C. Kegan Paul: William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries

In all the storm and stress of politics, when his male friends were almost all more or less in trouble, when Mrs Reveley was putting herself into the semi-hysterical state in which we have seen her, the friendship of Mrs Inchbald, who was no politician but only a very clever and very charming woman, was a great comfort to Godwin. Their correspondence was frequent, as also were their meetings; all Mrs Inchbald’s letters are worth reading, but only a few can be given. Godwin sent the proofs of “Caleb Williams” to her, and her opinion of it must have pleased him as much as Marshal’s criticism displeased him. The early tales from his pen had been forgotten, and he appeared before the world as a new novelist.

She could take as well as give criticism in a thoroughly good-humoured manner. She had sent Godwin a MS., which was probably afterwards destroyed. It is, however, no doubt that to which a letter from Mr Hardinge, quoted in Boaden’s “Life of Mrs Inchbald,” alludes, under the title, “A Satire on the Times,” and about which Boaden remarks that Hardinge’s remark is unintelligible. “Oh! that I may be for ever called stupid by the person who wrote ‘A Satire on the Times,’ by setting a ship on fire and burning every soul in the book except a Lord of the Bedchamber, by whom she meant the k——.”—Memoirs of Inchbald, Vol. I., p. 328.

Some extracts from a letter to a young man, whose name is not preserved, may be interesting, for they represent Godwin in yet another light, and show at once his versatility, and his unceasing desire to help others in all their various needs. There is no date, but it belongs to this time, and seems to have been written to an Oxford man who was in some trouble of mind.

“In the beginning of this year I accepted the offer of a certain degree of acquaintance with a man, in doing which I thought myself right, but in which I did not escape censure. The man was John King, a notorious Jew money-lender, who was married

JOHN HORNE TOOKE.

147

to the Countess Dowager of Lanesborough. My motive was simple—the study to which I had devoted myself was man, to analyse his nature as a moralist, and to delineate his passions as an historian, or a recorder of fictitious adventures; and I believed that I should learn from this man and his visitors some lessons which I was not likely to acquire in any other quarter. My system prompted me to express my thoughts of him as freely, though without the same scurrility and ill-temper, as Apemantus at the table of Lord Timon. An incident worthy to be mentioned occurred to me on the 21st of May in this year. I dined on that day with Mr Horne Tooke and a pretty numerous company at the house of a friend. The great philologist had frequently rallied me in a good-humoured way upon the visionary nature of my politics—his own were of a different cast. It was a favourite notion with him that no happier or more excellent Government had ever existed than that of the English nation in the reigns of George the First and George the Second. From disparaging my philosophy, he passed by a very natural transition to the setting light, either really or in pretence, by the abilities for which I had some credit. He often questioned me with affected earnestness as to the truth of the report that I was the author of the ‘Cursory Sketches on Chief Justice Eyre’s Charge to the Grand Jury,’ of which pamphlet he always declared the highest admiration, and to which he repeatedly professed that he held himself indebted for his life. The question was revived at the dinner I have mentioned. I answered carelessly to his enquiry that I believed I was the author of that pamphlet. He insisted on a reply in precise terms to his question, and I complied. He then requested that I would give him my hand. To do this I was obliged to rise from my chair and go to the end of the table where he sat. I had no sooner done this than he suddenly conveyed my hand to his lips, vowing that he could do no less by the hand that had given existence to that production. The suddenness of the action filled me with confusion; yet I must confess that when I looked back upon it, this homage thus expressed was more gratifying to me than all the applause I had received from any other quarter.

“Horne Tooke knows who was the author of ‘Junius’ Letters.’ He wrote a few years before letters under the signature of ‘Lucius,’ collected in two volumes, and intended a series under the signature of ‘Brutus;’ he designed the coincidence of the three for a clue to his secret. He sunk ‘Junius’ at last—by law arguments, a science in which he was uninformed, and city politics, which he did not understand; he is still living. Tooke speaks of his style with the highest commendation.

“H. T., born 1737; goes abroad with Elwes, heir to Sir Harvey Elwes (whose estate afterwards descended to Megget, alias Miser Elwes, 1763); staid abroad four years.

“Burke came to England before Tooke went abroad; he had previously a pension of £200 for writing a speech ‘for singlespeech Hamilton.

