discussion on the same topic in his monograph Bach and the Patterns of Inventions(Cambridge, MA 1996) was not consulted; similarly, Christoph Wolff’s Der stile anticoin der Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs (Wiesbaden 1968) should have been her startingpoint of discussing this key stylistic issue.

Although there are countless other points to be added to this wish list, it is fair to saythat Cameron’s work opens our horizon to see a wider range of issues in perspective,allowing us to see ‘what to do next’ towards our better understanding of the subject.It is this positive attitude to scholarship that emerges most powerfully in Cameron’sstudy. To me it seems that the Contextual Bach Studies have a bright and vibrantfuture.

Yo TomitaQueen’s University Belfast

Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Autobiographical, Scientific, Religious, Moral, andLiterary Writings. Translated and Edited by Christopher Kelly. Hanover, NH, andLondon: Dartmouth College, University Press of New England. 2006. 332 pp. Hb.1-58465-599-2.

This is the twelfth and penultimate volume of an edition of Rousseau’s collectedworks which is steadily becoming the standard translation of the author intoEnglish. The volume which remains to appear, presumably because it representsin Rousseau probably the greatest challenge to the translator, is Emile, thoughthe memoir to Mably and the piece on the education of M. de Sainte-Marie arealready in the present one. The series modestly does not claim to be complete, yetthis volume includes items which the Pléiade editors do not, notably Le NouveauDédale (The New Daedalus) and excludes others of agreed doubtful authenticitywhich Pléiade nevertheless presents, notably Pensées d’un esprit droit (ii.1299-314).These choices, the omission of the shorter lyrical verses (ii.1115-73) and theinclusion of the longer autobiographical poems, represent an acceptable order ofpriority.

The organisation of this miscellany of minor works into four sections is broadlyhelpful and unobjectionable: ‘Autobiographical writings’; ‘Writings on science’;‘Writings on religion and morality’; and ‘Literary works’. But the inclusion of TheBanterer (Le Persiffleur) (1747) in the first category (as in Pléiade) rather than the lastis open to the criticism that the first-person narrator is probably not in this textidentifiable with its author, even as a journalistic joke. According to the principles ofthe series, the notes are rigorously informative and economical, scholarly without anypretension to be exhaustive. They are the kind of help that the student of Rousseau inEnglish needs in order to offset misunderstandings brought about by translation intoa different language.

In this context, it is a shame that the translating itself is not faultless. Examplesrevealed by a random selection of pages illustrate the point. ‘Comme je ne pouvoisrevenir de mon préjugé ...’ (Pléiade, i.1179) should be rendered as ‘Since I could notchange my unfavourable opinion ...’ rather than as ‘Since I could not recover from myprejudice ...’ (p.63), which translates words rather than meaning. The same tendencyis seen on p.215, at the beginning of Queen Whimsical (La Reine Fantasque), where ‘labouillante activité’ (of a monarch’s ministers) (ii.1179) becomes ‘their seething

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activity’, introducing unwanted ideas of ‘seething’ with anger. ‘Frenetic activity’ isthe appropriate idiom. In another place, ‘I shall give rise to the idea’ (p.248) is an oddequivalence for ‘Je ferai naître l’idée’ (ii.1258), whereas ‘I shall generate the idea’would convey the sense directly. Or again, on p.250, there is confused grammar of theEnglish expression ‘Behold’: ‘Vous voilà libre, enfin’ (ii.1260) is rendered as ‘Beholdyou free, at last’, which could perhaps be the product, by misprint, of the omission of‘are’ after ‘you’. However, this explanation of the fault seems unlikely given thegenerally high standard of proofreading. The suspicion must be that minorworks have been afforded less than total concentration by the translator. There is auseful four-page index of names and themes, according to best Anglophonepublishing practice.

Philip RobinsonUniversity of Kent

The Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680-1840. W. M. Jacob.Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2007. vi + 357. £55. hb. 978-0-19-921300-9.

The clergy of the Church of England have hitherto been incorporated into broaderstudies of the ‘professions’ during the long eighteenth century, yet this book identifiesthem as a distinct and homogeneous group belonging to the most centralised andco-ordinated institution in England and Wales. Jacob’s thesis is that in terms of thecharacteristics of a profession – education and recruitment, finances, supervision anddiscipline – the structures of the clerical profession were significantly more developedthan those of the legal, medical or the military.

The book is less concerned with the long-standing optimist–pessimist debate(although Jacob is, of course, of the former persuasion) in attempting to dispelVictorian criticism than with synthesising the numerous regional and local studies, aswell as contemporary clerical diaries, letters, sermons and parish records. Examplesare given from such varying regions as London, Somerset, Norfolk, Yorkshire andWales. This substantial evidence provides convincing information on the lower clergyand their role in society as a distinctive profession.

The principal theme of the book is the role and activities of the clergy in the parishesand how successfully the clergy fulfilled the expectations of their congregations. Theywere conscientious about teaching Christian doctrine and carrying out their duties ofleading worship and prayer and took the preparation of sermons very seriously. Thetithe system and the leasing of glebe bound the interests of the clergy to that of theirparishioners and led to peaceful working relationships. Although pluralism and non-residence were widespread, they rarely led to neglect. Jacob notes that there is littleevidence of dissatisfaction at the provision of worship, hostility against paying theclergy their incomes or overt anti-clericalism at the parish level. Taking the injunctionsof William III as a benchmark, he argues that the lower clergy largely fulfilled theexpectations of both the laity and the bishops. He does argue, however, that thelay/clerical relationship was certainly not one of deference but a complex alliance,dictated by the clergyman’s role as pastor, moral overseer and, occasionally, enforcer ofsecular law as a magistrate. These seemingly conflicting roles meant the clergy werealways distanced from the parishioners as a distinctive group, especially in ruralparishes, where their education and cultural interests were far removed from those oftheir farming neighbours.

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© 2009 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies