The Goad of Love. An unpublished trans- lation of the
Stimulus Amoris by Walter Hilton. (Faber. 18s.) THERE is no doubt a small but growing public to whom the reading of the mystics brings satisfactions that they do not derive from formal religion. For them a simple text in modernised English, such as Evelyn Underhill's version of Hilton's far better known Scale of Perfection, may remain a bedside-book for many months. Such a book stands in no need of a learned intro- duction ; its provenance and date, even its author's name, are beside the point. It is precious for the thought it conveys, for its evidence of experiences higher than those of every day. Such a purpose is not served by Clare Kitchberger's editing of The Goad of Love, a composite book of which, as she admits, the central parts only are valuable. For not only is the work printed entire, but, with the aid of footnotes and printers' devices in the text, the reader is asked to compare Hilton's rendering with the original version of the thirteenth-century James of Milan. This will, in the editor's opinion, throw light on the thought of Walter Hilton, and demonstrate the nature of his originality. From a careful reading we shall even be able to guess at his attitude to the Lollards. This is an approach that may appeal to some scholarly readers, for whom, con- fusedly perhaps, this volume seems to have been designed. The habitual lover of such books, however, though he will find some passages to move him, is unlikely to put The Goad of Love on the same shelf as the Imitation or The Cloud of Unknowing.
J. M. C.
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