“Tooke was to have for his services with Elwes £300 a-year for life, or a provision in the Church to the amount of £900; his (Tooke’s) father was a tradesman in the city.

“Tooke brought home his ward from the South of France in a fit of insanity, the young man at the bottom of the chaise, and Tooke on the seat armed with pistols. The young man was not allowed knife or fork.”

The diaries add little worth recording. They show an ever increasing number of acquaintances, among whom the most noticeable are Lord Lauderdale, who was afterwards Plenipotentiary to France in 1806, and died in 1839; Mrs

NEW FRIENDS.

149

Siddons, and Basil Montagu. This gentleman was for many years a warm friend and devoted admirer of Godwin. He was Q.C., Commissioner of Bankruptcy, and author of “A Digest of the Bankruptcy Laws.” He died in 1851, aged 81. Opie the painter, R.A., buried in St Paul’s 1807, also became an acquaintance of Godwin first in this year. With Amelia Alderson, who became Mrs Opie, he had formed a fast friendship during his visit to Norwich in 1793, and many letters had already passed between them. He paid another and a more extended visit to Dr Parr at Hatton, near Warwick, in the summer of this year. Though Mrs Shelley records that he had become disgusted with the excesses of the French Revolution, it must not be supposed that he had in any degree wavered in his allegiance to its principles, or shrunk from such of its acts as sprung from deliberation. Thus we find an entry: “June 9th, The Young Capet dies,” showing that he acquiesced at least in the deposition of Louis XVI., and the degradation of his family from all royal titles.

Holcroft had gone to Exeter during Godwin’s absence from London, and from Broadclyst, near Exeter, he addressed the following letter to his friend:—

Holcroft’s faith that death and disease existed only through the feebleness of man’s mind, must have been rudely shaken, unless we accept the dictum of Jean Paul, that no man really believes his creed till he can afford to laugh at it.

“Exeter, July 25, 1795.

“I am at a loss to discover wherein consists the singularity of requesting a letter from one I have been in the habit of considering my most immediate and intimate friend. That you should think it singular, I do not wonder, as you presently take care to inform me that in so considering I labour under a mistake . . . You say that I shall probably be sorry for having asked you to write, when I have read a certain portion of your letter. This would be the case, perhaps, if anything any man could say to me would make me sorry. But I am not easily moved to contrition or repentance, either by falsehood or truth; and it does not in the least operate in that way. When truth is presented to me, I hope I shall grow better under the perception of it. When falsehood blows her foul breath upon me, it passes by like the idle wind I regard not. Since, therefore, I am invulnerable, I rejoice rather than repent that I requested a letter, as the reception of it has, in some measure, let me into the state of your feelings.

“You say that my pretence of a ten days’ ramble appears to be a cloak for a visit to Bath. What criminality there is in a visit to Bath that should require a cloak, I cannot perceive; but take my word for it, whatever desperate villany I may engage in shall not be under a cloak; and when, as you express it, I sink into vice, it shall not be into its sourness; it shall be into the dashing whirlpool that openly destroys everything around it. Therefore, whenever vice becomes my object, notorious shall be the fact.

Godwin writes, of 1796:—

“In the preceding year the Earl of Lauderdale had requested the favour of my acquaintance, and now I was almost a regular attendant at his most select parties. The persons I met at them were Mr Fox, General Fitzpatrick, Lord Derby, Sir Philip Francis, Mr Adam, Mr Tierney, Mr Courtenay, Mr Dudley North, Mr William Smith, Mr Robert Adair, &c., &c. In my little deserted mansion I received, on the 22d of April, a party of twelve persons, the most of whom good-humouredly invited themselves to dine with me, and for whom I ordered provisions from a neighbouring coffee-house. Among this party were Dr Parr and his two daughters, Mr and Mrs Mackintosh, Mr Holcroft, Mrs Wollstonecraft, and Mrs Inchbald. I was also introduced about this time by Merry, the poet, to a most accomplished and delightful woman, the celebrated Mrs Robinson. In the course of this summer I paid a second visit to Norfolk, in the company of Merry, and had the happiness, by my interference and importunity with my friends, to relieve this admirable man from a debt of £200, for which he was arrested while I was under his roof, and would otherwise have been thrown into jail.”

