| 122 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
The Diaries for 1804 show no fact of general or social interest, except the usual intercourse with the literary world of London, among whom is now found Miss Owenson (Lady Morgan), whose fame far exceeded her literary merits; and a renewal of relations with Everina Wollstonecraft, which were not, however, firm or abiding.
Some of Godwin’s own family who were in London grew less and less satisfactory, and his poor old mother at Dalling wrote pathetically that she feared the streets would be “full of begging Godwins.” William, for the position he filled, was perhaps in as great straits as any, but his purse, when there was anything in it, his house and all that it contained, were constantly at the service of one or the other relative. And when Godwin is seen deteriorating by slow but sure steps, asking for pecuniary assistance in words, and with subterfuges which fill those who read with a feeling akin to real pain, it must always be remembered that his needs were not selfish, and that the use of money to provide luxury or even comfort was the last of which he thought.
After the publication of Chaucer, the novel of “Fleetwood” occupied the greater portion of his time, but the play of
“Faulkener” also was
completed in this year. One of the many quarrels with Holcroft took place in regard to this play.
| A NEW PLAY. | 123 |
Thereupon Godwin sent the play to Holcroft to touch it up for the stage, who, acting on the instructions given, remodelled the whole, and re-wrote from Godwin’s materials a considerable portion. But “Faulkener” failed, and great was the wrath which fell on the devoted friend, whose forbearance under the storm was dignified and commendable.
The letters during this year, which are appended, need no explanation.
“Dear Wedgwood,—It is with the utmost reluctance of feeling that I obtrude on you the following statement.
“I know not whether I am entitled to the possession of several opulent friends: this has been almost universally the lot of persons of as much literary publicity as myself: it has been my fortune never, except you, to have had one.
“Among the various measures which, since I have become
the father of a family, I have had recourse to for their support, one which
inevitably suggested itself was the theatre; a resource which is, if
successful, I believe usually found more productive
| 124 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“It was however necessary that I and my family should subsist while I prepared the experiment. A young man not opulent, but who had then some money at his command, spontaneously lent me £100 for that purpose. My experiment was unsuccessful, and the money was never repaid. Mrs Godwin and myself will, I believe, not be found deficient in industry. I by original works, and she by translation, contrive fully, or nearly, to support a numerous family in decency, but this is all we can do.
“Unhappily the young man who so generously assisted me is since fallen into great embarrassments, and has become liable to arrests and the other difficulties arising from these embarrassments. He has never asked me for his money, he would never accept any memorandum or acknowledgment that it was due. Yet how can I bear to think that he wants money so cruelly, while I am in this manner his debtor? I hope I could almost perish, sooner than apply to you for further assistance for myself, but in this case, to use the ordinary phraseology, I would move heaven and earth to acquit myself. If I had any other resource that I could imagine or invent, you should not have been troubled with this ungracious intrusion.
“Yet my dear friend, consult your own convenience in this case. I am sure you would assist me if that would permit. But this is no claim upon you, whatever it is on me.
“Though it is now a very long time since I have heard
from, or seen you, yet I have occasionally the satisfaction, I wish I could say
the pleasure, of hearing concerning you from Tobin, Coleridge, and
others. The last opportunity of this sort was a letter by you to
Coleridge a short time before his departure, in which
you spoke of your health as being a little better than it had been
| LETTER FROM WEDGWOOD. | 125 |
“Dear Godwin,—I am so unwilling to leave you in a moment’s suspense, for I give you full credit for the reluctant scruples you express—that I shall not defer a post to get a stamp for a draft but give you the trouble of calling personally on Mr Howslip in York Street on Wednesday next at 3, who will deliver you a note containing the £100. I have adopted this mode to prevent a personal application from you at the Bank, which I conceived might be disagreeable, and it also secures from danger of loss by post, and this same. Mr Howslip will not have the least idea of the nature of our transaction.
“And now let me beg of you to set your mind perfectly
at ease. I will tell you honestly what I have felt, and always feel, on the
occasion. I have no opinion of the good, upon the whole, resulting from great
facility in the opulent, in yielding to requests of the needy. I have no doubt
but that it is best that every one should anticipate with certainty the pinch
and pressure of distress from indulging in indolence, or even from misfortune.
