| 292 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
Early in the year of which the domestic record has been given, Godwin published the “Enquirer.” It is a collection of essays, based, as he says in his preface, on conversations. It embraces a great variety of subjects, very much of the character which we have already found he and his friends met to discuss, such as “Of Awakening the Mind,” “Of Co-habitation,” “Of Riches and Poverty,” and the like. The volume elaborated in this manner many of the points which had been treated cursorily in “Political Justice.” It did not in any degree detract from his fame, and is admirably written, but since it merely reasserted principles already known as his, it excited no special attention, though it went through several editions. A very furious onslaught on the clergy, however, was one of the causes of a coolness which grew between him and Dr Parr. The Doctor had apparently not seen the book when Godwin paid his visit to Hatton with Basil Montagu.
The beginning of the year 1798 saw Godwin restored to the usual tenor of his life, yet with a sense,
constantly expressed in his letters, of a great void in his existence which nothing could
fill, with pecuniary cares pressing upon him, and an almost bewildered feeling in regard to
the nurture and education of the children his wife had left him. Little Fanny had, from an early period, won his warm affection;
| ‘THE MEMOIRS OF MARY GODWIN.’ | 293 |
| 294 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
Any regular, more extended notes have for some time ceased, but there are occasional memoranda of value. One such relates to literary work intended during this year.
“1798. The following are the literary productions which I am at present desirous to execute:—
“1. A book to be entitled ‘First Principles of Morals.’ The principal purpose of this work is to correct certain errors in the earlier part of my ‘Political Justice.’ The part to which I allude is essentially defective, in the circumstance of not yielding a proper attention to the empire of feeling. The voluntary actions of men are under the direction of their feelings: nothing can have a tendency to produce this species of action, except so far as it is connected with ideas of future pleasure or pain to ourselves or others. Reason, accurately speaking, has not the smallest degree of power to put any one limb or articulation of our bodies into motion. Its province, in a practical view, is wholly confined to adjusting the comparison between different objects of desire, and investigating the most successful mode of attaining those objects. It proceeds upon the assumption of their desirableness or the contrary, and neither accelerates nor retards the vehemence of their pursuit, but merely regulates its direction, and points the road by which we shall proceed to our goal.
“Again, every man will, by a necessity of nature, be
influenced by motives peculiar to him as an individual. As every man will know more of
his kindred and intimates than strangers, so he will inevitably think of them oftener,
feel for them more acutely, and be more anxious about their welfare. This propensity is
as general as the propensity we feel to prefer the consideration of our own welfare to
that of any other human being. Kept within due bounds, it is scarcely an object of
moral censure. The benefits we can confer upon the world are few, at the same time that
they are in their nature, either petty in their moment, or questionable in their
results. The benefits we can confer upon those with whom we are closely connected are
of great magnitude, or continual occurrence. It is impossible that we should be
continually
| INTENDED WORK. | 295 |
“I am also desirous of retracting the opinions I have given favourable to Helvetius’ doctrine of the equality of intellectual beings as they are born into the world, and of subscribing to the received opinion, that, though education is a most powerful instrument, yet there exist differences of the highest importance between human beings from the period of their birth.
“I am the more anxious to bring forward these alterations and modifications, because it would give me occasion to shew that none of the conclusions for the sake of which the book on ‘Political Justice’ was written are affected by them. I am fully of opinion that the sentiments of that book are intimately connected with the best interests of mankind, and am filled with grief when I reflect on the possibility that any extravagances or oversights of mine should bring into disrepute the great truths I have endeavoured to propagate. But thus my mind is constituted. I have, perhaps, never been without the possession of important views and forcible reasonings; but they have ever been mixed with absurd and precipitate judgments, of which subsequent consideration has made me profoundly ashamed.
“2. A book to be entitled ‘Two Dissertations on the Reasons and Tendency of Religious Opinion.’
The object of this book is
| 296 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“3. A novel, in which I should try the effect of my particular style of writing upon common incidents and the embarrassments of lovers.
“4. Five or six tragedies.”
Godwin’s most constant associates at this time
were those named already as his friends and those of his wife; Basil Montagu, T. Wedgwood,
the Fenwicks, the Reveleys, Mrs Cotton, Charlotte Smith: he received at his own house very
frequently the members of his family who were in London. These, as his mother’s
letters imply, were doing but little to their own advantage, and were a great drain on
Godwin’s limited resources. Beyond this inner circle, he
mixed with almost all people then well known in the world of liberal politics and of
letters, and much also in theatrical society: he seems to have attended the theatre almost
whenever he had no other evening engagement. Wordsworth and Southey appear among
the more noteworthy literary acquaintances of this year, the dinners with
| THOUGHTS ON MARRIAGE. | 297 |
It will be convenient to take first among the correspondence of this year that which relates to Godwin’s domestic life, and this requires a few introductory remarks. The care of the children, and the superintendence of the household at Somers Town, was undertaken by Miss Louisa Jones, a friend of Harriet Godwin. The position was not an easy one to fill; there were difficulties with the servants in consequence of little Mary’s requiring a wet-nurse; not all people could understand or be prepared for Godwin’s constant uncertainty about dining or not dining at home; the combination of friend and upper servant has inconveniences of its own, and is open to misconceptions. Besides, there is some evidence from the poor lady’s letters that she would willingly have been a tender stepmother to the children, while nothing could be further from Godwin’s thoughts than any relation whatever beyond that of housekeeper and governess to his children. The arrangement, therefore, was but temporary, and after Miss Jones ceased to reside in the house, she, Miss Godwin, Mrs Reveley, and other lady friends, seem to have given a kind, but at the same time necessarily casual superintendence to the nurse in charge of the children, who was devoted to them, and especially to little Mary.
