Briefer Notices

Briefer Notices By Henry J. Cadbury Of the many recent articles on Quakerism in popular American periodicals that in Look, Vol. 17, No. 24 (December 1, 1953), 66, 68-73, "What Is a Quaker?" has the distinction of being written by a Friend, Richmond P. Miller, a Vice-President of Friends Historical Association. At some points the article ignores the alternative beliefs or practices of a large number of Friends. # # * Van S. Merle-Smith, Jr., has written on The Village of Oyster Bay: Its Founding and Growth from 1653 to 1700 (Garden City, N. Y. [privately printed; distributed by Doubleday & Co.], 1953, 104 pages). It is largely based on the town records compiled years ago by our Friend, John Cox, Jr. It includes in an extended appendix the history of ownership of the fifty-two village lots. The conflict of Dutch and English interests figures in the early history. The Quakers, discussed in pages 50-56, were its earliest organized group and this was one of the earliest Friends' communities in America. A brief article in the Long Island Forum, 16 [1953], 25, 26, 34, by George R. Blachman, deals with the "Island's Early Quakers." The "More Seventeenth-Century Chaucer Allusions," a note by Austin Dobbins in Modern Language Notes, 65 [1953], 33, includes two by William Penn—one in his Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (1670), pp. 39-40, where Penn attributed to "honest Chaucer" some lines of poetry which actually come from Spenser's Piers (Shepheards Calendar, lines 109-137), the other in Wisdom Justified of Her Children (1673), p. 78, making mention of the pseudo-Chaucerian "Plowman's Tale." # * * Robert M. Utley's article, "The Celebrated Peace Policy of General Grant," in North Dakota History, 20 (1953), 121-142, deals with the Indian affairs of Grant's administration, with considerable material on the "Quaker policy." # * # Marie Denervaud Dun published in the California Historical Society Quarterly, 31 (1952), 241-252, an account of her grandmother under the title "Hannah Lloyd Neal: a 'Literary' Philadelphian in Post-1853 California ." She was the sister of Elizabeth Lloyd, the friend of Whittier. In 1852 she married James Neall, also a Philadelphia Friend. The author has many of her letters and her husband's diary in her possession and draws on these. She prints three letters from Thomas Starr King and two from John G. Whittier. 52 Briefer Notices53 The Rhode Island Historical Society acquired in 1953 two hitherto unknown Rhode Island imprints of 1727, the first year of printing in the colony. They are from the press of James Franklin, brother of Benjamin, at Newport. The author, John Hammett (1680-1773), was alternately Quaker and Baptist. One piece is a letter he wrote in 1721 giving an account of why he had turned from Baptist to Quaker and back again; the other is a "vindication and relation" which he himself published. Later books by him exist, and an earlier one prior to 1718 defending the baptism of water is known only from the printed answer that year by William Wilkinson, a Friend of Rhode Island. The recent discoveries are fully described and discussed by Bradford F. Swan in Rhode Island History, 12 (1953), 33-43, 105-109. * * * A book for children in the American Heritage series by Frank B. Latham is entitled The Fighting Quaker: The Southern Campaigns of General Nathanael Greene (New York: Aladdin Books, 1953, 192 pages) . * * # A New Bedford Quaker, Daniel Ricketson, had acquaintance with the more important literary figures of New England a century ago. An account of "Daniel Ricketson and Henry Thoreau" by Earl J. Dias, New England Quarterly, 26 (1953), 388-396, using the former's unpublished journal together with printed biographical material, gives a pleasant and intimate picture of the sage of Waiden. * * # An account of childhood life in the family of William Y. and Mary J. Warner in Germantown over half a century ago has been written for grandchildren and privately printed (illustrated, without imprint) and distributed by the youngest of their five daughters, Marian Warner Taylor. The title is "When Nana was Little Marian Warner." * * * An account of an estate "Compton, Talbot County," by C. F. C. and J. M. Arensberg...