William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VI. 1804-1806
William Godwin to Mary Jane Godwin, 5 June 1806
“Yesterday (was that right or wrong?) we kept
Charles’s birthday, though his
mother was absent. . . . Charles has written an account of
the day to Fanny; it passed pleasantly
enough. . . .
“Do not imagine that I took Charles into my good graces the moment your
back was turned. He indeed took care to prevent that if I had been inclined, by
displeasing me the day I sent him for a frank, and on another errand. So that I
had only just time to forgive him for his birthday.
“I wish to impress you with the persuasion that he is
infinitely more of a child, and to be treated as a child, than you imagine.
Monday I sent him for a frank, and set all the children to write letters,
though by his awkwardness the occasion was lost. The ![]()
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letter he then wrote, though I took some pains previously to work on his
feelings, was the poorest and most soulless thing ever you saw. I then set him
to learn the poem of “My Mother” in
Darton’s Original Poetry. Your letter
to him came most opportunely to re-inforce the whole, and at last he has
produced what I now send you. I went upstairs to his bedside the night before
you left us, that I might impress upon him the importance of not suffering you
to depart in anger: but instead of understanding me at first, he, like a child,
thought I was come to whip him, and with great fervour and agitation, begged I
would forgive him. He is very anxious that no one should see his letter but
yourself, and I have promised to enforce his petition. . . .
“I shall be very happy to listen to you on that
subject, on which so many poets have shone already, the praise of the country.
But will you give me leave, my dearest love, to recall to your consideration
the ties and bonds by which we are fettered? We cannot do as we would, and must
be satisfied, for some time at least, if we can do at all. And do you really
believe that ‘the sordid thoughts that in London make a necessary part
of your daily existence’ could never find their way to Tilford?
Alas, I am afraid that a narrow income, a numerous family, and many things to
arrange and provide for, are the same everywhere. I am of my old friend
Horace’s opinion, ‘that
happiness may be found even in Rag fair (allow me the license of a
translator) if we do but bring with us to the shed that covers us a well
regulated mind.’ Yet I swear to you, I will with all pleasure
retire with you to the country, the moment you shall yourself pronounce it to
be practicable.
“Will you allow me to play with you the part of a
monitor? or will you think that is incompatible with the feelings of a lover?
You have effected, as you have repeatedly told me, one most excellent
revolution in yourself since your marriage, that of taking many things quietly
that were once torture, for example, money embarrassments and importunities.
That you did not so from the first, was owing to your estrangement from the
usages of the world, and to the want of that easily acquired tincture of
philosophy, that ![]()
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enables us to
look at things as they will appear a week hence, or, for the most part, even
to-morrow. That sorrow which will be no sorrow to-morrow, should not touch a
wise woman’s heart. The offences of children should be taken as from that
sort of beings that children always are, yourself in your early years only
excepted; the offences of tradesmen as from tradesmen; and the nonsense of
servants as from servants. Indeed, best beloved Mamma, if we do not learn this
little lesson of prudence, it is not Tilford, no, nor Arno’s Vale, nor
the Thessalian Tempe, that will make us happy. Our vexations will follow us
everywhere with our family, and, if you will allow me once more to quote
Horace, when we mount our neighing
steeds, Care will mount too, and cling close behind us. It is a sad thing, but
such is the nature of human beings: we cannot have ‘the dear, beyond
all words dear objects,’ as you so truly call them, that this
roof covers, without having plenty of exercise for the sobriety and steadiness
of our souls. Oh, that from this moment you would begin to attempt to cultivate
that firmness and equanimity! You would then be everything that my fondest and
warmest wishes could desire: you would be Tilford and Tuscany and Tempe all
together, and you would carry them ever about in your heart. . . .
“The most extraordinary thing I send is William’s letter. Miss
Smith, and all three children attest the fact. He asked
Miss Smith to rule him some lines. When he began, she
said to him, William, do not go out of the lines, and this
was all the instruction he received.
“I think it is a little cruel of Fanny to have written to Charles and Jane, and not a line to her own sister.
“I called at Rowan’s on Monday evening. Not at home. I then passed on
to Carlisle’s, and supped by
accident on Carshalton fish. Tuesday I supped at Lamb’s, and they are engaged to be here on Sunday
evening. G. M. C. dined with us last
Sunday. This is all I have to tell you of that sort.
“My foot is nearly well. I could distinguish you in
the coach as far as the corner of Chancery Lane. I thought you would have gone
over Blackfriars’ Bridge: but, as you went my way, I deter-![]()
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mined to leave you, as a last legacy, my figure popping
up and down in the act of running.—Ever your friend, brother, husband,
“Mrs Fraser called, Tuesday
evening, to recommend a housemaid. I have seen and rather like her. I will
swear she is sober and good-tempered. She is 21 years of age.”
Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840)
English surgeon and professor of anatomy at the Royal Academy (1808).
Charles Gaulis Clairmont (1795-1850)
The son of Charles Gaulis [Clairmont] and Mary Jane Clairmont [Godwin]; he was
apprenticed to Archibald Constable in Edinburgh (1811) and from 1816 lived mostly on the
Continent, settling in Vienna.
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (1798-1879)
The illegitimate daughter of the second Mrs. William Godwin; she was part of the Shelley
household in Italy and the mother of Byron's daughter Allegra, afterwards working as a
governess in Russia.
Grace Mary Cooper [née Ray] (1741-1810)
The daughter of Daniel Ray; in 1771 she married the surgeon Thomas Cooper who died in
India in 1787; her son, the actor Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, was raised by her relation
William Godwin.
William Darton (1755-1819)
Quaker bookseller who in 1791 formed a partnership with Joseph Harvey (d. 1841); they
specialized in books for children.
Fanny Imlay Godwin (1794-1816)
The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay; she lived in the Godwin household
and died a suicide.
William Godwin jun. (1803-1832)
The son of William and Mary Jane Godwin; he was a reporter for the
Morning Chronicle who died of cholera.
Horace (65 BC-8 BC)
Roman lyric poet; author of
Odes,
Epistles, Satires, and the
Ars Poetica.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751-1834)
Originally Hamilton; educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, he was a United Irishman who
after imprisonment and pardon spent his later years as a landowner and supporter of
Catholic Emancipation.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851)
English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife
of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of
Frankenstein (1818)
and
The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works
(1839-40).