This was among the circumstances which induced Godwin to think it possible, even at a very early date after his wife’s death, that he might marry again. Experience had modified his views on this as on some other matters. He did not find that the ideal best was always practicable, and the comfort he had found tended to change his ideal. Mrs Shelley writes that his sentiments on the subject were entirely changed, that—
| 298 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“the happiness he had enjoyed, instilled the opinion that he might, at least in a degree, regain the blessing he had lost, if he married a woman of sense, and of an amiable disposition. Instead of, as heretofore, guarding himself from the feelings of love, he appears rather to have laid himself open to them. The two orphan girls left in his charge of course weighed much in the balance; he felt his deficiency as the sole parent of two children of the other sex. In March 1798, he left town, as he was in the habit of doing for a short time in every year. He visited Bath, and spent ten days in that city, where he met the authoresses of the Canterbury Tales, Sophia and Harriet Lee.” [These ladies were the daughters of John Lee, an actor at Covent Garden; and after their father’s death they kept a school at Bath. They afterwards retired to Clifton and died there, Sophia in 1824, Harriet in 1851, aged 94. They each wrote, separately, several novels, and, conjointly, “The Canterbury Tales.”] “The latter soon attracted his admiration and partiality; to the end of his life he always spoke of her with esteem and regard, though it was not till his papers were placed in my hands that I learned the nearer tie that he sought to establish between them. The feeling of love was awakened on their first acquaintance, and his immediate desire was to study her mind.”
He made, on returning from visits to her house, in the course of those few days, elaborate analyses of her conversation, in which they had discussed books together, Rousseau’s works, Richardson, and others, and soon made up his mind to win her, if possible, for his wife. They had only met, as appears from the Diary, four times, but on Godwin’s return to London he wrote as follows to Miss Lee:—
“When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you said
you supposed you should hear of me. What was your meaning in this, I
| MISS HARRIET LEE. | 299 |
“Be so good as to express to your sister my sense of
the flatter-
| 300 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
This letter remained unanswered, and the lover became tormented by a thousand doubts. Three drafts of letters remain, which show his great perplexity. Had he offended? He was sometimes impelled to pour out his feelings with fervour and frankness, sometimes to be as guarded as possible. The first draft is little more than a concise announcement of his intention to revisit Bath, the second is an open confession of all his feelings, and of this there are three copies, but neither the first nor the second of these letters seems to have been sent. The third which reached Miss Lee is a curious mixture of confidence and reticence, and half measures did not please Miss Lee.
“Dear Madam.—I have been extremely mortified at receiving no answer from you, to the letter I wrote soon after my late excursion to Bath. I am not sure indeed whether, in perfect strictness I was entitled to an answer. But silence is so ambiguous a thing, and admits of so many interpretations, that with the admiration I had conceived for you, I could not sit down tranquilly under its discipline. It might mean simply that I had not been long enough your knight, to entitle me to such a distinction. But it might mean disapprobation, displeasure, or offence, when my heart prompted me to demand cordiality and friendship. My mortification has since been increased, by finding that you have been in town lately, and had left town before I knew of your presence: though having a kind of suspicion that the ‘Two Emilys’ would bring either Miss Lee or yourself to London, I had made some enquiries on the subject.
| MISS LEE’S DOUBTS. | 301 |
“I am obliged to be at Bristol next week. I remember as my greatest good fortune and pleasure in my last excursion the repeated and long conversations I enjoyed at Belvidere House. May I hope that now, having a right to call myself an acquaintance, I have not without intention or consciousness on my part forfeited the kindness I then experienced as a stranger. Whether next week shall be a week of pride or humiliation to my feelings will depend on the solution it will afford to this question.
“Present my best remembrances to your sisters, and believe me, with the highest regard and esteem, yours,
On reading this letter Miss Lee underlined and bracketted in pencil such words and sentences as she especially noticed, or to which she took exception, then wrote a sort of minute on the margin. This was returned to the writer, after the final cessation of their correspondence.
