William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. III. 1788-1792
William Godwin, Journal Entry, April-May 1788
“Apr. 6. Su.
“7. M. Called at Webb’s.
“8. Tu. Brand
Hollis called. The
Ton written by La Wallace
acted.
“9. W.
“10. Th. Hasting’s trial resumed.
“11. F. Dined at Leg of Pork. Dr Priestley in London.
“12. Sa.
“May 4. Su. Dine at Holcroft’s. Call on Mr
Close, Tower Hill.
“5. M.
“6. Tu.
“7. W. Hear Sir G.
Elliot. Dine at Holcroft’s.
“8. Th. Tea Holcroft’s. Dinner at Cadel’s, and on Gibbon’s birthday and day of publication. Sheffield, Fullarton,
Reynolds, Gillies, Kippis, Cour
Pleniere.
“9. Fr. Exhibition. Nunducomar 55 to 73. Speak
with O’Brien. Priestley from London.
“10. Sa. Wilson calls.
Correct for him Graham’s Letter to Pitt on Scotch
Reform.”
Thomas Cadell the elder (1742-1836)
London bookseller, the friend of Samuel Johnson and partner of William Strahan in
publishing Scottish authors.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
Author of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776-1788).
John Gillies (1747-1836)
Scottish historian and classical scholar; author of
The History of
Ancient Greece (1786) and
The History of the World, from the
Reign of Alexander to that of Augustus (1807).
Robert Grahame of Gartmore (1735-1797)
Educated at Glasgow University where he was later rector, he was a poet, Scottish laird,
radical MP, and friend of Charles James Fox.
Warren Hastings (1732-1818)
Governor-general of Bengal (1774-84); he was charged high crimes by Edmund Burke,
initiating impeachment proceedings that continued from 1787 to 1795, when Hastings was
acquitted.
Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809)
English playwright and novelist; a friend of William Godwin indicted for treason in 1794;
author of
The Road to Ruin (1792). His
Memoirs (1816) were completed by William Hazlitt.
Thomas Brand Hollis (1719 c.-1804)
The son of Timothy Brand, he was educated at Felsted School, Trinity College, Cambridge,
the Inner Temple, and Glasgow University; he was an MP, antiquary, and a founder of the
Society for Constitutional Information.
Andrew Kippis (1725-1795)
Dissenting divine who taught and Coward Academy, Hoxton, and afterwards at the dissenting
college at Hackney; he was editor of the
Biographia Britannica
(1778-93).
Dennis O'Bryen (1755-1832)
Irish playwright and political pamphleteer; originally a surgeon, he settled in London
where he was a friend of Sheridan and a supporter of the Charles James Fox.
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)
Dissenting theologian, schoolmaster, and scientist; he was author of
The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments
(1767).
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
English portrait-painter and writer on art; he was the first president of the Royal
Academy (1768).
Lady Eglantine Wallace [née Maxwell] (d. 1803)
Scottish playwright, the youngest daughter of Sir William Maxwell, 3rd Baronet; in 1770
she married Thomas Dunlop from whom she later separated.
Willis Webb (1769 c.-1847)
The second son of Nathaniel Webb, M.P. A pupil of William Godwin, he was educated at
Eton, St. John's College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn before being called to the bar in
1795.