To this the Diary adds but little. It records, in scarce intelligible private notes, the increasing intimacy with Mary Wollstonecraft, of which more hereafter; and there is some evidence that Godwin during this year might, even at his mature age, have said in reference to her as Proteus said of Julia—
“Thou hast metamorphos’d me,
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time;”
for the record of work is slender, and there is less evidence of interest in public questions.

Two letters, however, claim insertion. King, the Jew bill-broker already named, was concerned in a trial arising
KING THE MONEY LENDER. 155
out of his not altogether creditable business. He wrote to Godwin, requesting him to appear as his friend and supporter, and to use his influence with “some nobleman” to do the same. This letter is worded somewhat vaguely; and it does not appear whether he wanted evidence to character given in his favour, or merely the moral support in the eyes of the public which would have been afforded by such appearance of distinguished men in court by his side. The following very characteristic letter is an answer to this application:—

William Godwin to John King.

“Jan. 24, 1796.

“I am extremely surprised at the note I have just received from you, and hasten to oppose the false statement it contains. From the first moment I was acquainted with you, it was a contest between me and several of my friends, and partly in my own mind, whether or no I ought to be acquainted with a man, of whom, to say the least, the world entertained a very ill opinion, respecting the justice of which I could be no competent judge. Upon what grounds, do you think, I decided that contest? I said, ‘It would be absurd for me to attempt to associate only with immaculate persons; nor do I believe that the right way to attempt to correct the errors of the vicious, is that all honest men should desert them.’ As to the frequency of my visits, I appeal to your own memory whether I ever sought that frequency. Did you imagine that your dinners were to be a bribe, seducing me to depart from the integrity of my judgment? That would be a character meaner than that of the poorest pensioner of the vilest court that ever existed.

“You seem to insinuate that I ought to appear in court as your friend and supporter. I have always avoided connecting myself with any set of men, even though Charles Fox should be at their head. I will stand or fall by my own character, and my own principles. Are you ignorant that, if I were to show myself as your supporter, it would be considered as a declaration, not merely
156 WILLIAM GODWIN
that I thought you injured by Alex. Champion, Esq., of Winchester Street, but that I approved of the general spirit of your transaction with Philips, and other similar transactions? If I were asked in open court whether, upon the whole, I believed that your money transactions were immaculate, or that they had in some instances been very exceptionable, what do you think would be my answer?

“You call upon me for an act of friendship, and the act you demand would be scarcely of any imaginable use to you. At the same time you show very little friendship in the demand. Why should my character be involved with yours, which however as you may conceive undeservedly labours under a very extensive odium? Why should I bring obloquy upon all my future, and all my past labours? No sir, I will retain my little portion of usefulness undiminished. Whatever may be my share of good opinion with the world, it shall be injured by no man’s vices but my own. Should I not be both fool and knave if I did otherwise?

“You oblige me to treat you unceremoniously. But I must venture that rather than be misunderstood. Otherwise I certainly would have refused to give you pain, especially at the present moment. If there were anything I could do for your service that I could be brought to think reasonable, I would most cheerfully do it. I wish you all imaginable happiness, but I cannot sacrifice my independence and my judgment. Upon this footing, and this explanation being given, I am willing that our acquaintance should either cease or continue, as best suits your inclinations. It is perhaps impossible that one human being should have a repeated good humoured intercourse with another, without increasing in kindness towards him. But, remember, I can dine at a man’s table, without being prepared to be the partisan of his measures and proceedings.

“What a strange dilemma do you create for your acquaintance! If I had ceased to visit you, you would have censured me, as unnecessarily squeamish and fastidious. I have continued to visit you, and you conclude that I ought to be ready to proceed all lengths with you.

“W. Godwin.”

MISS ALDERSON.

157

The intimacy was continued. King’s reply has in it something of bluster, mixed with a great desire not to quarrel with Godwin, and ends thus;

J. King to William Godwin.

“24 Piccadilly, Janry. 26th, 1796.

“. . . I am ashamed of the illiberally about dining with me. Do I expect every man to be my partizan who dines with me, or desist my invitations when he differs from me in opinion? I say I understand you now, but I still like you, and perhaps you will hereafter like me better when you know me more, and the impracticability of your own theory. Merry and Este dine with me to-morrow when I expect you will join them.

John King.”

It appears from the diary that the invitation was accepted.