“The tone of this letter appears to me to betray vanity disappointed by the scantiness of the homage it has received, rather than mortified by any apprehension of discouragement. If any offence was given by the former letter this is calculated to renew and increase it; for it is equally presuming without being more explicit, except in two sentences so alien to the temper, or distant from the express reach of the rest, that they should be made under all circumstances to leave the letter. An alternative proposed by the second clause presents itself to me thus: this journey to Bristol has no reference to me; as far as that is concerned he visits me simply as an acquaintance; but his title to be received as such has been lost by his forwardness to employ the privileges, and claim the rights of a more endeared relation. The purpose of his journey is addrest to me, and it may be dictated either by humility or assurance. I doubt that the former interpretation would be given to a letter in which the same air and accent reign as in this.”
| 302 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
She wrote, however, a civil but formal note, expressing her readiness to see him, and on his arrival at Bath on June 5th, Godwin formally paid his addresses to Harriet Lee, and there is a note in his diary of a “conference” on the subject. That the lady admitted “regard and esteem,” appears from a correspondence which afterwards ensued, and with this the lover was prepared to be content. Miss Lee herself was not disinclined to marriage, but feared what would be thought of it by her sister and the world. Almost persuaded to treat this objection as lightly as in reality it deserved to be treated, there remained what was to her a very grave question; were Godwin’s own opinions such as would promise a happy marriage with a woman who held strongly her faith in God, and the divine guidance of the world?
It is not possible to fix exact dates to Godwin’s letters to Miss Lee, because only the undated drafts remain, but they were subsequent to the conference. Arguments to induce the lady to reconsider her determination are urged with a pertinacity and elaboration which would be wearisome to all but the principal performers in this little domestic drama, perhaps to all but the writer. Extracts, however, will prove interesting, not only as a specimen of love-letters which are probably unique, but also as a statement of Godwin’s own opinions, thoroughly honest, of course, but placed in what he considered the most favourable light.
“. . . We got thus far, I think, in our last
conversation, that the decision you shall be pleased to make will be of the
greatest importance, since, though it may be easy for either of us to marry,
| DISPASSIONATE WOOING. | 303 |
“. . . Pass over in your mind everything which, if we were united, would employ us from day to day, and from week to week. Things in which we perfectly sympathised, in which we acted in concert, in which our feelings would vibrate to each other. In the exercise of the benevolent and social affections, in the improvement of our understandings, in taste, in the admiration of natural beauty, or the beauties of human productions; in the expressions—the refined, the delicious, but evanescent expressions—of mutual attachment, those expressions in which the true consciousness of life consists, that attachment which converts this terrestrial scene into a paradise, we should, I hope, fully coincide, nor should one discord intrude into the comprehensive harmony.
“. . . What will the world say? In the first place, I am not sure that you do not labour under some mistake in this case. I must be permitted to say on this occasion, that among those who personally know me, the respect and love I have obtained is, I believe, fully equal to any reputation I may be supposed to have gained for talents. I believe no person who has so far run counter to the prejudices and sentiments of the world has ever been less a subject of obloquy. I know that many whose opinions in politics and government are directly the reverse of mine, yet honour me with their esteem. I cannot, therefore, be of opinion that your forming a connection with me would be regarded as by any means discreditable to you.
“. . . I have said to you once before, Do not go out
of life, without ever having known what life is. Celibacy contracts and palsies
the mind, and shuts us out from the most valuable topics of experience. He who
wastes his existence in this state may have been a spectator of the scene of
things, but has never been an actor, and is just such a spectator as a man
would be who did
| 304 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“I sit down as a disinterested friend to give you an
opinion, the result of what has lately passed between us. It is little likely
that anything of consequence to me should arise either way from what I am going
to state. I give up the point I have hitherto sought to enforce. You have
erected an insurmountable wall of separation between us. Henceforth we shall be
no more to each other than persons that had heard of each others’ names,
that remember there was a period when for a short time they had the habit of
seeing each other, and who may now and then have occasion to say,
‘Dear me! no, I believe he is not dead, is he?’ It might
have been otherwise. It ought to have been otherwise. But you have made your
election. I have neglected nothing that became me. I have brought the whole
subject laboriously before you; but you have remained pertinacious and
immoveable. Certainly my opinion of you is not altered; my partiality is not
diminished; if it were yet possible that you should view the question between
us with fairness and liberality, it would afford me a gratification much, much
beyond the power of words to express. It would
| AN EARNEST ARGUMENT. | 305 |
“You tell me, that if it were not for your religion,
and your ideas of a future state, you believe you should adopt a system of
conduct selfish and licentious. I do not credit you when you say this; if I
did, it would be impossible for me to have the smallest respect for you. I am
not so unfair as to suppose that your opinion has the effect of rooting out all
liberal and ingenuous sentiments from your mind, but I think it a serious
misfortune that you conceive it has. Every parent and preceptor perfectly knows
that a conduct adopted from the hope of reward or the fear of punishment is not
virtue. If I make myself useful to my fellow-men merely because I expect to be
rewarded for it, it is clear that I have no love of utility or virtue, and that
if the reward were placed on the other side, I should immediately become as
mischievous a creature as lives. Virtue is not a form of external conduct,—it
is a sentiment of the heart. I am a base and low-minded creature, whatever be
my external conduct, if I do not seek to confer happiness from a genuine
principle of sympathy, and because I have a direct and heartfelt pleasure in
the pleasure, the improvement, and advantage of others. If Omnipotence itself
were to annex eternal torments to the practice of benignity and humanity, I
know not how poor a slave I might be terrified into; but I know that I should
curse the tyrant, while I obeyed the command. In reality, the virtue of every
good man is built upon the stable basis
| 306 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“The second error I have to notice is that your creed, as you understand it, inculcates the worst part of bigotry. You look, as in fact you tell me, with suspicion and incredulity upon the virtue of almost all that was most illustrious in ancient times, and upon half the most unprejudiced and exemplary men of our own day. This is the very quintessence of bigotry, to overturn the boundaries of virtue and vice, to try men, not by what we see of their conduct and know of their feelings, but by their adherence to, or rejection of, a speculative opinion. You have a certain Shibboleth, a God and a future state, which if any man deny, you assert he can have no firm and stable integrity. And, which is most curious, you say to him, ‘If you have only the sentiment of virtue, if you only do good from a love of rectitude and benevolence, and do not feel yourself principally led to it by a foreign, an arbitrary, and a mercenary motive, I can have no opinion of you.’ I am happy to know that these errors of yours have no necessary connection with either Deism or Christianity.
