» * # "Religion's Use of Me" is the unusual title of the religious autobiography of Edwin D. Starbuck (1866-1947), a Hoosier Quaker who became a teacher and scholar of the psychology of religion and of character research. It was published in Religion in Transition, edited by Vergilius Ferm (New York; Macmillan, 1937), pp. 200-260. * · In an exhibit of early Wayne County art arranged in November, 1952, by the Richmond (Indiana) Art Association about half the pictures were by the Quaker artist, Marcus Mote.» * » For a list of literary MSS of John G. Whittier in the Morgan Library reference may be made to George K. Boyce's article in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 67 (1952), 32. They are original manuscripts of poems, of a few prose pieces, and of fifteen letters (1840-92), the majority forwarding poems to editors. 112 Briefer Notices113 Robert W. Johannsen contributes to Delaware History, 5 (1952), 96-132, an article on "The Conflict between the Three Lower Counties on the Delaware and the Province of Pennsylvania, 1682-1704." Using correspondence of William Penn and others, Friends and non-Friends, it concludes at the final secession of what is now Delaware from Pennsylvania . * · # The mansion, "Kingston upon Hull," the home of John Dickinson, Delaware patriot of the Revolution, was recently bought by the state of Delaware to be kept as a memorial to its famous owner. An account of the purchase appears in the Daughters of the American Revolution Maganne, 86 (1952), 875-876.» » # John E. Pomfret continues his studies of the Quaker proprietary colonies along the Delaware with an article, "West New Jersey: A Quaker Society, 1675-1775" in the William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 8 (1951), 493-519. Making a considerable use of the old manuscript meeting records (Yearly, Quarterly and Monthly), he describes the pattern of society in the colony as an expression of the Quaker mores which he says made it a unit down to the present day, in spite of the union with East Jersey in 1702 or of the Revolution. At the end the article narrates the rise of new meetings and of Quaker schools during the period. * · · Horace M. Lippincott's address on Spiritual Healing given at Jenkintown on Eleventh Month 19, 1952, has been printed as a pamphlet (16 pages, including a brief bibliography). It is a "factual report" on the more important endeavors of this kind in several churches. Pages 7 to 10 deal with Friends. * » * Milton Rubincam's article in Pennsylvania History, 20 (1953) , 142164 , on the "Wistar-Wister Family" is not just a...