preserve a respect for your intentions. LEE, HARRIET, 1798, Letter to Godwin, July 31; William Godwin by Paul, vol. 1, pp. 307, 308.

I was disgusted at heart with the grossness and vulgar insanocecity of this dimheaded prig of a philosophocide, when, after supper, his ill stars impelled him to renew the contest. I begged him not to goad me, for that I feared my feelings would not long remain in my power. He (to my wonder and indignation) persisted (I had not deciphered the cause), and then, as he well said, I did "thunder and lighten at him" with a vengeance for more than an hour and a half. Every effort of selfdefence only made him more ridiculous. If I had been Truth in person, I could not have spoken more accurately; but it was Truth in a war chariot, drawn by the three Furies, and the reins had slipped out of the goddess's hands!-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1804, To Robert Southey, Feb. 20; Letters, ed. E. H. Coleridge, vol. II, p. 465.

The name of Godwin has been accustomed to excite in me feelings of reverence and admiration. I have been accustomed to consider him as a luminary too dazzling for the darkness which surrounds him, and from the earliest period of my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently desired to share in the footing of intimacy that intellect which I have delighted to contemplate in its emanations. Considering, then, these feelings, you will not be surprised at the inconceivable emotion with which I learned your existence and your dwelling. I had enrolled your name on the list of the honourable dead. I had felt

regret that the glory of your being had passed from this earth of ours. It is not So. You still live, and I firmly believe are still planning the welfare of human kind. . When I come to London

I shall seek for you. I am convinced I could represent myself to you in such terms as not to be thought wholly unworthy of your friendship. At least, if any desire for universal happiness has any claim upon your preference, that desire I can exhibit.-SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE, 1811, Letter to Godwin, Jan. 3; William Godwin by Paul, vol. II, p. 202.

Godwin is as far removed from everything feverish and exciting as if his head. had never been filled with anything but geometry. He is now about sixty-five,

stout, well-built, and unbroken by age, with a cool, dogged manner, exactly opposite to everything I had imagined of the author of "St. Leon" and "Caleb Williams." He lives on Snowhill, just about where Evelina's vulgar relations lived. His family is supported partly by the labors of his own pen and partly by those of his wife's, but chiefly by the profits of a shop for children's books, which she keeps and manages to considerable advantage. She is a spirited, active woman, who controls the house, I suspect, pretty well; and when I looked at Godwin, and saw with what cool obstinacy he adhered to everything he had once assumed, and what a cold selfishness lay at the bottom of his character, I felt a satisfaction in the thought that he had a wife who must sometimes give a start to his blood and a stir to his nervous system. -TICKNOR, GEORGE, 1819, Journal; Life, Letters and Journals, vol. 1, p. 294.

The Spirit of the Age was never more fully shown than in its treatment of this writer its love of paradox and change, its dastard submission to prejudice and to the fashion of the day. Five-and-twenty years ago he was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed as a sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice was the theme, his name was not far off:-now he has sunk below the horizon, and enjoys the supreme delight of a doubtful immortality. Mr. Godwin, during his lifetime, has secured to himself the triumphs and the mortifications of an extreme notoriety and of a sort of posthumous fame.

In size Mr. Godwin is below the common stature, nor is his deportment graceful or animated. His face is, however, fine, with an expression of placid temper and recondite thought. He is not unlike the common portraits of Locke.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1825, The Spirit of the Age, pp. 19, 33.

Next came Godwin. Did you not grudge me that pleasure, now? At least, mourn that you were not there with me? Grudge not, mourn not, dearest Jeannie; it was the most unutterable stupidity ever enacted on this earth. . . Mrs. Godwin already sate gossiping in the dusk-an old woman of no significance.

Shortly before candles, Godwin himself (who had been drinking good green tea by his own hearth before stirring out). He is a bald, bushy-browed, thick, hoary, hale little figure, taciturn enough, and speaking when he does speak with a certain epigrammatic spirit, wherein, except a little shrewdness, there is nothing but the most commonplace character. (I character. (I should have added that he wears spectacles, has full grey eyes, a very large blunt characterless nose, and ditto chin).CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1831, To Mrs. Carlyle, Aug. 17; Early Life of Thomas Carlyle, ed. Froude, vol. II, p. 139,

Godwin's name seems sinking out of remembrance; and he is remembered less by the novels that succeeded, or by the philosophy that he abjured, than as the man that had Mary Wollstonecraft for his wife, Mrs. Shelley for his daughter, and the immortal Shelley as his son-in-law. -DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1845-59, Gilfillan's Literary Portraits, Works, ed. Masson, vol. XI, p. 335.