“I am happy to say that I have known many Deists and many Christians, who confess that morality is an independent rule, by a comparison with which they pronounce on the goodness of providence itself, and of which the rewards of a future state are not the source, but merely an additional sanction. Thinking thus, they are not backward or timid in applauding the virtues of the patriots and sages of ancient times, or of those benefactors of mankind in their own day, who have discarded the opinions which they cherish. . I know it has been fashionable among divines to pretend that no man rejects religion but because he wishes to be profligate with impunity, but liberal-minded believers despise the shameless assertion.
“But I have done. I entertain no hopes of a good
effect from what I now write, and merely give vent to the sentiments your
determination was calculated to excite. I have made no progress with you. When
you have dropped an objection it has been only
| A REFUSAL. | 307 |
Miss Lee’s next letter was intended to close the correspondence.
“You distress me, sir, extremely, by again agitating a question which ought to be considered as decided. I had full opportunity, when in Town, to hear, and attentively to weigh your opinions concerning the point on which we most differ: for perhaps I do not fully agree with you in supposing our minds at unison on many others; but that is immaterial—the matter before us is decisive. All the powers of my understanding, and the better feelings of my heart concurred in the resolution I declared before we parted; every subsequent reflection has but confirmed it. With me our difference of opinion is not a mere theoretical question. I never did, never can feel it as such, and it is only astonishing that you should do so. It announces to me a certain difference in—I had almost said a want in—the heart, of a thousand times more consequence than all the various shades of intellect or opinion. My resolution then remains exactly and firmly what it was: it gives me great pain to have disturbed the quiet of your mind, but I cannot remedy the evil without losing the rectitude of my own.
“I have taken from my sister the unpleasant task of telling you
| 308 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“You tell me that you are individually beloved by those who know you, and I can easily believe it, but I will tell you that even among the number of your friends, or at least well-wishers, there are to my knowledge those who much lament, and even blame the lengths to which your systems of thinking have carried you, and who recede insensibly from your opinions, while they preserve a respect for your intentions.
“If, in our conversations, I have ever appeared in any moment undecided, it was only at those when it occurred to me that truth and genuine feeling were so strongly on my side, that while you were collecting arguments to enlighten my mind, I felt persuaded of the possibility of a change in your own. And why should I not? A doctrine so necessary to the heart, so consonant to the reason, as that of a just and all-powerful Diety will I hope one day find its way to both.
“My own good wishes and those of my sister attend you. Nothing further can or ought to be said by either of us. Farewell—but let it be a friendly Farewell.
Godwin, however, was not so to be put down, and wrote a flood of letters in one week, of which the following extracts may serve:—
“. . . What you have done is in the genuine style of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. You have put out of sight the man, and
asked only what he believed. In the midst of the vast world of conjecture,
before the beginning of all things, that appropriate
| ON BIGOTRY. | 309 |
“. . . Bigots have pretended that the will of God is the foundation of morality, that what He commands is therefore right, and what He forbids is therefore wrong. But rational theism teaches that morality is antecedent to the divine will, and is a rule to which God himself delights to conform. Rational theism teaches that God is good; and to prove that He is so, compares His providence and works with the immediate standard of rectitude to which God and good men equally adhere. The will of God therefore is by no means the foundation of morality, but merely its sanction, an additional reason why we should conform to it . . .”
Miss Lee wrote a letter on August 7th, which seems to have been taken as final, in which she hopes that friendly remembrance may still subsist, unchecked by “minute misunderstandings,” and so concluded this singular correspondence. After a time, however, friendly though somewhat formal intercourse was renewed, and there is a letter extant, written in the following year by Miss Lee in reference to a literary criticism by Godwin on some new publication by her. But there is no allusion to the more intimate terms on which he had once desired to stand.
