“My Dear Sir.—I have never experienced anything from you but the greatest kindness, on the few occasions in which I have been so fortunate as to be thrown into your society, or have taken the liberty to obtrude myself on your attention. This is the reason of the trouble I am now giving. . . . .
“In fourteen days from the date of this letter, I shall have completed the 75th year of my age. Before the expiration of those fourteen days a volume will have been published of my writing, entitled ‘Thoughts on Man, etc.,’ which, if I am not mistaken, will display the marks of as youthful and energetic a mind as were ever to be found in the books I have written, in what are called the full vigour of my life and constitution. I am, however, the prodigal who so often serves to point the moral of a tale. I have spent what I had, and have nothing left.
“Meantime I am conscious (if I do not greatly deceive myself) of powers undecayed, which I am most anxious to apply to the support of my life, and the procuring those slender comforts to which I have been accustomed. But the trade, or the disposition of the booksellers in London, is in such a state as to afford me nothing but discouragement. . . . .
| ‘LIVES OF THE NECROMANCERS.’ | 311 |
“It is commonly said at present that the cabinet libraries and miscellanies, which are now publishing by several of our booksellers, swallow up for the time the literature in which they might otherwise be disposed to engage. It has been my habit to work for myself, and stand by myself. But at the present moment I doubted of my right to be difficult, and therefore I have given way in this point. I made a proposal to Dr Lardner, but after two or three conferences he frankly informed me that he and his partner had engaged with a sufficient number of persons of great name, namely yourself, and Messrs Mackintosh, Moore, Southey, and Campbell, to fix on their publication a desirable character, and that they had resolved that the rest of their work should be executed by persons of inferior importance, to whom they should give lower prices than that to which I should be justly entitled. I applied to Mr Murray. I saw Mr Lockhart for that purpose, and disclosed to him the plan of a volume for the Family Library, of which he greatly approved, and told me he did not doubt it would be joyfully accepted. But after a lapse of two or three days he wrote me a note to say that Mr Murray had declined it. I wrote to Mr Cadell of Edinburgh, from whom I received a most courteous answer, but informing me that his whole means were engaged for five years to come, and that he had only been able to strain a point further for a novel by the author of ‘Marriage,’ and another novel by a popular author. Thus, my dear sir, with powers perhaps unimpaired, and a will to exert them, I find myself likely to be laid on the shelf, as a person whose name has been long enough before the public. . . . .
“The volume I proposed to Murray through Mr
Lockhart, was to be entitled, ‘Lives of the Necromancers, or an
Account of the most Eminent Persons who have claimed for themselves, or to whom
has been imputed by others, the Exercise of Magical Powers.’ I can
scarcely expect you to believe me, though it is true, that I had chosen this
subject without any knowledge of your letters on ‘Demonology,’ which, however,
appeared before my proposal was actually made. I conceived, however, that there
would still be room for my volume, the object of which was to trace the
| 312 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“And now, my dear sir, for the express purpose of this letter. The temper of the times, or the state of commerce, seems to render any direct application unavailing. My magic rod, if ever I had one, is grown powerless with the new-sprung speculators in literary produce; but yours is in all its energy. Would you undertake the generous task to endeavour to prevail with Mr Cadell, or with any other person, to afford me sufficient encouragement to sit down to the novel I have hinted at, to the volume I have described, or to any other work to which I might feel myself adequate. . . . You will not, I think, refuse your sympathy to a person no longer active in his limbs, but who believes himself to be in the full vigour of his understanding. . . . I have a wife: I need the little house I live in to hold my books, and my literary accommodations; I cannot live thus, considerably under £300 a year. My labour perhaps might be worthy of that reward, and with that I would be content.
“I am, etc.,