It is this certainty which quickens the little wit that man is ordinarily
endowed with, and calls out all his energies: and were it removed by the idea
that the rich held funds for the distressed, I am convinced that not only half
the industry of the country would be destroyed, but also that misfortune would
be doubled in quantity. I confess to you then, that I have always a doubt of
the value of any donation or loan. At the same time, I have the strongest
desire to give relief to suffering, and an excessive repugnance to that
hardness of heart, that vicious inclination to hoard,—to that depraved state of
mind which enables me to view sufferings with calmness, if not with
indifference, whilst I should never miss the sum that would instantly relieve
them. In the case of the
| 126 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“And I do therefore invite you to still consider me as your friend in every honourable sense of the word. You have placed me in a most ambiguous capacity. I have an excellent friend in T. W., you say: he is the man I should rely upon in a moment of distress, only that I feel that I cannot ask him to make the smallest personal sacrifice for my advantage.
“I wish you may seize the spirit of my confessions, for I really cannot stay the process of writing one moment for a more explicit and luminous statement. I write in pain and great distraction of mind, knowing the injury I do myself. I feel most gratefully your kind wishes for my health. Without indulging an unmanly despondency, I may say after some years continued struggle, I see no prospect of permanent amendment. I left town a day or two after you saw me in Bedford Row. Let me have a line from you when you have received the £100.
“With the sincerest wishes for your happiness, I remain, dear Godwin, faithfully and cordially yours,
“I am sorry our feelings are not in unison. I am sorry
that a work which cost me
such deep thought, and was, in my own opinion, so happily executed, should
excite in your mind nothing but the chaos of which you inform me. I came up to
town with
| MRS GODWIN’S GRANDCHILDREN. | 127 |
“Respecting the £20, we were much distressed last week, but shall not be this, or the next. The week after, I am afraid, it may still prove inconvenient to you, though I know we shall be very short. Louisa mends so slowly, that my mind is quite uneasy. I came up to town with high hopes of various kinds, but hope was always a sad deceiver, and the error of my life is that of being too sanguine. Forgive me that Fanny copies this. She copied the tragedy, and it was inevitable she should know the whole transaction. . . .
“Dear William and Mary,—You must excuse my
incorrectness in writing. I can scarce write, my memory is so bad. I can say no
more about Harriet than I have in a former letter. I am
the unhappy grandmother of such naughty children, and must say that the parents
are as much to blame as their children, for that they have set no better guard
on them, and instructed them no better, have Idled away their own time on
Sabbath days. . . . In answer to yours, relating to young
John, I’m much obleged to you that you show such
frendship to him. I purpose sending you and
| 128 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
| DISASTROUS SPECULATIONS. | 129 |
The year 1805 is the date of Godwin’s greatest and most disastrous venture. If he could but have let well alone, if Mrs Godwin had not been a speculative, and, as she calls herself, “a managing woman,” there was at the same moment a tide in his affairs which, had he taken it at the flood, would have led to a very different state of things.
The account had best be given in an autobiographical letter, of which the copy is unfinished and unaddressed.
“My manner of life for several years in respect of pecuniary matters, you, I daresay, are acquainted with. . . . As long as I remained alone, I neither asked nor would accept aid from any man. I even contrived to bring up by my own means, and to inform by my own instructions, the son of one of my poor relations, as well as frequently to afford assistance to others. I lived entirely as I listed.
“Since I have been a married man, the case has been otherwise. I never repented the connections of that sort I have formed; but the maintenance of a family and an establishment has been a heavy expense, and I have never been able, with all my industry, which has been very persevering, entirely to accomplish this object. . . . I have five children in my house. Fanny, the daughter of Mr Imlay, who bears my own name, Mary, my own daughter by the same mother, two children of my present wife by a former husband, and a son, the offspring of my present marriage.
“My temper is of a recluse and contemplative cast;
had it been otherwise, I should, perhaps, on some former occasions, have entered into
the active concerns of the world, and not have been connected with it merely as a
writer of books. My present wife
| 130 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Under these circumstances, and being by nature endowed with a mind of prudence and forecast, her thoughts forcibly turned towards some commercial undertaking. With united health and strength we could hope for no more, in the mode of selling MSS. to booksellers than making our yearly income equal our yearly expenditure. But the health of one or both of us might give way, the advance of age might diminish my powers of unintermitted exertion, or death might cut off one or the other of us; then, what was to become of the maintenance and education of our children? The commercial undertaking which most naturally offered itself was a magazine of books for the use and amusement of children, and my wife, with a sagacity commensurate to her forecast, pitched upon a person singularly well qualified to superintend the details of the concern. . . .
“On the 15th of March [1805] I concluded a contract with my bookseller for writing a History of England, of the same size with that of David Hume, which would of course be the occupation of years, and for which I was to receive £2000, besides a share of the copyright. . . . This contract secured me a provision in part for some years to come, and assigned me an employment to my heart’s content.
