Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/788

7/8 Revieit's of Books been able to add comparatively little to the story as already told by Rev. Dr. Henry M. Dexter, that result is not because of any lack of fresh and patient delving on his part, but by reason of the thoroughness of the earlier gleaner in the field. In one very important particular, however, Dr. Powicke corrects Dr. Dexter' s portrait. To Dr. Dexter it seemed exceedingly probable that Barrowe was the author of the much-discussed Martin Marprelate tracts. The arguments which Dr. Powicke advances in refutation of this claim have great and apparently conclusive weight. Besides his consideration of the life of Barrowe, Dr. Powicke dis- cusses with much fullness Barrowe' s doctrine of the Church, and his rela- tions to the Puritans whose views in many respects resembled his own, yet to whom his Separatism was intensely distasteful, and whom he treated with scorn. He shows, also, Barrowe' s essential sympathy with some positions characteristic of the Anabaptists — a sympathy which did not extend, however, to many articles of their faith, and could not over- come the intense repugnance which Barrowe felt for that party which in the Reformation age was everywhere spoken against. In chapters of less value Dr. Powicke discusses the bishops of Barrowe's time and vindi- cates for Archbishop Whitgift a conscientious and consistent, if cruel and relentless, policy in dealing with Puritans and Separatists. Dr. Powicke's most valuable contribution to the story of the London Separatist congregation in its exile at Amsterdam after martyrdom had deprived it of the leadership of Barrowe and Greenwood is his searching criticism of such portions of Professor Edward Arber's Stoty of the Pil- grim Fathers as paint the moral condition of the congregation as prevail- ingly evil and, in particular, hold up its pastor, Francis Johnson, as un- worthy of confidence and as making a "death-bed recantation." No reader of Professor Arber's volume can afford to overlook Dr. Powicke's examination of its allegations on these topics. Dr. Powicke has paid a good deal of attention to the dates and se- quences of the various conferences held by the commissions appointed by the Bishop of London with Barrowe and Greenwood, who were then in prison. In most instances his solutions seem to the reviewer to be ac- curate ; though the problem is one of great perplexity, chiefly owing to the frequent indication of the months by number, and the uncertainty as to whether the enumeration uniformly began with January, or sometimes commenced with March. How perplexing the matter sometimes is may be illustrated by the fact that the conference between Hutchinson and Greenwood, which is recorded in Certain SciaiinJereiis Articles as of the " 9. day of the 3. Moneth," was dated by Dr. Dexter in his Congrega- tionalism as seen in its Literature as of March 1589, while the writer has seen a copy of the pamphlet containing the original record, purchased by Dr. Dexter subsequently to the publication of his learned volume just cited, in which he had interpreted the date in a marginal annotation as of May 1590. Dr. Powicke puts it in March 1590, which seems to the writer to be correct.