It was just as well that Godwin’s plan of keeping house with Thomas Wedgwood was never carried out. Their
| THOMAS WEDGWOOD. | 311 |
“It is hardly necessary for me to inform you that the
contents of your letter were highly agreeable to me. You are almost the only
person whose judgment is valuable to me on speculative points, and on that
account I feel continually the necessity of your sanction. On the subject of
friendship, no person ought to think with so much charity of others or to speak
with greater diffidence than myself. I was not satisfied with the propriety of
my last letter, though, as it has happily led to an explanation agreeable to
both of us, I cannot now repent of it. Perhaps I am incapable of friendship—my
habits and disposition are certainly so unfavourable as to require a
concurrence of fortunate circumstances for its birth and support.
‘Sickness,’ says Johnson, ‘makes scoundrels of us all,’ it
impairs and destroys sympathy. But feebleness of constitution and spirits is
not the only obstacle; I have to contend with a timidity of disposition which
has long
| 312 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“. . . I am pleased with the style of writing you have lately employed. I have more taste, though I have sometimes suspected and often been told that it is a vicious taste, for letters and conversations of feeling than of discussion.
“Allow me to recommend to you a very cautious admission of the moral apophthegms of Doctor Johnson. He had an unprecedented tendency to dwell on the dark and unamiable part of our nature. I love him less than most other men of equal talents and intentions, because I cannot reasonably doubt that when he drew so odious a picture of man he found some of the traits in his own bosom. I have seen more persons than one or two, whom sickness has neither converted into scoundrels, nor stripped of a sympathetic disposition.
“Your paying the postage of your letters to me is contrary to established etiquette. It is scarcely worth while to enter into an argument about it, but I think I could prove to you that it is wrong.
Though Godwin was now a
middle-aged man, though his habits were methodical, and his manner somewhat cold and
formal, the fact that his opinions were progressive, and his soul full of what would now be
called the enthusiasm of humanity, continued to attract to him young men of hopeful and
vigorous minds, whom he never failed to receive with kindness, and set forward to the best
of his ability. Their fresh youth, and the earnestness of their minds, served to keep his
own mind buoyant, even in the midst of sorrow and disappointment, and as his relations with
Webb and Cooper served in some degree to show what he was, in
| JOHN ARNOT. | 313 |
“a tall young man, pale faced, with large blue eyes with much meaning in them, in shabby clothes. Whenever your father spoke of him he extolled his intellectual powers, saw infinite folly and danger in the intemperance of his impulses and pursuits, and expressed his fear that he must be mad. At one period his sister and her husband, Mr and Mrs Fyler from Edinburgh, put him in confinement, and had a great dislike to your father, on account of ‘Political Justice,’ ascribing their brother’s conduct to the principles it contains. Arnot and L. Jones [the lady who lived with Godwin as housekeeper] were in love with each other. Arnot was desperately attached afterwards to some German lady of rank. I think this is in the letters.”
The immediate reason why Arnot left Scotland does not appear, but he walked the whole way from Edinburgh to London, and wrote the account of his journey to a friend whom he left behind him. These letters afterwards came into Godwin’s hands, and are preserved among his papers. An extract from one of them is characteristic of the young man, and is valuable as a picture of a scene not unfamiliar at this time.
. . . “At some distance from the village of Elsdon, through which I passed to-day, I observed a large post erected on the top of the hill. I conceived it might be an intimation about the roads leading to such a place. Being thirsty, I went into a house near it to buy some milk. I sat down to drink it, and inquired what the post meant ’Tis a Gibbet, Sir.’ ‘A Gibbet! why was it erected amongst the hills?’ ‘For murder; an old woman was killed there, and two men and a woman were hanged for it, upon that gibbet.’
“What a train of horrid ideas did that introduce into my mind. I looked at the man who told it me; he is a sour-looking fellow. His wife, a little shrew, in a red jacket, was present. I thought her a devil. I took care to keep my stick near me, it was my only means of defence. I felt a strong aversion to them both, and was glad to get away.
“I went up to the gibbet. The bones are still hanging, kept together with iron. This, no doubt, is intended as a conspicuous monument of retributive justice. Is it thought this will have a good effect? I cannot help being of an opposite opinion. Surely the people who live near it cannot be happy. They cannot even feel easy and contented till their minds become hardened. The ideas of hanging and of murder must first become familiar to them. I don’t like them. Let me get away from this place.
“I walked as fast as I could, but could not walk long. I was fatigued, and my right foot began to give me pain. I sat down, therefore, upon a stone at the roadside, pulled out my little octave flute, and began to play a tune, but it only added to my melancholy. I looked around. This is a wild, barren country; no trees to be seen, no bushes or enclosures, no fine cultivated fields. All is a dreary waste; this gibbet its only ornament; the sheep its inhabitants. They were feeding within a few yards of me. I looked on them with an emotion which I never felt before. Ah! innocent people, as Thomson calls you, how much happier are you than man—man who butchers you and his fellow-creatures indiscriminately.
“Such is the nature of the present state of society. It punishes, with the utmost severity, crimes to which it holds out irresistible temptations.”
| A WALKING TOUR. | 315 |
Arnot, after he had spent a short time in London, formed the design of visiting the less known portions of Europe on foot, at once to learn the German language, and to take notes for a book of travels, to be published on his return. Godwin warmly approved of this plan, and aided Arnot to carry it into execution. France was of course closed to an English subject, and he therefore went to Germany in a Baltic ship by way of Russia. The letters that he wrote to Godwin are all extremely good, but only portions of them can here be given.