He rose between seven and eight, and read some classic author before breakfast. From nine till twelve or one he occupied himself with his pen. He found that he could not exceed this measure of labour with any advantage to his own health, or the work in hand. While writing "Political Justice," there was one paragraph which he wrote eight times over before he

could satisfy himself with the strength and perspicuity of his expressions. On

this occasion a sense of confusion of the brain came over him, and he applied to his friend Mr. Carlisle, afterwards Sir Anthony Carlisle, the celebrated surgeon, who warned him that he had exerted his intellectual faculties to their limit. In compliance with his direction, Mr. Godwin reduced his hours of composition within what many will consider narrow bounds. The rest of the morning was spent in reading and seeing his friends. When at home he dined at four, but during his bachelor life he frequently dined out. His dinner at home at this time was simple enough. He had no regular servant; an old woman came in the morning to clean and arrange his rooms, and if necessary she prepared a mutton chop, which was put in a Dutch oven.-SHELLEY, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, 1851? Fragmentary Notes, William Godwin, by Paul, vol. 1, p. 79.

It was in the year 1813 that I first became acquainted with William Godwin.

I had expressed a wish to know him, and I was soon invited by a charming family, with whom he was intimate, to dine at their house, where I should find him and Bysshe. I repaired thither, to a somewhat early dinner, in accordance with the habits of the philosopher. I was not on any account to be late, for it was unpleasant to him to dine later than four o'clock. It was a fine Sunday. I set out betimes, and arrived at the appointed place at half-past three. I found a short, stout, thickset old man, of very fair complexion, and with. a bald and very large head, in the drawing-room, alone, where he had been for some time by himself, and he appeared to be rather uneasy at being alone. He made himself known to me as William Godwin; it was thus he styled himself. His dress was dark, and very plain, of an oldHis fashioned cut, even for an old man. appearance, indeed, was altogether that of a dissenting minister... William Godwin, according to my observation, always ate meat, and rather sparingly, and little else besides. He drank a glass or

two of sherry, wherein I did not join him. Soon after dinner, a large cup of very strong green tea,-of gunpowder tea, intensely strong, was brought to him; this he took with evident satisfaction, and it was the only thing that he appeared to enjoy, although our fare was excellent. Having drunken the tea, he set the cup and saucer forcibly upon the table, at a great distance from him, according to the usages of that old school of manners, to which he so plainly belonged. He presently fell into a sound sleep, sitting very forward in his chair, and leaning forward, so that at times he threatened to fall forward; but no harm came to him. Not only did the old philosopher sleep soundly, deeply, but he snored loudly.-HOGG, THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1858, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, vol. II, pp. 444, 447.

I remember vividly accompanying my father to the dark rooms in the New Palace Yard, where I saw an old vivacious lady and an old gentleman. My father was most anxious that I should remember them; and I do remember well that he appeared to bear a strong regard for them. . . . One morning he called on the Godwins, and was kept for some minutes waiting in

their drawing-room. It was irresistible, he could never think of these things. Whistle in a lady's drawing-room! . . . Still he did whistle, not only pianissimo, but fortissimo, with variations enough to satisfy the most ambitious of thrushes. Suddenly good little Mrs. Godwin gently opened the door, paused still-not seen by the performer-to catch the dying notes of the air, and then, coming up to her visitor, startled him with the request, made in all seriousness, "You couldn't whistle that again, could you?"-JERROLD, BLANCHARD, 1859, Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold, ch. vi.

William Godwin was then seventy years old; but he seemed to me older than Bentham. Feeble and bent, he had neither the bright eye nor the elastic step of the utilitarian philosopher. In person he was small and insignificant. His capacious forehead, seeming to weigh down the aged head, alone remained to indicate the talent which even his opponents confessed that he had shown, alike in his novels and in his graver works. His conversation gave me the impression of intellect without warmth of heart; it touched on great principles, but was measured and unimpulsive; as great a contrast to Bentham's as could well be imagined.-OWEN, ROBERT DALE, 1874, Threading My Way, p. 207.

Was always the same; very cold, very selfish, very calculating. His philosophy, such as it was, never generated pity or gratitude. His sympathies and generosities and liberal qualities showed themselves only in print. His conduct towards Shelley was merely an endeavor to extract from him as much money as was possible. His conduct toward Mr., whom I have heard speak of it, in denying a pecuniary liability, because as he said, "there was no witness to the loan;" his pedantic cavilling at his wife's unscientific expression when dying, "Oh, Godwin, I am in heaven!" (expressive of her relief from extreme pain), all indicate an unamiable. character. I have known several persons who were intimate with him, none of whom ever pretended to endue him with a single good quality. He was very pragmatic, very sceptical of God and men and virtue. And yet this man has in his study compiled fine rhetorical sentences, which strangers have been ready to believe

I have al

flowed warm from his heart. ways thought him like one of those cold. intellectual demons of whom we read in French and German stories, who come upon earth to do good to no one and harm to many.-PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER, 1874? Recollections of Men of Letters, p. 203.

