Welsh Journals

was to Liverpool, Ireland and the south-west in copper, slate and food- stuffs. The export of slates and emigrants to America with return cargoes of timber for further ship-building dominated the nineteenth century. Gradually the ships were built of steel and their trading ventures ranged from Antafagasta to Uleaborg and from Tacoma to Yokahama. Yet it never lost its local roots; the money for investment, the crews for the ships remained local to the end. Mr. Eames has made excellent use of the publications of local record societies, of official records such as the Registers of British Shipping and ships' logs, as well as of unpublished diaries and the recollections of survivors of the later periods. It is a matter of regret, but probably an economic necessity, that there is no separate bibliography, but the index is well arranged and the appendices and footnotes are of the utmost interest and value. There are some useful maps (though that on page 350 illustrating wrecks is too small to be of use) and interesting illustrations of crew agreements and advertisements for cargo and passenger traffic. Best of all are the splendid photographs: grainy glimpses of ports, of ships under sail or wrecked and, most touching, of respectable crews and decent family groups. They look out at us, the bearded masters patriarchal, wary or confident from another world, and bring the statistics to life. P. K. CRIMMIN Royal Holloway College, London JOHN DEE: THE WORLD OF AN ELIZABETHAN MAGUS. By Peter J. French. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1972. Pp. 243. £ 3.75. The 'world' of this book's subtitle is essentially the intellectual scene in sixteenth-century Europe as well as England, the context in which the wide range of Dee's ideas is summarized, analysed and set. An introductory review of how contemporaries and later writers regarded him serves the useful purpose of explaining why his reputation became distorted, through exaggerated emphasis on the more esoteric and sensational aspects of his search for fundamental knowledge at the expense of his positive achievements; and a survey of the known contents of his im- pressive personal library establishes the universality of this pursuit. All the same, to appreciate Dee's basic philosophical framework (which is the author's chief concern) requires the modern reader to grapple with the esoteric ideas of gnostic philosophy derived from Hermes Trismegistus, and it at least provides a comprehensible explanation of Dee's well-intentioned explorations of 'angel-magic'. Perhaps because of over-enthusiasm in recovering this long-forgotten world of 'Renaissance Hermeticism' (as opposed to the new humanism expounded by men like Ascham), the author makes startling claims for its significance, suggesting that it prepared the way 'emotionally' for the acceptance of the new Copernican cosmic scheme, and that 'scientific advance was spurred by the renewed interest in the magical Hermetic religion of the world' (p. 103).