s, rises up in
distinct and full proportions; we look at statesmen, philosophers, and
poets, with the eyes of those who lived perchance their next-door
neighbors, and sold them beer, and mutton, and household stuffs, had
access to their kitchens, and took note of the fashion of their wigs and
the color of their breeches. Without some such light, all history would
be just about as unintelligible and unreal as a dimly remembered dream.

The journals of the early Friends or Quakers are in this respect
invaluable. Little, it is true, can be said, as a general thing, of
their literary merits. Their authors were plain, earnest men and women,
chiefly intent upon the substance of things, and having withal a strong
testimony to bear against carnal wit and outside show and ornament. Yet,
even the scholar may well admire the power of certain portions of George
Fox's Journal, where a strong spirit clothes its utterance in simple,
downright Saxon words; the quiet and beautiful enthusiasm of Pennington;
the torrent energy of Edward Burrough; the serene wisdom of Penn; the
logical acuteness of Barclay; the honest truthfulness of Sewell; the wit
and humor of John Roberts, (for even Quakerism had its apostolic jokers
and drab-coated Robert Halls;) and last, not least, the simple beauty of
Woolman's Journal, the modest record of a life of good works and love.

Let us look at the Life of Thomas Ellwood. The book before us is a
hardly used Philadelphia reprint, bearing date of 1775. The original was
published some sixty years before. It is not a book to be found in
fashionable libraries, or noticed in fashionable reviews, but is none the
less deserving of attention.

Ellwood was born in 1639, in the little town of Crowell, in Oxfordshire.
Old Walter, his father, was of "gentlemanly lineage," and held a
commission of the peace under Charles I. One of his most intimate
friends was Isaac Pennington, a gentleman of estate and good reputation,
whose wife, the widow of Sir John Springette, was a lady of superior
endowments. Her only daughter, Gulielma, was the playmate and companion
of Thomas. On making this family a visit, in 1658, in company with his
father, he was surprised to find that they had united with the Quakers, a
sect then little known, and everywhere spoken against. Passing through
the vista of nearly two centuries, let us cross the threshold, and look
with the eyes of young Ellwood upon this Quaker family. It will
dou