GODWIN, William, an English author of great versatility, original power, and unwearied application, was the son of a dissenting minister, and was born at Wisbeach, Cambridge, March 3, 1756. He was educated for his father's profession, and afterwards officiated for four years as pastor of a congregation at Stowmarket in Suffolk. Many of the English dissenting ministers were at this time zealous political reformers. They felt the Test and Corporation Acts to be badges of persecution, and naturally wished to abate somewhat of the power of the High-church clergy and rural aristocracy, by whom they were regarded with suspicion and dislike. Godwin participated in these sentiments, but went much further than most of his brethren. He aimed at the complete overthrow of all existing institutions, political, social, and religious. An intellectual republic was the dream of his youthful ambition; and to promote its anticipated advent he resigned his clerical charge, repaired to London, and set about the work of regeneration with his pen, which at all times he valued as highly as ever monarch did his sceptre. This was in 1782, and the same year Godwin commenced his career as author by publishing a series of six sermons entitled Sketches of History. He wrote largely in the Annual Register and other periodicals, and associated with Horne Tooke, Holcroft, Thelwall, and others who, from their political doctrines and activity, were obnoxious to men in power. Godwin, however, was no platform agitator. He was the mildest of enthusiastic philosophers, and had no talent or inclination for public life. In 1793 appeared his greatest work on political science, The Inquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on
Godwin. General Virtue and Happiness. Though now rarely met with, this work was read with great avidity, and exercised no small influence in shaping the opinions and aspirations of many young men of genius, who were captivated with the author's argument for universal benevolence as the immediate motive of our actions, and the true basis on which to found society. The French Revolution had then run to its wildest excesses, and appeared rather as a beacon to warn off political adventurers than a light to steer by; but Godwin conceived that he could build upon the ruins of monarchy a glorious fabric of equal rights and happiness for all mankind. Still further to illustrate his peculiar views, and show the evils of our artificial system, he wrote and published next year his political novel of Things as they are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams, which, with the other tales of Godwin, will be found noticed under the head of ROMANCE. The political object of Caleb Williams was overlooked by the mass of readers in the strong interest of the story, and in the author's vivid description of incidents and character. It is a work of great genius, and was the most popular of all Godwin's productions. His next important effort to propagate his opinions was in the form of a series of essays entitled the Inquirer, which appeared in 1796. A more remarkable exemplification of his views on social questions was afforded by his Memoirs of the Author of the Rights of Woman. This was the once celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, whom Godwin had married, though neither approved of the "slavery" of wedlock. The details and principles laid bare in this memoir shocked even Godwin's philosophical admirers. He had gone too far for English feeling, however modified by political sentiments; and though his own equanimity was probably never for a moment disturbed by the comments his work provoked, his position, both as a literary man and a citizen, was lowered by the publication. His next appearance was in the field of fiction. His St Leon, a tale of the sixteenth century, was published in 1799; and though the subject was avowedly of the miraculous class (his hero being invested with the fabulous powers of alchemy and the elixir vita), by which he commands all riches, and can renew his youth), the work contains many splendid and pathetic descriptions. The utter desolation of St Leon, who survives all the objects of his affection, and longs for dissolution notwithstanding his supernatural endowments, is one of the most powerful and harrowing pictures in the whole region of romance. The other works of Godwin during his long literary life were, Antonio, a tragedy, produced in 1801; a Life of Chaucer, in two quarto volumes—filled, of course, by a vast amount of episodic description and illustration—published in 1803; Fleetwood, a novel, 1805; Faulkner, a tragedy, 1807; an Essay on Sepulchres, 1809; Lives of Edward and John Philips, the nephews of Milton, 1815; Mandeville, a tale of the times of Cromwell, 1817; a History of the Commonwealth, in four volumes, published at intervals between 1824 and 1829; Cloudeley, a novel, 1830; and Lives of the Necromancers, 1834. Many other short and anonymous works proceeded from his ever-busy hand. For some years Godwin carried on business as a bookseller under the name of Edward Baldwin, and ushered into the world a number of small educational works. Into such humble usefulness had subsided the daring and sanguine speculator, who was to overturn thrones, and regenerate the civilized world! Misfortune seems to have fallen upon him about the year 1816, as at that time we find Byron concurring with Mackintosh and Rogers as to some measures for his relief. In his latter years the government of Earl Grey conferred upon Mr Godwin a small office known as "Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer," to which were attached apartments in Palace Yard; and there the veteran author died, April 7, 1836, having completed his eightieth year. From the glimpses of Godwin's fami-