“While this negotiation was pending, my wife laid before me her plan, and I felt that the arguments by which it was recommended were such as I could not resist. As the discussion with my bookseller, previous to signing the contract, occupied some weeks, I employed that time in writing the chief of a work which was to be the first-born child of our new undertaking.
“Among many difficulties which were to be conquered
in this enterprise, one arose from the absolute necessity there was that the public
should entertain no suspicion that I was connected with
| BALDWIN’S FABLES. | 131 |
“Thus prepared I placed my agent at Midsummer last in a little house in Hanway Street, Oxford Street, a small street, but of great thoroughfare and commerce. The rent of the house is £40 per annum (£35 of which are made by lodgers), and the coming in and fixtures were £60. I have a renewable agreement for the house for a term of years . . . [Unfinished]
The Fables of which Godwin speaks were begun on Feb. 22d, were rapidly written, and finished on March 26th. The books published by him under the name of Baldwin were:—
“The Pantheon, or Ancient History of the Gods of Greece and Rome.”
Many men of middle age must remember that their first introduction to
History was through the medium of these little books, excellently printed and illustrated.
Uncritical they necessarily were, in pre-Niebuhrian days, nor could they now be read with
advantage by the young, in whom
| 132 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
But they may be turned over with interest, for they show how fresh and keen was the interest Godwin took in the young, how he, who evidently had some difficulty in placing himself at the standpoint of other men, could do so at that of a little child, and hence we grow more and more to understand the power and attraction he still had for the young.
The Prefaces are all worth reading now, and are couched in clear, vigorous English. One passage is so far reaching and pregnant that it may well bear quotation here. It is from the Preface to the History of Rome.
“It has been disputed whether Mucius ever thrust his hand into the fire, whether Curtius leaped into the gulf, or Regulus returned to Carthage, and some writers, following up this hint, have endeavoured, by sophistical reasonings and subtle distinctions, to set aside almost every example of Roman virtue on record. In answer to this I shall only say here that the stories were thus understood by the Romans themselves, who had the best means of information, and who felt in their own bosoms what a Roman was, and that the different parts of the Roman History, considered as the different stages of a particular scene of civilization, hang together with a consistency beyond all fiction, and even beyond the real history of any other country or people in the world. Youth is not the period of criticism and disquisition. If these narratives are to be destroyed, let that task be reserved for a riper age, when books of the plan and size of the present are no longer applicable; and in the meantime, let our children reap the benefit of such instructive and animating examples. If they are fables (which I hope no one of the juvenile readers of my work will at any time be induced to believe), they are at least more full of moral, and of encouragement to noble sentiments and actions than all the other narratives, fictitious or true, which mere man ever produced.”
| ‘THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.’ | 133 |
The books were one and all admirably printed, and well illustrated, Godwin made no vain boast when, in the Preface to the “History of England, “he claims for his pages that “they are so printed as to be agreeable and refreshing to the eye of a child.” And though Godwin is in error in ascribing Montaigne’s practice to Moliere, the following autobiographical sentence, which takes us into the home circle at the Polygon, is worth retention:—
“Moliere, when he wrote his admirable comedies, was accustomed to read them in manuscript to an old woman, his housekeeper, and he always found that when the old woman laughed or was out of humour, there the audience laughed or was out of humour also. In the same manner, I am accustomed to consult my children in this humble species of writing in which I have engaged. I put the two or three first sections into their hands as a specimen. Their remark was, ‘How easy this is! Why, we learn it by heart almost as fast as we read it!’ Their suffrage gave me courage, and I carried on my work to the end.”
The “Fables,” modernized and rewritten, are full of merit, excellently adapted for children, and well deserve the honour of a reprint, having gone, in their day, through more than a dozen editions, and having been translated into French.
Although the pseudonym of Baldwin was continued to
the end for Godwin’s own productions, the
business was, after a short time, carried on by Mrs
Godwin, under the style of M. J. Godwin and Co. She
translated several children’s books from the French, which were published by her with
success; but, beyond all doubt, the work which will live, written at
Godwin’s request and published by Mrs
Godwin, is the “Tales from
Shakespere,” by Mary and Charles Lamb. The latter also contributed his
“Voyages of Ulysses,”
to which a letter which will be quoted refers; the “Stories of Old Daniel,” delight of the past
generation;
| 134 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
It was a meritorious attempt, but starting without capital, the twenty years during which the business was carried on, were one long struggle, a series of shifts and a series of failures.
