Welsh Journals

value to future workers) and on a mind well stored with local lore and tradition. Although the later destinies of Margam Abbey, as with most monastic houses, are closely bound up with a local county family, the continued use, after the dissolution, of part of the old monastic church for parochial purposes, has given Mr. Evans an opening for a sustained narrative brought down to the present day without the break at the close of the Middle Ages appearing too obtrusive. Consequently the later chapters are no mere appendage to the medieval record as so often is the case in histories of individual monastic houses. The Mansel-Talbot family, whose later fortunes, here so sympathetically outlined, are in their way as fascinating as their beginnings, have naturally a prominent place in the later chapters. There is, however, much else of interest extending beyond the immediate precincts of the modem mansion, the parish church, and the abbey ruins, and affording many interesting glimpses of the life of Margam parish during the last four centuries. The book is enriched with many fine illustrations, several of which are the author's own creation. Mr. Evans's knowledge of Welsh, moreover, has enabled him to introduce a sensitive and often one suspects, an unconscious, perception of the dual influences which have shaped past and present in this corner of Glamorgan. Would that there were more of his kind among those who interest themselves in Welsh local history and antiquities. T. J. PIERCE. Aberystwyth. THE WELSH SAINTS, 1640-1660. By Geoffrey F. Nuttall. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1957. Pp. 90. 10s. 6d. The saints on whom Dr. Nuttall lectured at the University College of North Wales in March 1957 were Walter Cradock, Vavasor Powell, and Morgan Llwyd. Cradock was an Independent pietist, whom Richard Baxter regarded as an Antinomian, Powell an uncompromising Fifth Monarchist, and Llwyd a mystic who ultimately drifted into Behmenism. Nevertheless all three were closely linked and shared common influences. Dr. Nuttall's purpose was to draw a spiritual pedigree from the Puritan circle of Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Bryan, through the three saints, all of whom Sir Robert protected, on to the Quakers. There are anticipa- tions of Quaker ideas in Cradock's Antinomianism, in his belief that 'the simplest people most commonly understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ best' (p. 25) and in his view that 'to set up Government and Discip- line before [the spirit of the Gospel] comes into the soule, truely it is to. build Castles in the ayre' (p. 28). Dr. Nuttall sees similar anticipations in Llwyd's mysticism, and in the millenarian belief that Christ's kingdom was at hand. 'The ground of the Quaker claim to sinlessness and perfec- tion', he writes, 'was identical with the ground for what had been attempted in the Nominated Parliament' (p. 71). Many aspects of the saints' thought