Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/604

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596 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October government in 1892, the era of Lord Cross's Indian Councils Act, to seize the psychological moment and make a genuine beginning, however small, of representative institutions. His eager advocacy of further progress still leaves him fair to the pioneers of the past. To Lord Morley he attri- butes the credit of saving the cause of progressive constitutional reform in India : ' The friction and delays he overcame were immense ; in order to be able to overcome them at all, he had to reduce his scheme to the indis- pensable minimum, to claim for its character, tendency, and effects much less than was justly due to it, and to keep his own authorship of it in the background.' A few words of criticism remain to be written. The style is very unequal. It is often forcible and picturesque, occasionally it rises to real eloquence, sometimes it sinks to sheer fustian and bathos. There are disconcerting lapses into slang phraseology, e. g. ' grousing and grumbling ' and unhappy experiments in word- coining. The reviewer is not enamoured of the adjective 'riverine ' or the substantive ' urge '. Two mistakes of fact may be noted for correction in a future edition. It is an error (Chough an error that has received the support of Sir Courtenay Ilbert in his Government of India) to say that the East India Company was ever a Regulated Company. Even in the days of the Separate Voyages, the E.I.C. was technically a joint stock and was fundamentally different from the regulated form of association. Of Hastings's councillors, it was Monson who died in 1776, and the month of his death was September; Clavering's life closed in August 1777. P. E. ROBERTS. The Later Periods of Quakerism. By RUFUS M. JONES, D.D. 2 vols. (London : Macmillan, 1921.) FIFTEEN years have passed since this task of a developed history of Quakerism was planned. It had its origin in the keen mind of John Wilhelm Rowntree, but he died before he could make any personal con- tribution to the execution of it. The task then devolved mainly upon his friend, Professor Jones, and these two volumes from his hand mark the completion of it. It is a fine scheme, finely executed. To the complete history in six volumes Dr. Jones had previously contributed the two that serve as introduction, while Mr. W. C. Braithwaite was responsible for The Beginnings of Quakerism (1912) and The Second Period of Quakerism (1919). 1 In some ways the problem of writing the closing part of the history is more difficult than that presented by the earlier volumes. The intrinsic interest is less, and the nearer the events recorded the more delicate is the task of recording and appraising them. Dr. Jones writes with a full knowledge and intimate sympathy, but not without a balanced criticism and an awareness that takes note of changes, declensions, and shortcomings in the society. Two strong influences to which it reacted are especially brought out. The first is the wave of Quietism that assaulted religious life in the seventeenth century ; and though by no means all would agree with his account of Quietism in general, all will recognize the interest of his account of its influence on. the Friends. The second is the English Evangelicalism, starting with the Wesleyan movement, 1 See ante, xxxv. 286.