The Diaries for this year give no new facts of importance, old friends and new came and went, Mrs Godwin fell out with them, and Godwin resented their resentment. Yet on the whole he had settled down, as so many men before and since, into an acquiescence with his lot; he grew to have some admiration and regard for his wife, though she irritated him at every turn. The letters, however, which passed between them, during a visit paid by Godwin to his relatives in Norfolk, in the autumn, show a painful effort at a profession of affection, as though to meet a certain exaction. Their ring is wholly different to those which disclosed his truer and deeper feelings in past years.
One only is given, describing the state in which he found his mother,
whose letters of this year will be the last which we shall read. Her long and kindly life
was setting in as much outward comfort as she needed or desired, though her health had been
for some time indifferent, and her mental powers now in great measure failed her. The
children who were nearest to her were well to do in their stations, were prosperous and
affectionate, and at her age the misdoings of those at a distance moved, but did not deeply
distress her. Age, if it brings loss and disappointment, deadens the mind against the
poignant misery which the same accidents entail upon the younger; and the religion which
had comforted Mrs Godwin’s earlier life
supported her in her last years. To be absolutely certain of the divine favour, and of a
happy immortality is a pleasant
| CALVINISM. | 135 |
Such soothing comfort her stern creed gave to the good old lady, whose shrewd worldly sense was in such remarkable, though not singular, contrast to the unreason of her belief.
“Dear William,—You and
your wife have been exceeding kind to young John. I hear
the youngest child is a fine boy, the eldest a poor little sickly girl. It was
your kindness and good intention to set him to work for himself, but what does
he do, or how is he to be employed? Is he industerous? He wrote me a very prity
letter some time agoe to thank me. I hope your wife is better of her rhumatism,
and the blister had a good effect. I prescribe it to everybody since you was
advised to it, for our country doctors have not found out a cure for it.
Miss Woodhouse have had it in her head all this winter
very violently, but I have not got her in the mind to try a blister. . . . He
has begun his shop, and has met with some incouragement, but when the weather
is bad and nobody comes his spirits flag, and he says he don’t care what
he doth if he could get a living. He wants a good wife to spend his vacant
hours with, but they are hard to find and he fearfull to try. How doth
John go on? I have heard he is out
of Mr Wright’s place again: he talked of advertising
for a place: he should not delay, but not quit his old one till he is sure of
another, for half a lofe is better than no bread. . . . If you live to see me,
I am brown, wrincled, week, my eyes rather dim, hands and head shake. . . .
Give my kind love to your wife. I hope she will excuse me, I cannot write to
her this time. If you and she can come to see me, set your time, for I live in
a barren land, but the
| 136 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Your brothers desire their best respects to you.”
“Dear Son William,—I have received your wife’s kind letter and your children’s. I think they have made great improvement. May they go on and prosper, and be bles’d of god, but that is impossable without prayer and watchfulness against their strong enemys, Satan, the world, and their own depraved hearts. There is much duty lies upon you as a parent. If it was but a few miles of, and I could visit them, and they me, one or two at a time, it would be a pleasure; but as it is, we must content ourselves with now and then hearing of one another. If I live till the time of your Tower into Norfolk, I need not tell you I shall be glad to see you and your wife; but why cannot you attend on Lord’s-day at Guestwick, on such a Judishous man as Mr Sykes. . . . We are all tolerable, Mrs G. in a family way again, your brother very industerous but not strong to labour, Natty much the same. He is unsuccessful in his business, and must seek a jorneyman’s place again. O my trials and difficulties increase! how heavy when so old. I wish Pheby not to come: I cannot help her, nor do I think her aunt Barker can. Young John is, I fear, next to starving; but who can help it? They are taught nothing but pride, so must fall into ruin. My kind love to Mrs Godwin and all your children, and to your sister.—Your ever affectionate mother,
| A LAST ILLNESS. | 137 |
“My Dearest Love,—I am now again at Norwich. I arrived at Dalling between six and seven on Wednesday evening, and staid there till Friday morning at eleven. By the man who came with me to drive back the gig which I hired at Norwich, I despatched a line to you, scarcely less hasty than the one of yours which accompanied my ‘customary garb of solemn black.’ This I suppose you received on Friday.