“Dear Sir,—I shall leave this place to-morrow. I am so happy that I have got my passport! And I assure you that it was no easy matter. It has detained me here for three weeks, living at no little expense, in the British tavern. . . .
“I arrived at Cronstadt after a tedious and very disagreeable passage of 30 days, and in 5 days more got my passport to Petersburg. It was rather odd that I should have pitched upon the worst ship in every respect, perhaps, of the whole fleet; my patience was tried more ways than one. I don’t think Job himself had more patience when he was my age.
“I declare I am afraid to write any more. I am writing to Godwin just as if I was writing to my good friend Peter Reid, scribble, scribble, scribble, I have fifty thousand things to say, and don’t know which to say first. I dare say my pen has run mad. If I were beside you, you would think my tongue were mad. . . .
“I intend to walk to Riga, and from Riga to Vienna. Indeed, I am determined to be at Vienna this winter, that is, if nothing happens to me by the way, which you know is possible. ‘Walk to Riga!! The poor lad has lost his wits. Do you know what you are doing? Such weather, such roads, such a country, and such a people. You may as well think of walking to the moon.’ But I’ll walk it for all that. ’Tis nothing at all.
| 316 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“I don’t think I am half so courageous as when I left Scotland. I believe I could have taken a bear by the ear as coolly as you could take your dinner. But now that I have the prospect of being happy when I return—am I not happy already, at least at this moment?—I begin to think I am worth the taking care of, and therefore I am determined to take care of myself, and never to meddle with a bear unless the bear meddles with me, and to be wondrous civil to the boors and the booresses. . . .
“I have been obliged to lighten my parcel very much. I gave away ‘Tristram Shandy’ about five weeks ago, and my two flutes. I have laid aside all my pistol bullets, except about 20, and am thinking to throw away the only shirt and pair of stockings I have to spare. . . .—I am, with great esteem, yours, &c.
“I keep no journal on my way to Vienna. I dare not”
“Dear Sir.—Here I am. Fol lol de rol, nay I will give you the very notes. No I will not; for you don’t care for music, at least for the music that I care for. . . .
“I cannot get a grammar. There is none here. I shall apply very hard, for I wish to be master of the language in 4 months, and then I may go to the Play, and where else I please. I must also study French, which in Dresden is the only language that is spoken in fashionable company. I shall have enough ado. I wish also I had English books, but I cannot have everything while I have no money.
“I don’t recollect whether I mentioned to you
that I had brought with me from Edinburgh, sets of the best old Scotch songs.
By publishing them here, and perhaps also at Leipsig, or Prague, or Vienna, or
at all of these places, I hope not only to procure a subsistence for the
winter, but to be able to pay such debts as I
| GODWIN’S SYMPATHY WITH THE YOUNG. | 317 |
“P.S.—I heard something of a great victory obtained over the French. If you have any of the old newspapers containing an account of that, or of any other remarkable public occurrence, I shall be obliged to you for them. But first it would be proper to enquire whether it is allowed to send papers abroad, for I would rather want them than run the risk of losing your letters. . . .”
“Dear Arnot,—I derived exquisite pleasure from the receipt of your letter. I have thought of you a thousand times with inexpressible anxiety. I have been accused, as you know, of countenancing a young man, in whom I felt a powerful interest, in entering unprovided, and unsupported, upon an attempt the most perilous and insane, from which it was next to impossible he should not reap intolerable calamities, and hardly probable that he should come off alive. Without an accuser I should have sufficiently felt the high responsibility that devolved on me. Yet what could I do? The first sensation your project excited in me was envy. I wished I could have been a lad like you to undertake what you proposed. I saw in you many qualifications, fitting you for the design, courage, though not an uniform courage, and an easy and assured manner, calculated to smooth a thousand difficulties, and prepossess strangers in your favour. Feeling approbation, could I belie my sentiment?
“Under these impressions it seemed to me very long
before I heard from you. I saw you for the last time on the 13th of June, and
your first letter did not reach me till the 10th of November. You promised me
to write from Petersburgh. My active imagination passed in review all the
dangers of your route, immense deserts, rude forests, fierce Cossacks, hunger,
assassination and death. These evils would have impressed me more strongly, had
| 318 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“And now, will you forgive me, if I acknowledge, in spite of the heart-felt pleasure with which I received your letters, my satisfaction was not unmixed with disappointment. The first consisted of five poor lines, with a morsel of postscript. The kindest construction I could put upon this was that you were so sunk in spirit that if you had written more, you felt your melancholy and dejection would break out, and therefore out of pure generosity you stopped while you could. But if this were the kindest construction, it was not the most consolatory. Your second letter has in some degree removed this uneasy apprehension. It reached me last night, November 22nd, in fifteen days from its date. But in neither do you tell me where you have been, what you have seen, not even whether you took the route of Livonia, Poland, and Silesia, or of Sweden, Denmark, Holstein, &c.; whether you took shore at Petersburgh and continued your route by land, or whether though first at Vienna, and now at Dresden, you have seen no other country than Germany. Another fault I find is, that I trace in your letters no feature of the mind I loved, no sterling observations of man, no agreeable naiveté of adventure. I hope while your body has been in restless motion, your mind has not slept. But I suppose you reserve all your good things to surprise the world with.
