Bell in Campo & The Sociable Companions by Margaret Cavendish

Abstract

77 various scientific concerns. In ‘‘From Aeolus to Aerology, or, Boreas meets the Barometer,’’ Barbel Czennia charts the development of the new science of meteorology and then shows how different poets (from More, Cavendish, Marvell, and Finch to Thompson and Darwin) gradually incorporate more and more ‘‘science’’ into their literary descriptions of storms and showers. It is a familiar progression: mythology and theology give way to empirical observation. In this exhaustive survey of ‘‘barometric’’ literature, I am surprised that no mention is made of Barometri Descriptio, the celebrated Neo-Latin poem by Joseph Addison. As a kind of coda, Ms. Czennia offers a brief but fascinating glimpse of pioneering balloonists (Sadler , Charles, Baldwin, Blanchard) and how they write about their daring exploits . Some essays are weaker than others. ‘‘The Mad Scientist’’ by Barbara Benedict and ‘‘The Consumption of Meat’’by George Rousseau are lightweight but entertaining. In ‘‘A God who Must: Science and Theological Imagination,’’Paul Johnston finds common ground between two antithetical American thinkers, Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin. James Buickerood (‘‘Cracks in the Cement of the Universe’’) writes a dull essay on the role of the imagination in the works of Descartes, Newton, and Locke. Peter Fosi, on the other hand, does a solid job of defining the nature of Hume’s skepticism by focussing on the idea of ‘‘contingency.’’ Far more interesting are the essays by Kevin Cope, Peter Walmsley, and Anna Battigelli. In ‘‘Elastic Empiricism, Interplanetary Excursions, and the Description of the Unseen,’’ Mr. Cope explores images of nullity, vacuity, and invisibility in the works of Henry More. Mr. Cope makes a valid connection between More and the great eighteenth-century ‘‘caver,’’ John Hutton; however, I do not see the affinity between these two figures and the German philosopher of humor, Georg Meier. Mr. Walmsley writes engagingly and knowledgeably about the themes of ‘‘Science, Masculinity and Empire in Elizabeth Hamilton’s Hindoo Rajah’’—an excellent essay that adds a great deal to the subject of eighteenthcentury ‘‘Orientalism.’’ In ‘‘The Furnace of Affliction,’’ Ms. Battigelli shows how Anne Conway liberated herself from the kindly but oppressive tutelage of Henry More and emerged as a first-rate philosopher of ‘‘vitalism,’’ thanks to the influence of that charismatic and eccentric thinker, Francis Mercury van Helmont. For Ms. Battigelli, the experiential notion of ‘‘redemptive agony’’ is crucial to Conway’s intellectual and spiritual development . Imagining the Sciences is a valuable resource for scholars and amateurs. College teachers will find it very useful—in part because of the wonderfully reproduced illustrations and engravings. The volume is also superbly edited. I noted only two typos: ‘‘In sink with’’ (for ‘‘in sync with’’) and ‘‘Le grande chose’’ (for ‘‘La grande chose’’). Taylor Corse Arizona State University MARGARET CAVENDISH. Bell in Campo & The Sociable Companions, ed. Alexandra G. Bennett. Ontario: Broadview, 2002. Pp. xxi ⫹ 209. $12.95 (paper). If you want to dampen undergraduate interest in seventeenth-century women’s writing, assign these two plays. Their desultory plots, indistinguishable characters , and, at times, sheer unintelligibility make them tiring. Despite the seem- 78 ingly impossible task of making these texts appealing, Ms. Bennett succeeds with impressive ingenuity. Broadview Press serves a largely undergraduate readership for whom a selfstyled eccentric such as Cavendish could be delightful. It seems to have recognized this, producing in 1999 the versatile Cavendish reader, Paper Bodies. (That reader, incidentally, includes the best of Cavendish’s nineteen plays, The Convent of Pleasure, as well as her singular fictional extravaganza, The Blazing World). But the rationale of the present volume escapes me. Not only are the plays themselves a disappointment, but both have recently been published elsewhere . Paul Salzman presents the two parts of Bell in Campo in Early Modern Women Writers, an Anthology 1560– 1700 (2000); Anne Shaver also includes the entire play in ‘‘The Convent of Pleasure ’’ and Other Plays (1999); and the Seventeenth Century Press has recently issued The Sociable Companions (1996, ed. Amanda Holton). What saves Ms. Bennett’s edition is her thoughtful and, for the most part, careful editing. My few objections arise from the slightly haphazard selection of items for annotation. Why define ‘‘seraglio ’’ or ‘‘pippen,’’ but say nothing about the far more important term ‘‘intrigue’’? And the...