“During the whole of my stay at Dalling I applied my
attention principally, every time I saw my mother, to discover whether she knew me. I speedily found that
she was lying under a stroke of palsy or apoplexy (the country apothecary
decides for the latter), and that she would very probably continue in the same
state for weeks, and perhaps for months. She was seized in the night of
Wednesday, August 28th. The next morning she rose, seemingly unconscious that
anything extraordinary had occurred, dressed herself, came downstairs and made
her tea, though all these offices were performed by her with awkwardness and
difficulty. She did not even go to bed that night before her usual hour. She
spoke, however, very little all day, and seemed scarcely to know anybody. She
has never risen since, except to have her bed made. For the first day or two
she frequently fed herself, but since has constantly been fed by the maid, and
drinks only from a teaspoon. Yet she feeds tolerably heartily, and looks well,
fresh and plump in the face. No one of her limbs are affected, or features
distorted, by the present attack, which is the circumstance that convinces the
apothecary that her disorder is not palsy. She has been visited by Mr Sykes, the minister, to whom she was
exceedingly partial, and by his wife, but seemed scarcely to take any notice of
them, though I think she called Mr Sykes by his name: this
happened before I came down. She takes no notice of my brothers. When spoken
to, she scarcely ever answers to the purpose, except sometimes by
‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ but goes off into a few incoherent words
in the form of a prayer. She scarcely ever utters
| 138 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“On Thursday morning I took down from my brother Hull’s dictating an inventory of her income. Afterwards I mounted on horseback, and rode over to Mr Sykes, who I found was principally trusted by her in her pecuniary affairs. His account agreed in all essential points with my brother’s. I then rode over to the apothecary’s, whom I did not find at home in the morning, but who called in the afternoon. I thought it necessary to learn from his own lips his ideas of my mother’s complaint, which were as above stated. My mother was exceedingly distressed, as she had been before, by his visit, and expressed the strongest aversion to all medical applications, whether external or internal. One incident, evidently marking the remains of recollection and understanding, amidst this general failure of faculties, occurred on Thursday night. When she had ordered the maid to go to bed, who had risen in the middle of the night to give her some assistance, she suddenly called to mind that she had a bolster of the maid’s bed, which had been put under her to raise her head in the middle of the day, and pulled it out and gave it her. She has hitherto had one person sit up with her every night, besides the attendance of the maid, who sleeps in the room.
“I thought, when I first saw her on Wednesday, that
she knew me. But finding that every time she saw me on Thursday she took no
notice of me, and that I could not excite her to acknowledge me, I doubted.
‘O Lord,’ ‘Spare me,’
‘Pardon my sins,’ ‘Grace,’ and
‘Jesus,’ were all the answers I could obtain to
everything I said. On Friday morning I took infinite pains to ascertain this
point. I used every expression and gesture of taking leave, repeated my name,
and ‘Do you know me?’ mentioned that I was going to London,
and asked whether she had anything to say to her daughter, or anybody there.
Frequently before she had pressed my hand, but with so vague an expression that
I could not be sure of her meaning. At the last moment she re-
| A FAITHFUL SERVANT. | 139 |
“The most material point, perhaps, that I have ascertained by this journey is that she is in excellent hands in her present situation. I learn from the most decisive testimony of Mr Sykes, and my brother, and my brother’s wife, that she is exceedingly attached to Molly, and that Molly is the pattern of integrity and tenderness towards her. Molly tells me that it was her mistress’s constant desire that she should continue with her as long as she lives, and go to my sister when she is no more. When we consider the helpless situation to which my poor mother is now reduced, nothing could be more deplorable than the idea of her being treated with harshness and neglect, and nothing can be more consoling than the recollection that she has a person about her who places her pleasure and her pride in serving and gratifying her. Molly’s integrity too, I am assured, is not less than her attachment. She has now the sole possession of my mother’s keys, and no idea is entertained by anyone that they could be in more trustworthy hands. . . .” [Unfinished.]
“Dear Brother,—I am exceedingly gratified by the information of your last letter, and hope you will continue the same kindness to me as long as circumstances shall remain the same. . . .
| 140 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“You will of course favour me with a letter when you send the certificate I mentioned, and will write sooner if anything new occurs.
“I have consulted the most eminent man in the medical profession among all my acquaintance in London, and he says, from my description of the symptoms, that our mother’s complaint is apoplexy. He would not advise anything to be done, and further gives it as his opinion that she will not die till she has had a fresh attack of the complaint.