“I think your famous Dr
John Brown affirms that the natural genuine state of man is
death. I know not what physical truth there may be in this, but morally I
greatly fear that the man who would truly be alive must obstinately spur his
mind into a much better state than that into which, if neglected, it will sink.
I hope you keep a copious journal. I hate travels into the four quarters
| THE EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. | 319 |
“You ask for news. . . . The grand topic is Egypt. Buonaparte sailed for that country in May. Our Admiral Nelson pursued him, arrived before him, and returned to Europe. Buonaparte landed his forces July 1st. Nelson having refitted, sailed again to Alexandria, where he found the French Fleet still at anchor. Nelson with 14 ships attacked the French with 13 on August 1st, took 9 and burned 2, so that only 2 escaped. Buonaparte, on the other hand, seems impregnably established in possession of Egypt. The Turk has in consequence declared war against France.
“Coleridge and Wordsworth, two names that I believe you will find in the list I wrote out for you, landed some time ago at Hamburgh. They are at no great distance from that place, but I cannot learn where. You may perhaps meet with them in your rambles. They are both extraordinary men, and both reputed men of genius. Coleridge I think fully justifies the reputation . . .
“I wish you all manner of prosperity, improvement, and happiness.”
“Dear Godwin,—Your letter
has given me no small degree of pleasure, but I confess it has also given me
anxiety. It seems the letter of a man who once thought well of me, but who now
finds with regret that he has reason in a great measure to retract his good
opinion. It is worse. It seems to me to be written in a tone of melancholy
despondency. I don’t know what to think of
| 320 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Curse the news—what care I for Egypt? But that was my own thoughtlessness and impertinence. . . .
“I took the route of Livonia, Poland, and Silesia. I passed through Riga, Warsaw, Cracow, Teschen, Olmütz, Brünn, to Vienne. So far from having kept a copious journal; between Petersburg and Warsaw I marked only the days of the month, and the place where I slept each night, when that place had a name and I knew it. Before I reached Warsaw I lost my inkholder—a loss which in the capital of Poland could not be supplied, so that I did not afterwards write another word, but trusted solely to my memory. I regret this. . . .
“I am quite of your opinion that it would be better to visit countries which are not traversed every day. Hungary, however, I scarcely expect to see, or any part of the Emperor’s dominions, so difficult is it to procure admittance, and so closely are you watched when admitted. . . . Fortune, indeed, has not smiled upon my early youth, and my infant years have been years of misery; but among the few happy periods of my life I shall ever rank the time I spent in walking through Poland. And yet I met with nothing there to make me happy; the generality of young men in my situation would have considered their condition as most desperate and deplorable. My happiness was founded in hope, and in thinking of the Polygon. . . .”
There can be no doubt that Godwin
had, during his married life, withdrawn himself in some degree from those acquaintances who
did not lie within his immediate circle
| MALTHUS ON POPULATION. | 321 |
The writer, the Rev. T. R. Malthus, published anonymously his “Treatise on Population” in 1798, but no secret was made of the authorship, and he gave his name to the fourth edition, published five years later. Mr Malthus, who was born in 1766 at Albury, was Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and afterwards, from 1804 till his death in 1831, Professor of History and Political Economy at Haileybury College, then the place of education for Writers in the East India Company’s Service. The main doctrine of the Treatise is that assistance should be refused to poverty for the purpose of preventing over-population—which he declares to be the main cause of the evils apparent in human life—though his name is more often associated with some of the details of his argument.
“Dear Sir,—I went out of town almost immediately after I left you on Wednesday morning, and therefore did not receive your obliging letter till I arrived at Albury, whither Mr Johnson was so good as to send it.
| 322 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“In the view in which you now place the subject, do you not in some degree change the question from the perfectibility and happiness to the numbers of the human race; and it may be a matter of doubt whether, without looking to a future state, an increase of numbers without a perpetual increase of happiness be really desirable.
“Could we suppose any country, by the most extraordinary exertions, to arrive at the ne plus ultra of subsistence and population, in one or two centuries we have reason to think that the pressure of population in its utmost weight, would be felt in frequent famines and pestilences, and particularly in the small recompense of labour; for I think you yourself must allow that under the present form of society the real recompense of labour depends upon the increase of the funds for its maintenance; and when these funds are completely stationary, and have continued so some time, this recompense will naturally be the least possible. You think that the present structure of society might be radically changed. I wish I could think so too; and as you say I have completely failed in convincing you on this subject, will you have the goodness to remove a few of those difficulties which I cannot remove myself, and allow me to be convinced by you?