The same calm temperament which enabled him to dispense with much which is often thought of the essence of religion, seems to have kept him free also from any feeling which can be called love. Except the one great passion of his life, and even this was conducted with extreme outward and apparent phlegm, friendship stood to him in the place of passion, as morality was to him in the room of devotion. All the jealousies, misunderstandings, wounded feelings and the like, which some men experience in their love affairs, Godwin suffered in his relations with his friends. Fancied slights were exaggerated; quarrels, expostulations, reconciliations followed quickly on each other, as though they were true amantiam irae. And his relations with women were for the most part the same as those with men. His frendships were as real with the one sex as with the other, but they were no more than friendships. Marriage seemed to him a thing to be arranged, "adjusted," as Mr. Tennyson says of the loves of vegetables. PAUL, C. KEGAN, 1876, William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries, vol. I, p. 29.

Godwin, though overrated in his generation, and almost ludicrously idealized by Shelley, was a man whose talents verged on genius. But he was by no means consistent. His conduct in money-matters shows that he could not live the life of a self-sufficing philosopher; while the irritation he expressed when Shelley omitted to address him as Esquire, stood in comic contradiction with his published doctrines. -SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON, 1879, Shelley (English Men of Letters), p. 93.

It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than that between Irving and Godwin. In persons, in manners, in features, in mind, in spirit, they were uttermost opposites. The free-thinking husband of Mary Wollstonecraft-whose union was the slender one of a love-bond, until in later life, they took upon them the bonds of wedlock was of awkard, ungainly form; a broad, intellectual forehead redeemed a

flat, coarse, inexpressive face; his dress was clumsy; his habits careless-of cleanliness at least.-HALL, SAMUEL CARTER, 1883, Retrospect of a Long Life, p. 313.

Of a cool, unemotional temperament, safe from any snares of passion or imagination, he became the very type of a town philosopher. Abstractions of the intellect and the philosophy of politics were his world. He had a true townsman's love of the theatre, but external nature for the most part left him unaffected, as it found him. With the most exalted opinion of his own genius and merit, he was nervously susceptible to the criticism of others, yet always ready to combat any judgment unfavourable to himself. Never weary of argument, he thought that by its means, conducted on lines of reason, all questions might be finally settled, all problems satisfactorily and speedily solved. Hence the fascination he possessed for those in doubt and distress of mind. Cool rather than cold-hearted, he had a certain benignity of nature which, joined to intellectual exaltation, passed as warmth and fervour.MARSHALL, MRS. JULIAN, 1889, The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, vol. I, p. 4.

Affecting the virtues of calmness and impartiality, he was yet irritable under criticism, and his friendships were interrupted by a series of quarrels. His selfrespect was destroyed in later life under the pressure of debt and an unfortunate marriage; but, though his character wanted in strength and elevation, and incapable of the loftier passions, he seems to have been mildly affectionate, and, in many cases, a judicious friend to more impulsive people.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1894, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXII, p. 67.

First and last, Shelley emptied into that rapacious mendicant's lap a sum which cost him for he borrowed it at ruinous rates from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars.-CLEMENS, S. M. (MARK TWAIN), 1897, In Defence of Harriet Shelley, How to tell a Story and Other Essays, p.49. ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE

1793

Dr. Priestley says my book contains a vast extent of ability-Monarchy and Aristocaracy, to be sure, were never so

painted before he agrees with me respecting gratitude and contracts absolutely considered, but thinks the principles too refined for practice he felt uncommon approbation of my investigation of the first principles of government, which were never so well explained before he admits fully my first principle of the omnipotence of instruction and that all vice is errorhe admits all my principles, but cannot follow them into all my conclusions with me respecting self-love-he thinks mind will never so far get the better of matter as I suppose; he is of opinion that the thinking, and will be uncommonly useful. book contains a great quantity of original

Horne Tooke tells me that my book is a bad book, and will do a great deal of harm -Holcroft and Jardine had previously informed me, the first, that he said the book was written with very good intentions, but to be sure nothing could be so foolish; the second, that Holcroft and I had our heads full of plays and novels, and then thought ourselves philosophers.-GODWIN, WILLIAM, 1793, Supplement to Journal, March 23; William Godwin by Paul, vol. 1, p.116.