“Love to your wife and children. We are all well. How is poor Nat?—Your affectionate
“Dear Hull,—. . . I avail myself of this opportunity of writing a few lines, though I have but little to say, except to thank brother Nat for his letter, and that I will write to him when next I send a box or parcel. Yes, one thing I have thought several times I would say to you: which is, that I wish much before my busy time comes on again to read Henry’s Exposition of the Bible or Testament. If you can either borrow it for me, or are not using our mother’s yourself, will you send it to me? . . . If it is not extravagantly dear, I shall send you a bit of salmon next week, so you must send to the carrier’s on Saturday night that you may unpack it as soon as possible, for I am a little fearful about the keeping except I send it pickled, which I think will not be so well, as my dear mother cannot then have a hot dinner of it. . . . —Your affectionate sister,
“Dear William,—I had a
letter from Hull yesterday. He says our
dear mother has taken a little more
notice of things lately, and seems to understand some things a little better,
but speaks very imperfectly and looks thin. She is extremely anxious about
their attending to religion. O that I had attended to her anxiety on this head
always! O that all my dear brothers would, ere it be too late, that we might
hereafter all meet together with her in that
| MRS INCHBALD. | 141 |
The letters from acquaintances during this year require little explanation. That from Thomas Wedgwood was written in answer to an application from Godwin for a further advance of £100 to enable him to carry out the Baldwin scheme. It seems to have been the last which passed between the friends. Thomas Wedgwood closed his kindly life on July 10, 1805, his kindness to Godwin was in a measure continued by Josiah Wedgwood; but the friend of so long standing could not be replaced.
“I am sincerely glad you have made so promising an engagement, and that you are likely to have your mind undisturbed for so long a period by harassing negotiations with booksellers.
“My illness is of a nature absolutely to preclude writing, and I have no prospect of any change from constant and dreadful suffering.
“I honour exceedingly the perfect openness of the statement preceding the request in your letter. I allude particularly to the use you made of the probability of another advance from me, if necessity should urge you to apply again. Let there never be any false shame or concealment between us.—Farewell, and believe me ever your attached and faithful friend,
After a separation of several years, Godwin and Mrs Inchbald again
corresponded and met. But their inter-
| 142 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
. . . ” Permit me here to make an observation, to which I will not give you the trouble to reply, because it is on a subject of which I myself am not the slightest judge—Grammar. I once thought that Grammar was a point established and immoveable by taste or custom. I have of late heard this contradicted, and have been shown precedents of the very best writers differing extremely in their modes of Grammar, and I am even told that correctness is often inelegant.
“If this be true, it is a fine thing for women, and for some men.
“But it seems that ‘Osah is prettier than I;’ has Godwin, Lowth, and Scripture on its side. Three high authorities.—Yours most truly,
“. . . I am glad you are going to see my play again. . . .
“I am more proud to hear of Kemble’s praise in his character than of any other part of the play, because my whole aim was directed to represent him as a Lover, though I knew at the same time that it was not in his power to make love. So I left him to act, and not to speak the passion.
“Finely as he plays, he has hurt the part by his spruce manner of dressing. I wanted him to be clean, but not nice. To be somewhat rugged in appearance as well as in manners, to prove his fondness of books in his neglect of dress. The power of Love on such an object had been doubly comic, but when I saw how neat and smart he looked, I feared every effort for which I had laboured would be lost. . . .
| BOOK-MAKING. | 143 |
The following letter from Phillips the publisher, or, since the business was then one, the bookseller, is interesting. It is evidence that the trade of mere book-making was as well known then as now, and of a very natural fear that Godwin might be suspected of the trade. He had offered to “compile” a History of England; as his letters recount he had written a prospectus for publication in which the word was used, and Phillips thus replies:—
“Dear Sir,—I still object to the word compile—it indicates a work of shreds and patches, and the compiler is one of the lowest pioneers in Grub Street. The word is not susceptible of a good sense except when it is honestly meant to confess the author’s obligation to scissors and paste. If you will have a dissyllable, take compose, anything rather than compile. Don’t let it be said that ‘Mr Godwin is compiling a History of England.’ What will be said, if this passes, even by your friends, and by your enemies in the obnoxious sense to which the words are liable.
“Now, Sir, for another point, but I have a garrulous old gentleman at my elbow, while I write, who, I fear, may disturb my chain of argument.
“It appears to me that you have not made the best of
your cause. It would not seem from the connection of your reasoning that you
have as yet any new materials on which to found your ‘History,’ but
that having ‘undertaken to compile’ such a
work, you have begun to look about you for materials, and that the readiest way
is to advertize for them. I could then most humbly
suggest that some idea like the following should be introduced. That since the
time when Mr Hume wrote his ‘History,’ or during some
late years, much attention has been paid to our national records, and all
descriptions of Literati have been labouring to collect materials for the
illustration of our ‘History,’ that the collections of the British
Museum have been formed or greatly
| 144 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Treat all this as you will, believing me to be, Dear Sir, devotedly and truly yours, &c.
