The English Way

The English Way: Studies in English Sanctity from St Bede to Newman, edited by Maisie Ward, 328 pages

The English Way collects short biographical essays about English Catholics from St Bede and Alfred the Great to Bishop Challoner and Bl John Henry Newman, written by some of the finest English Catholic writers 1933 had to offer, including GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Christopher Dawson, and Fr Bede Jarrett.  The whole is meant to sketch an "English way" of sanctity.

The collection has all the diversity and unevenness to be expected of a compilation of biographies by different authors, many of them originally appearing elsewhere.  Fr Jarrett's reflection on St Aelred of Rievaulx takes the form of an exploration of the nature and importance of friendship as it is found in the life of the author of Spiritual Friendship, while Belloc's contribution uses the life of St Thomas Becket to launch a cannonade against error, and Dawson devotes most of his piece on William Langland to a detailed critical study of Piers Plowman.  Perhaps the unexpected highlight is E I Watkin's impassioned defence of Baroque art in his celebration of the life and poetry of Richard Crashaw.  Still, the individual pieces, however worthy by themselves, never do coalesce to form a greater whole.