456 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July The author has much to tell us about the financial status of the puritan ministers. He puts his facts both concisely and ably. Not only does he do this, but the personalities of the men themselves emerge, even though we meet some of them only for a moment. Usually there is a brief characterization of each of them which makes them stand out vividly. He is quite successful in clearing their character of the charges usually preferred against them. It has been said that some were unlettered mechanics, some were fifth-monarchy men, some objected to the singing of the psalms in public, and some were Baptists. The author proves that these charges were unfounded. He has met in the ranks of the ministers only one unlettered mechanic, Wyke, only one fifth-monarchy man, Kogers, and only one objector to psalm-singing in public, Blackwood. He does not swing to the other extreme, and maintain that all the ministers were saints. Still, men like Adair and Mather, Winter and Worth, would have done honour to any body to which they belonged. Mr. Seymour brings out admirably the large amount of practical toleration which was exercised. Short as the term of puritan government was, it is quite clear that much friendliness existed between the ministers of the different bodies. In spite of official disapproval, the Liturgy was openly used in the services of Trinity College, Dublin. Jeremy Taylor, in spite of the noble teaching contained in his Liberty of Prophesying, was tolerant when out of power and intolerant when in power. Samuel Mather, on the other hand, was tolerant when out of power and when in power. For indeed I have always thought [held Samuel Mather] that it is an irksome work to punish or trouble any man, so it is an evil and sinful work, to punish or trouble any good man with temporal corrections, for such errors in religion as are consistent with the foundation of faith and holiness. It is no good spirit in any form to fight with carnal weapons ; I mean, by external violence, to impose and propagate itself, and seek by such means, the suppressing of contrary ways, which by argument it is not able to subdue. The mention of Mather's name suggests another matter, and that is the close connexion between the university of Dublin and the attempts to found a theocracy in the New World. Increase and Samuel Mather were both graduates of this university, and there were curious cross-currents connecting thought in New England with thought in old Ireland. It is a point we have never seen worked out in any of our colonial histories. We entertain no doubt that some important discoveries in the filiation of thought can be worked out in some of the instances suggested by Mr. Seymour's stimulating volume. Kobert H. Murray. Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont. Diary of Viscount Percival, First Earl of Egmont. Vol. i, 1730-3. (Historical Manuscripts Commission. London : Stationery Office, 1920.) This diary of a private member of Parliament fills a gap common to Lord Hervey's Memoirs and Coxe's Life of Walpole, neither of which makes more than the most cursory reference to domestic politics between the resignation of Townshend and the introduction of the Excise Bill. Its most interesting feature is the glimpse which it gives of the regime of 'old Brazen Face', as Sir Robert Walpole appears to have been called /