Godwin’s novel of “Fleetwood; or, The New Man of Feeling,” was published by Phillips in the same year, but neither it, nor other later novels, had such distinguishing merit as saved them from the fate of all but the very highest works of prose fiction,—forgetfulness after the lapse of a few years. The beauty of style remained, but the power and originality which had marked “Caleb Williams” and “St Leon,” were wanting.
“Dear Sir,—A letter from you, announcing a visit, is at all times pleasant to me; but the present is peculiarly so, because Mr Jer. Joyce gave me much sorrow on Sunday last by informing me that Mrs Godwin was ill.
“I shall therefore see you on Friday with more pleasure than usual, and you may depend upon it, that if I was half so good at a leap as I am persuaded Mrs Godwin is, I should often leap to Somers Town.
“Mind, I do not say at Somers Town; for I am very careful how I employ the English particles, and am besides your most obedient servant,
Mrs Knapp was the lady to whom the Somers’
Town House belonged. The letter subjoined is valuable as showing at once Godwin’s difficulties and the estimation in
| DOMESTIC LETTERS. | 145 |
“Dear Sir,—On my return the other day from a five months’ excursion, I was gratified by a note from you, expressive of your esteem, and a present of two volumes of fables from the great and worthy Mr Baldwin, to whom I send my thanks, with the hope that he will continue the career he has begun, of writing books so well calculated to benefit the rising generation.
“With respect to your note of Sunday, I have only to observe that you are welcome to stay in the house till you have perfectly suited yourself with another, and when the golden cloud descends, that some drops of it would be very very acceptable at Kentish town.—With respects to Mrs Godwin, I remain, dear Sir, your much obliged,
A vast mass of correspondence exists extending over 1806, and the following years, some of it interesting, but the events to which it relates are few.
Those in 1806 need no elucidation. The family letters show a pleasant calm after storm, and before storms which were to come in years when Mrs Godwin’s stepdaughters needed more and more, a tenderness which they did not find.
“Dear Brother,—. . . I should take it as a very great favour if you would send me up the quarter of sheet of paper that my mother made you write on the first of January. Though you can make nothing of it, perhaps I should, or should fancy I did. It would be a gratification to me.
| 146 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“I thank you very much for the turkeys. They contributed to our cheerfulness and enjoyments in this social season. Mat. brought his to our house, and we ate it together, with two or three friends. Joe should have been of the party, but was prevented by business.
“I approve by all means of continuing my mother’s subscription to the meeting, as long as she lives. Remember me respectfully to Mr Sykes.
“We are all well here. My wife desires to join in kind remembrances to all, with,—Yours very affectionately,
“Dear Brother,—According to your request, I take the pleasure of letting you know that my wife was brought to bed Friday evening with a girl, and is finely, thank God. Our mother pays great attention to her: she’s very finely, have a good appetite, and looks healthy. My wife’s doctor say he thinks it possible she may live these seven years. Mother takes so much notice of her money I durst not think of removing it. I’ll order and send the certificate against the time. I suppose you are got through the stock business before now.
The other side is the copy of whatever mother said on New Year’s day, and insisted on me to write.
[This is a copy of quite incoherent rambling.]
“Thank you a thousand times for what you call your dull letter. There are two or three words in it, which though of very plain stuff, without either edging or brocade, are worth more than the eight pence I gave for them.
“I can promise you an answer not inferior in dulness
to your own. I have got one of my sick-headaches, which though in the way in
which I have them, they are the pettiest and most despic-
| DOMESTIC LETTERS. | 147 |
“Mr Burton and your letter knocked at the door together. The children say they were to have no lessons from him as long as Fanny was away. Mr Burton says they were to have half-hour lessons as usual. Neither to me, nor to Miss Smith, as she says, did you utter a word on the subject. So, till further orders, I yield to the authority of the adult party in the dispute.
“I have had specimens of colouring from Watts and Stodhart, as well as from Hardy, of the Gaffer Gray, and am so far satisfied, that I am the less solicitous for your return home on that account. I should have sent you a copy with this, as well as some letters that the children have written you, but Charles, whom I sent for a frank, has contrived to return without one.
“Do begin to talk in your next about the time and manner of your return. . . . .”
“Yesterday (was that right or wrong?) we kept Charles’s birthday, though his mother was absent. . . . Charles has written an account of the day to Fanny; it passed pleasantly enough. . . .