liar life afforded by Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and other associates, he appears to have been an easy complacent man, esteeming literature above all pursuits and distinctions, and enjoying his game of whist in the evenings with a few select and congenial friends. His latter works are distinguished by great elegance of style. Details are worked up with brilliancy and effect in his essays and novels; though in the delineation of passion he is often exaggerated and unnatural. His History of the Commonwealth disappointed the public. The subject was one that seemed peculiarly suited to his genius and research, but he taxed himself to be rigidly accurate and impartial; and in the process, he had neglected the animation and colouring necessary to give life and interest to his narrative. The work, however, is a valuable repository of facts. The theory of political optimism by which Godwin was first distinguished was successfully answered by Malthus and Dr Parr. It has been fairly refuted on philosophical principles. In excluding the particular affections, he deprives us, as Sydney Smith has remarked, of our most powerful means of promoting his own principle of universal good:—"For it is as much as to say that all the crew ought to have the general welfare of the ship so much at heart that no sailor should pull any particular rope, or hand any individual sail." A theory which runs counter to the natural feelings, habits, and business of mankind, can only be considered as one of the refinements of sophistry, put forth at a time of peculiar excitement and speculation. It is in the regions of fiction that Godwin earned his lasting and most distinctive laurels. As a general writer on so many classes of subjects, he is well entitled to honourable mention, but in romance only is he original and striking. His political theories and elaborate essays are already left behind in the onward progress of society in practical government and knowledge. A work of genius, however, such as Caleb Williams or St Leon, which appeals to the heart and imagination, and evinces the skill of the master, can never become uninteresting. (R. C.—S.)
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English authoress of the last century, celebrated for her literary talents, her opinions, and her misfortunes. She was born in 1759, either in the environs of London, or at Loddon in Norfolk, where it is known that her father was in practice as a surgeon and apothecary not long after her birth. In 1768 she accompanied her father to Beverley in Yorkshire, where the only education she got was that afforded by the humble day-schools of the town. This was of itself sufficient to disgust her with the life she was obliged to lead; and her unhappiness was embittered by the cruel treatment of her father, who was a man of ill-regulated mind and ungovernable temper. "Mary Wollstonecraft was not formed," says the author of Caleb Williams in the memoir of his wife, "to be the unresisting and contented subject of a despot; but I have heard her remark more than once, that when she felt she had done wrong, the reproof or chastisement of her mother, instead of being a terror to her, she found to be the only thing capable of reconciling her to herself. The blows of her father, on the contrary, which were the mere ebullitions of a passionate temper, instead of humbling her, roused her indignation." She resolved to provide for herself; and on the death of her mother, went to live as a companion with a lady in Bath. In 1783, along with two of her sisters and a friend, she opened a school, first at Islington and afterwards at Newington Green. She was succeeding well in a very congenial sphere, when the news reached her of the serious illness of her attached friend at Lisbon, whom she instantly set off to nurse in her dying moments. On her return she found her school ruined by mismanagement, and was obliged to enter as governess the family of Lord Kingsborough. She had already made herself favourably known as an authoress by a little work On the Education of
Daughters, published in 1786. The success of this work tempted her to London to seek a livelihood there by her pen. During three or four years she was able not only to maintain herself but to educate two younger sisters, and prop up the fortunes of the family, which the imprudence of her father now threatened to involve in ruin. She contributed largely to the periodical press, and translated Lavater's Physiognomy, Salzmann's Elements of Morality, and other works. In 1791 she emerged all at once into a publicity that was at once fame and notoriety by publishing an answer to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, and her still more noted Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In the latter work she maintains, as might be inferred from its title, that woman is called by nature to share with man the lofty functions which he has arrogated exclusively to himself; that man has no other superiority over the weaker sex than that of physical strength; and that it is only through the devotedness of her love that woman has fallen into that degradation in which the authoress believes her now to be. In 1792 she passed over into France, with the idea, as she expressed it, "of losing in the bosom of the public happiness the idea of her private misfortunes." Her hopes were cruelly deceived; for she had the misfortune to see nearly all the leading Girondists, among whom she had chosen her personal friends, perish on the scaffold. A still more bitter cup remained for her to drink in the French capital. An American, by name Imray, had gained her affections, and seducing her under a promise of marriage, had failed to fulfil his vow. She had no sooner given birth to a child than she made two attempts on her life, which were both luckily unsuccessful. But her delicate sensibilities had sustained a shock which it required all her fierce energy of character to endure. In the interval between these two attempts on her life she wrote her Letters on Norway, which country she had visited during her stay at Paris. These letters amply attest the unimpaired strength of her intellect. In 1796 she became acquainted with the author of Caleb Williams, with whom she cohabited for some months before being formally married to him. Mrs. Godwin had only completed her 38th year when she died in childbirth, Sept. 10, 1797. Her posthumous works were published by her husband in the following year, with an interesting and touching memoir of her life.