William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VI. 1804-1806
John Horne Tooke to William Godwin, 22 October 1805
“Wimbledon, Oct. 22, 1805.
“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,
Mary Jane Godwin [née Vial] (1768-1841)
The second wife of William Godwin, whom she married in 1801 after a previous relationship
in which was born her daughter Claire Clairmont (1798-1879). With her husband she was a
London bookseller.
Jeremiah Joyce (1763-1816)
Unitarian minister and political radical educated at the New College, Hackney; he was
tried and acquitted in the treason trials of 1794. He was afterwards a preacher at the
Essex Street Chapel in London.