You supped upon Godwin and oysters with Carlisle. Have you, then, read Godwin, and that with attention? Give me your thoughts upon his book; for, faulty as it is in many parts, there is a mass of truth in it that must make every man think. Godwin, as a man, is very contemptible. I am afraid that most public characters will ill endure examination in their private lives. -SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1795, To Grosvenor C. Bedford, Nov. 22; Life and Correspondence, ed. C. C. Southey, ch. iii.

While everybody was abusing and despising Mr. Godwin, and while Mr. Godwin was, among a certain description of understandings, increasing every day in popularity, Mr. Malthus took the trouble of refuting him; and we hear no more of Mr. Godwin.-SMITH, SYDNEY, 1802, Dr. Rennel, Edinburgh Review, Essays, p. 9.

I cannot but consider the author of "Political Justice" as a philosophical reasoner of no ordinary stamp or pretensions. That work, whatever its defects may be, is distinguished by the most acute and severe logic, and by the utmost boldness of thinking, founded on a love and conviction of truth. HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lecture on the English Novelists.

He carried one single shock into the bosom of English society, fearful but momentary, like that from the electric blow of the gymnotus; or, perhaps, the intensity of the brief panic which, fifty years ago, he impressed on the pubic mind may be more adequately expressed by the case of a ship in the middle ocean suddenly scraping with her keel a ragged rock, hanging for one moment as if impaled upon the teeth of the dreadful sierra,-then, by the mere impetus of her mighty sails, grinding audibly to powder the fangs of this accursed submarine harrow, leaping into deep water again, and causing the panic of ruin to be simultaneous with the deep sense of deliverance.-DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1845-59, Gilfillan's Literary Literary Portraits, Works, ed. Masson, vol. XI, p. 327.

It was in the spring of this year and before I left Colchester that I read a book which gave a turn to my mind, and in effect directed the whole course of my life, -a book which, after producing a powerful effect on the youth of that generation, has now sunk into unmerited oblivion. This was Godwin's "Political Justice." I was in some measure prepared for it by an acquaintance with Holcroft's novels, and it came recommended to me by the praise of Catherine Buck. I entered fully into its spirit, it left all others behind in my admiration, and I was willing even to become a martyr for it; for it soon became a reproach to be a follower of Godwin, on account of his supposed atheism. I never became an atheist, but I could not feel aversion or contempt towards G. on account of any of his views. In one respect the book had an excellent effect on my mind, it made me feel more generously. I had never before, nor, I am afraid, have I ever since felt so strongly the duty of not living to one's self, but. of having for one's sole object the good of the community. His idea of justice I then adopted and still retain; nor was I alarmed by the declamations so generally uttered against his opinions on the obligations of gratitude, the fulfillment of promises, and the duties arising out of the personal relations of life. ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB, 1867? Reminiscences for 1795, Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence, ed. Sadler, vol. I, p. 20.

science ever took hold of the English public mind with more tenacity than this publication. It was in everybody's hands. BLAKEY, Robert, 1873, Memoirs, p. 58.

His mind, clear, systematic, and passionless, speedily threw off the prejudices from which Price and Priestley never emancipated themselves. More than any English thinker, he resembles in intellectual temperament those French theorists who represented the early revolutionary impulse. His doctrines are developed with a logical precision which shrinks from no consequences, and which placidly ignores all inconvenient facts. The Utopia in which his imagination delights is laid out with geometrical symmetry and simplicity. Godwin believes as firmly as any early Christian in the speedy revelation of a new Jerusalem, four-square and perfect in its plan. Three editions of his "Political Justice" were published, in 1793, 1796, and 1798. Between those dates events had occurred calculated to upset the faith of may enthusiasts. Godwin's opinions, however, were rooted too deeply in abstract speculation to be effected by any storms raging in the region of concrete phenomena. . . Godwin's intellectual genealogy may be traced to three sources. From Swift, Mandeville, and the Latin historians, he had learnt to regard the whole body of ancient institutions as corrupt; from Hume and Hartley, of whom he speaks with enthusiam, he derived the means of assault upon the old theories; from the French writers, such as Rousseau, Helvetius, and Holbach, he caught, as he tells us, the contagion of revolutionary zeal. The "Political Justice" is an attempt to frame into a systematic whole the principles gathered from these various sources, and may be regarded as an exposition of the extremest form of revolutionary dogma. Though Godwin's idiosyncrasy is perceptible in some of the conclusions, the book is instructive, as showing, with a clearness paralleled in no other English writing, the true nature of those principles which excited the horror of Burke and the Conservatives. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, pp. 264, 265.

He never could have been a worker on the active stage of life. But he was none the less a motive power behind the work