William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. X. 1819-1824
Henry Crabb Robinson, et. al; An appeal on behalf of William Godwin, 8 July 1823
“Albemarle St., July 8, 1823.
“We take the liberty of soliciting your attention to
the case of Mr Godwin, a writer of great
talents and reputation, distinguished by works of literature, not relating to
any disputed questions, who in the sixty-seventh year of his age has been
suddenly involved in difficulties without any want of industry and prudence on
his part. He has for fifteen years earned a moderate income as a bookseller. He
was unexpectedly engaged in a law-suit, occasioned by a disputed title to the
premises which he occupied, and being compelled to change his residence, he has
again established himself in another house, with all appearances of the same
moderate success as before. But the arrears of his former rent, which he had no
reason to expect would ever have fallen on him, together with the costs of the
law-suit, amount to a sum which he is wholly unable to pay. We hope that this
sum, which does not exceed £600, may be raised by a subscription, which will
not press heavily on any individual, and that a man of genius may thus be
enabled by his own industry to earn a creditable subsistence during the
remainder of his life.
“We have the honour to be your most obedient
servants,
“H. C.
Robinson. “F.
L. Gower.
“W.
Ayrton. “Dudley.
“John
Murray. “Wm.
Lamb.
“Charles
Lamb. “J.
Mackintosh.”
William Ayrton (1777-1858)
A founding member of the Philharmonic Society and manager of the Italian opera at the
King's Theatre; he wrote for the
Morning Chronicle and the
Examiner.
Francis Egerton, first earl of Ellesmere (1800-1857)
Poet, statesman, and Tory MP; a younger son the second marquess of Stafford, he was
educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, was chief secretary for Ireland (1828-30), and
translated Goethe and Schiller and contributed articles to the
Quarterly
Review.
William Godwin (1756-1836)
English novelist and political philosopher; author of
An Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Political Justice (1793) and
Caleb
Williams (1794); in 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft.
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.
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867)
Attorney, diarist, and journalist for
The Times; he was a founder
of the Athenaeum Club.
John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833)
The son of William Ward, third Viscount Dudley (d. 1823); educated at Edinburgh and
Oxford, he was an English MP, sometimes a Foxite Whig and sometimes Canningite Tory, who
suffered from insanity in his latter years.
