Welsh Journals

performs a difficult juggling act, trying to compare the story as found in the plays with that of Shakespeare's sources and with the research and judgements of modern historians; in each chapter he analyses the back- ground role and relationships of the main characters and the omissions and distortion necessary to Shakespeare's dramatic art. On the whole Professor Saccio does this admirably. He is well acquainted with the main narrative sources and has read much of the best modern historical writing on the politics of these reigns, and any reader of this book would find the characters and narrative of the plays much more comprehensible from the historical context given here. Inevitably experts on each period will find statements they would wish to challenge, and inevitably the 'history' is more satisfactory for the reign of Richard II and the first two Lancastrians than for Henry VI and the Yorkists, but even on the latter, where Shakespeare aggravates historical problems by taking great liberties with his sources, Professor Saccio supplies accurate knowledge and reasonable judgements. These qualities, together with his clarity of style, make it an easily readable book and its usefulness is augmented by genealogical charts, chronological tables, bibliography and map, though the last is not very helpful. All in all, an unpretentious book, but one that should be helpful not only to theatregoers but to all those non-specialists who seek a guide through the confusing politics of the fifteenth century. R. VIRGOE East Anglia LITERATURE, RELIGION AND SOCIETY IN WALES, 1660-1730. By Geraint H. Jenkins. Studies in Welsh History, No. 2. University of Wales Press, 1978. Pp. 351. £ 9.50. Not much has been written on the religious history of Wales in the seventy years after the restoration since Thomas Richards's magisterial Wales under the Penal Code (1662-1687) of 1925. Dr. Jenkins's careful and well-researched book draws widely on manuscripts, on printed works, learned articles and unpublished theses. With a judicious employment of statistical method he has performed a successful work of synthesis, making particularly effective use of wills. He believes that the torpor of Welsh religious life during these decades has been exaggerated, notably by writers anxious to emphasize the impact of Methodism on a parched land. 'The argument presented here is that the Methodist revival was not a creation ex nihilo, but that it grew from roots laid in this period' (p. 307). Dr. Jenkins shows that Bibles, prayer books and catechisms in Welsh circulated widely (chapter III), analyzes the 140 known Welsh authors of his period (chapter VIII) and has an interesting study of the printing, publishing and book-selling trades (chapter IX) as well as of the subscribers to and owners of books (chapter X). There was much preaching in Welsh, many religious thinkers and a very significant increase of publication of religious books in Welsh. Occasionally one feels that he is so delighted with the swallows he has found that he too easily assumes that they make a summer; but he describes them so lovingly that one must not carp. The reader can make his own allowances.