“Do not imagine that I took Charles into my good graces the moment your back was turned. He indeed took care to prevent that if I had been inclined, by displeasing me the day I sent him for a frank, and on another errand. So that I had only just time to forgive him for his birthday.
“I wish to impress you with the persuasion that he is
infinitely more of a child, and to be treated as a child, than you imagine.
Monday I sent him for a frank, and set all the children to write letters,
though by his awkwardness the occasion was lost. The
| 148 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“I shall be very happy to listen to you on that subject, on which so many poets have shone already, the praise of the country. But will you give me leave, my dearest love, to recall to your consideration the ties and bonds by which we are fettered? We cannot do as we would, and must be satisfied, for some time at least, if we can do at all. And do you really believe that ‘the sordid thoughts that in London make a necessary part of your daily existence’ could never find their way to Tilford? Alas, I am afraid that a narrow income, a numerous family, and many things to arrange and provide for, are the same everywhere. I am of my old friend Horace’s opinion, ‘that happiness may be found even in Rag fair (allow me the license of a translator) if we do but bring with us to the shed that covers us a well regulated mind.’ Yet I swear to you, I will with all pleasure retire with you to the country, the moment you shall yourself pronounce it to be practicable.
“Will you allow me to play with you the part of a
monitor? or will you think that is incompatible with the feelings of a lover?
You have effected, as you have repeatedly told me, one most excellent
revolution in yourself since your marriage, that of taking many things quietly
that were once torture, for example, money embarrassments and importunities.
That you did not so from the first, was owing to your estrangement from the
usages of the world, and to the want of that easily acquired tincture of
philosophy, that
| VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY. | 149 |
“The most extraordinary thing I send is William’s letter. Miss Smith, and all three children attest the fact. He asked Miss Smith to rule him some lines. When he began, she said to him, William, do not go out of the lines, and this was all the instruction he received.
“I think it is a little cruel of Fanny to have written to Charles and Jane, and not a line to her own sister.
“I called at Rowan’s on Monday evening. Not at home. I then passed on to Carlisle’s, and supped by accident on Carshalton fish. Tuesday I supped at Lamb’s, and they are engaged to be here on Sunday evening. G. M. C. dined with us last Sunday. This is all I have to tell you of that sort.
“My foot is nearly well. I could distinguish you in
the coach as far as the corner of Chancery Lane. I thought you would have gone
over Blackfriars’ Bridge: but, as you went my way, I deter-
| 150 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Mrs Fraser called, Tuesday evening, to recommend a housemaid. I have seen and rather like her. I will swear she is sober and good-tempered. She is 21 years of age.”
“Here is a sheet of paper that says, How do you do Mamma? Bless me! why, you have travelled almost forty miles to-day. Are you not very much fatigued? . . . .
“I am almost angry with Dr Wolcot for engaging me on Thursday, and have more than half a mind to break the engagement. I am afraid, however, that you will say, now, I should like to have this evening to myself with the family at Wimbledon, for, wicked wretch that you are! how often have you complained that my presence spoiled your pleasures. Not all your pleasures. . . . What a heavenly western breeze! It almost tears my paper from me as I write. God send you may have had that, or something as refreshing as that, on your Thursday’s ride!
“Remember how complete a Jesuit H[orne] T[ooke] is. Do not let him worm anything from you, to be employed in assailing your lord and master afterward. . . .
“Adieu. God bless you, as William says.”
The occasion of the letter from Lamb cannot now be discovered, but it is too characteristic of the writer to be omitted. The disposition shown in it, at once so genial and so humble, prevented his little tiffs with Godwin from assuming such serious proportions as did Godwin’s misunderstandings with other friends.
| A RECONCILIATION. | 151 |
“I repent. Can that God whom thy votaries say that thou hast demolished expect more? I did indite a splenetic letter, but did the black Hypocondria never gripe thy heart, till thou hast taken a friend for an enemy? The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet leads me over four inched bridges, to course my own shadow for a traitor. There are certain positions of the moon, under which I counsel thee not to take anything written from this domicile as serious.
“I rank thee with Alves, Latinè, Helvetius, or any of his cursed crew? Thou art my friend, and henceforth my philosopher—thou shalt teach Distinction to the junior branches of my household, and Deception to the greyhaired Janitress at my door.
“What! Are these atonements? Can Arcadias be brought upon knees, creeping and crouching?
“Come, as Macbeth’s drunken porter says, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock—seven times in a day shalt thou batter at my peace, and if I shut aught against thee, save the Temple of Janus, may Briareus, with his hundred hands, in each a brass knocker, lead me such a life.
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