Godwin’s fearlessness to offend his own friends and supporters, if duty called him to oppose them in any degree, appears in a nobler manner in a letter to Erskine in reference to his defence of political prisoners, in which he thought Erskine compromised principle for the sake of results, and there are many other letters of criticism to Fawcet and others showing the same fearlessness, but these have not in them otherwise anything to call for special remark. The same may be said of a correspondence which began to be frequent between himself and Miss Alderson. Godwin’s replies to the lady’s letters are not extant, and hers do not at this period show any great literary power. They are lively and pleasant, and show Miss Alderson as she was in days which afterwards seemed to her frivolous, and in which she was unconverted. An extract from one may here be transcribed, as it gives the last glimpse of an old friend.

158

WILLIAM GODWIN

Miss Alderson to William Godwin.

“Norwich, 5th of Febry., 1796.

“. . . I called on your old friend Mrs Southern about a month ago, and asked her opinion of ‘Caleb Williams:’ now, pray let not thy noble courage be cast down when I inform you that both Mrs S. and her daughter think you talk too favourably of wicked men, and that ‘Italian Letters’ (your first novel), are vastly prettier than ‘Caleb Williams.’ Console yourself, my good friend, by reflecting on the fable of the old man and his ass.”

Mrs Sothren had become more tolerant since in 1788 the fact that Godwin had turned novel-writer had given the good lady “serious concern.”

There is some reason to suppose that Godwin had at one moment seriously thought of asking Amelia Alderson to be his wife, and that not long before his intimacy with Mary Wollstonecraft, but whether the lady or her father declined the alliance, or whether no offer was actually made, it is plain that the feeling between the two was at no time warmer than a sincere friendship. Nor was there a shade of pique or jealousy to come between Miss Alderson and Mary Wollstonecraft. They were no sooner acquainted, in the spring of this year, than they became fast friends, and in one of the letters still preserved from Miss Alderson to Mrs Imlay (Mary Wollstonecraft) is this curious sentence, that whatever Miss Alderson had seen before for the first time had always disappointed her, “except Mrs Imlay and the Cumberland Lakes.” She was one of the persons who always looked with interest on the intimacy between Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and rejoiced when their marriage was declared.

MRS ROBINSON.

159

The relation in which this remarkable woman stood to Imlay and to Godwin, and the light in which the very exceptional nature of the case may present itself to us, will be presently considered. No doubt, however, not only she, but Mrs Inchbald and others, may be in some degree compromised by the association with one who has been mentioned in Godwin’s notes—Mrs Robinson. This lady, whose maiden name was Darby, had married very young, and her marriage had proved unhappy. She went on the stage, and while acting Perdita in the Winter’s Tale, had the ill fortune to attract the notice of the Prince of Wales, whose mistress she became. This connection was short, but was not the only one she formed. At this time she was living on a pension from the Prince, and was received in a certain society, chiefly literary and theatrical.

There is a radical difference between the life of one who honestly believed, on moral grounds, that marriage as usually understood is a mistake, and that true marriage can dispense with outward forms, and is an union of the heart and mind, and one who necessarily and avowedly was only the object and ministress of a fleeting passion of the basest sort. Yet even republicans were then dazzled by the name of a prince, and the shame of a royal amour was felt less then than perhaps it now would be. The day had gone by, if indeed it ever had been, save in the imagination of a song writer, when such a connection would be repudiated with the scorn expressed in the fine old ballad of “Mary Ambree,” nor had that day dawned, if now it has, in which to be the mistress of a prince is held to be the lowest and most fatal degradation, because in that case alone must the mistress abandon all hope of ever being made “an honest woman” by him who has wronged her.

With this halo of false stage light around her, Mrs
160 WILLIAM GODWIN
Robinson appears to have been a very agreeable woman, and her society was eagerly cultivated.

The record of the year may close with the following letter:

Mrs Godwin sen. to William Godwin.

[No date, but Mrs Sothren died Dec. 12, 1796. The top of the page is wanting.]

