Welsh Journals

REVIEWS THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Judged by the amount of work that has gone into it, the second instal- ment of the History of Parliament* is undoubtedly an immensely impressive piece of collective scholarship for which the editor, the late Romney Sedgwick, and his assistants (especially Dr. Eveline Cruikshanks and Mr. R. S. Lea) deserve the gratitude of generations of scholars. Extensive researches in public, local and private collections of papers throughout the British Isles, in America, and in the archives of the French Foreign Ministry, and wide-ranging reading in a mass of secondary materials-memoirs, local and family histories, ancient and modern works of reference, contemporary newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets, as well as the literature of modern scholarship-have brought to light and into order a vast compendium of facts concerning the politics and society of Britain in the first half of the eighteenth century, and especially the pedigrees, education, connections, interests, loyalties and activities of the 2,041 M.P.s who were elected during the period 1715-54. Naturally, there can be more than one opinion about the value of some of the information collected; what may seem to one historian the very breath of his scholarly life may seem to another the kiss of death. Equally, if it can be argued that less need have been said about some things and some people, it can also be argued that more could and should have been said about other things and other people. Given the immensity of the task which Mr. Sedgwick and his colleagues have tackled, and the variety of historians' interests and the limits of their affections, it would be surprising indeed if things stood otherwise. Specialists, each from the tiny corner of his specialism, could doubtless add more to what has been provided and, it is to be hoped, will do so. They will be building, however, upon the foundations laid by the History of Parliament. Moreover, even where criticisms arise of the interpretations placed upon the material assembled and its ordering, these criticisms and alter- native interpretations will rest in large part upon the evidence provided by the History of Parliament itself-some of it (though less than is some- times implied) ferreted out of archives and with the dust of ages only recently removed. At the outset, therefore, tribute must be paid to what has been achieved and to the long, hard, often tedious slog of a squadron of devoted scholars. In particular, tribute must be paid to the very large contribution made by Sedgwick himself, whose death followed so shortly after the appearance of the work to which he had given so many of his later years. In addition to a lengthy introductory survey, Sedgwick has written the histories of Romney Sedgwick et al., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1715-1754 (2 vols., H.M.S.O., 1970). Pp. 633, 571. £ 22.00