Welsh Journals

So well organized and important is the theme of this paper that it may appear churlish to draw attention to infelicities in the printing. However, the pamphlet bears the imprint of the University of Wales Press, from which we have every right to expect the highest standards. The printing was done by the Gomer Press, Llandyssul, and although the lay-out and selection of type-face are pleasing, the general effect is marred by uneven inking on several pages of the review copy and at least four cases of letters not being printed at all. We noted eight misprints, in addition to the following howlers: Synoposis methodica stirpium Brittanicae [Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum]; From Galileo to Newtownl; on the verso of the title-page, 'D. J. Williams memorial lectures'. Is there no such functionary as a University Press corrector? If not, why not? GWYN WALTERS & EILUNED REES National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. GEORGE I, ELECTOR AND KING. By Ragnhild Hatton, Thames and Hudson, 1978. Pp. 416. £ 8.50. Like some latter-day Viking, Professor Hatton, encouraged and sus- tained by the accumulated treasures of her earlier enterprises in the Baltic and western Europe, and by new treasures acquired from more recent European forays, has now made a descent upon Britain. Unlike the earlier Viking descents, however, this is the answer to many prayers, a deliverance from the bondage of ignorance, in the form of the first, full-scale, scholarly biography of George I, which historians of the eighteenth century will wish to salute with more than the conventional expressions of gratitude. For there is more to Professor Hatton's achieve- ment than pulling off a first. The greater achievement is in the nature of the first, providing a study of George I, as a person and as a ruler, as elector and as king, that situates him in his contemporary European context. No other living historian of the eighteenth century could have attempted such an immensely difficult task, or achieved Professor Hatton's degree of success in carrying it through. Of course qualifications and criticisms can and need to be made; that is usually the case with major pioneering works. It has been said, for instance, that the proportions of the work are uneven, with diplomacy looming large. This is undoubtedly true, though if the remark is intended as criticism, it is somewhat misplaced, and is certainly not a criticism with which George I would have had much sympathy. The conduct of foreign policy under the first two Georges was the most highly prized, as well as the most politically contentious, of the rights and powers in the royal prerogative and, as Dr. Blanning has shown recently, remained a highly prized and politically contentious function of the royal prerogative in the 1780s.2 That being the case diplomacy must loom large in a biogra- phy of George I. Happily it does so in the present biography, since it 1 See the review by W. A. Speck, English Historical Review, XCIV (October 1979) 866-68. 1 T. W. C. Blanning, "That Horrid Electorate" or "Ma Patrie Germanique" ? George III, Hanover, and the FUrstenbund of 1785', The Historical Journal, 20, 2(1977), 311-44.