“Mrs Sothren pass’d out of this life in a serene Slumber. She had been down stairs the day before; eat some minc’d turkey, and, with taking hold of ye maids arm, walked about the room. Departed abt. 4 o’clock Thursday morng., 22 inst. Mr Sothren sent a messinger yt same morning to acquaint me of the Awful event; your brother Hully attended ye funeral on Lord’s Day morng.; a Hears and mourng Coach; Mr and Mrs Sothren, Mr and Mrs Hatton, H. G. and Miss Jane, in ye coach; barers 5s. a piece. She said she thought she would be too heavy to be carried on men’s sholders: your brother slept at the Widow Nutter’s, a very nice woman: the deare Creature was a pattern of strict piety, Humility, patience, doing good to all as far as she had ability and opportunity; tho’ not rich in this world’s goods, was rich in the promises, disclaiming all merit of her own, owning she had nothing but what she had recieved. Others have a loss, a great one, but myself the greatest; to die is her gain, as St Paul saith of himself. It now remains that we keep her steps in mind, that we may meet her, with all our pious friends, in the realms of Joy and Peace. She has desired yo sh’d have her watch, yr Sister can give yo further particulars. She did not mean to make a will, as her Estate was not at her Disposal after her death. I sent you a Hare 13 Instant, did yo receive it, was it good and of any use; sh’d you like anything else better. If you have a few spare minutes, sh’d like to receive a letter fr you, and to be informed if there is any alteration for the better in Josh. respecting his family. I hear a poor account of his aunt Barber, yt is, that she is a kept Miss to Mr H. Hall. I shall inclose this in a goose for my daughter Joseph, directed to Son John.—I am, with sincear affection, yours,

“A. Godwin.”

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Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831) English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.

William Smith (1756-1835) Educated at the dissenting academy at Daventry, he was a Whig MP for Sudbury (1784-90, 1796-1802), Camelford (1790-96), and Norwich (1802-30), a defender of Joseph Priestley and follower of Charles Fox. His 1817 speech in Parliament denouncing Robert Southey attracted much attention.

Hannah Sothren [née Reymes] (d. 1796) The wife of the dissenting minister George Southren (d. 1785), successor to John Godwin at Stowmarket; she lived with the Godwin family after the death of her husband.

Edward Smith Stanley, twelfth earl of Derby (1752-1834) Grandson of the eleventh earl (d. 1776); educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a Whig MP for Lancashire, a friend of Charles James Fox, nephew of John Burgoyne, and a committed sportsman.

George Tierney (1761-1830) Whig MP and opposition leader whose political pragmatism made him suspect in the eyes of his party; he fought a bloodless duel with Pitt in 1798. He is the “Friend of Humanity” in Canning and Frere's “The Needy Knife-Grinder.”

John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) Philologist and political radical; member of the Society for Constitutional Information (1780); tried for high treason and acquitted (1794).

The Daily Advertiser. (1730-1798). Later incorporated with The Oracle.

The Gazeteer and London Daily Advertiser. (1753-1764).

Public Advertiser. (1752-1794). A London daily paper managed by Henry Sampson Woodfall; in 1794 it merged with The Oracle.

The Public Ledger. (1760-). A London daily paper supporting mercantile interests.

James Boaden (1762-1839) Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald: including her Familiar Correspondence with the most distinguished Persons of her Time. 2 vols (London: R. Bentley, 1833).

William Godwin (1756-1836) “Cursory Strictures on the Charge delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre” in Morning Chronicle. (21 October 1794). An influential defense of those accused in the treason trials of 1794, reprinted in pamphlet form.

William Godwin (1756-1836) An Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness. (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1793). Godwin's most famous work was a system of ethics based on Jacobin principles.

William Godwin (1756-1836) Italian Letters: or, the History of the Count de St. Julian. 2 vols (London: G. Robinson, 1784). A novel.

William Godwin (1756-1836) Things as they are; or, the Adventures of Caleb Williams. 3 vols (London: B. Crosby, 1794). Godwin's first and most successful venture into gothic fiction.

George Lillo (1693-1739) The London Merchant: or, the History of George Barnwell. (London: John Gray, 1731). A long popular domestic tragedy.

Basil Montagu (1770-1851) A Digest of the Bankrupt Laws. 4 vols (London: J. Butterworth, and J. Cooke, 1805).

Thomas Morton (1764-1838) Columbus, or, a World discovered: an Historical Play. (London: W. Miller, 1792). After Marmontel.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The Winter's Tale. (London: 1623). Written circa 1610 and first printed in the first folio.

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: C. Kegan Paul

Title: William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1876).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed February 2012

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License