“I set out with granting the extreme desirableness of the end proposed—that is, the abolition of all unnecessary labour, and the equal division of the necessary labour among all the members of the society. I ought also to premise, that in speaking of the present structure of society, I do not in the least refer to any particular form of government, but merely to the existence of a class of proprietors and a class of labourers, to the system of barter and exchange, and to the general moving principle of self-love.
“I can conceive that a period may arrive when the
baubles that at present engage the attention of the higher classes of society
may be held in contempt; but I cannot look forward to a period when such a
portion of command over the produce of land and labour as cannot be within the
reach of all will cease to be an object of desire. Moderate cloathing, moderate
houses, the power of receiving friends, the power of purchasing books, and
particularly
| LABOUR AND PROPERTY. | 323 |
“The prudence which you speak of as a check to
population implies a foresight of difficulties; and this foresight of
difficulties almost necessarily implies a desire to remove them. Can you give
me an adequate reason why the natural and general desire to remove these
difficulties would not cause such a competition as
| 324 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Your objection against the present form of society,
on account of its preventing the greatest practicable population, would, in
some degree, hold against your system of prudence, the object of which, as I
conceive, would be to keep the population always considerably within the means
of subsistence. Should such a system ever prevail so generally as to remove the
constant want of an increasing quantity of food, it is highly probable that
cultivation would proceed still more slowly than it does at present. I only
approve of the present form of society, because I cannot myself, according to
the laws of just theory, see any other form that can, consistently with
individual freedom, equally promote cultivation and population. Great
improvements may take place in the state of society; but I do not see how the
present form or system can be radically and essentially changed, without a
danger of relapsing again into barbarism. With the present acknowledged
imperfections of human institutions, I by no means think that the greatest part
of the distress felt in society arises from them. The very admission of the
necessity of prudence to prevent the misery from an overcharged population,
removes the blame from public institutions to the conduct of individuals. And
certain it is, that almost under the worst form of government, where there was
any tolerable freedom of competition, the race of labourers, by not marrying,
and consequently decreasing their numbers, might immediately better their
condition, and under the very best form of government, by marrying and greatly
increasing their numbers, they would immediately make their condition worse. As
all human institutions will probably be imperfect, and consequently always open
to censure, it is not surely fair to charge them with evils of which, as far as
I can judge, they are totally guiltless. And in
| MRS GODWIN, SENR., ON MARRIAGE. | 325 |
“I have made this letter much longer than I at first intended; and I certainly ought to apologise for taking up so much of your valuable time: but if your avocations will not permit you to answer it, I shall hope for some future opportunity of hearing your opinions upon the subject, when I have the pleasure of seeing you.—I am, dear sir, yours sincerely,
A letter from Mrs Godwin, senior, will close the record of the year.
“My dear Wm.—I’m a poor letter writer at best, but now
worse than ever. After thanking yo. for yr. genteel present of the Memoirs of yr.
wife. Excuse me saying Providence certainly knows best, the fountain of wisdom
cannot err. He that gave life can take it away, and none can hinder, and tho we
see not his reasons now, we shall see them hereafter. I hope yo. are taught by reflection your mistake concerning marriage, there
might have been two children that had no lawful wright to anything yt. was their fathers, with a thousand other bad
consequences, children and wives crying about ye streets without a protector.
You wish, I dare say, to keep yr. own oppinion,
therefore I shall say no more but wish you and dear babes happy. Dose little
Mary thrive? or she weaned? You will
follow your wives direction, give them a good deal of air, and have a good
oppertunity, as yo. live out of ye. Smoke of the city. You will be kind enough to let yr. Sister
know Mr and Mrs G.
and self wish to know if she recd. a box with eggs
whole, they were all new, and sundry trifels I sent her, with a new piece of
print for my grand-daughter Mary for a gown, with 2/6 to
pay for the making, a pr. little
| 326 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“By seling a little Timber, and frugality in my
expences, hope to be able a little after Mic[haelmas] to help you and the rest
to £10 a-piece, taking yr. notes for it, perhaps will just keep their heads
above water. I wd. reserve somthing to keep yr. S. from starving, but yt.
will be difficult. If I leave her a place for her life, and she be deep in
debt, and have interest to pay, she will be nothing ye.
better. I wish you to write very soon by post with your opinion of the matter,
and also how Joe conducts himself
towards his wife and family. I sent Mary
a pritty mourning ring with an emethist and 2 sparks in it; do you ask to see
it, also a box for it; hope she will not loose it. Would not wish yo. to declare the contents of my letter: my best wishes
attend you and yours. Yr. Bro. Hull and wife and Natt join me in the same, Mrs G. is in ye
increesing way; their eldest has got the measels
| A MOTHER’S ANXIETIES. | 327 |
“I wish you woud let me know if there is any better way of directing letters or parcels, are they no more than letters to London when directed to Somers Town.
“What I send Han wou’d be glad yo. to be her director what use to make of it. She has told me some former letters she was affraid she sh’d be put to trouble, and often exprest yo. have been a father to her, but it stands yo. in hand to take care of yourself; an aspiring temper will be beat down, while the humble shall be exalted.”
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