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

After the subscription which had been made for the payment of his debts, which left him a considerable sum in hand, Godwin’s circumstances were fairly comfortable for some years. They were not indeed wholly so, since having begun business without capital, the heavy payments required by that business at times, which did not always correspond with his receipts, necessitated frequent raising of money on bills, and some consequent anxiety. Yet, on the whole, there was no serious difficulty, and the daily life at Skinner Street was undisturbed. Godwin’s reading became more and more devoted to past literature, the diaries from 1812 onwards make almost exclusive mention of old writers—Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, &c. His mornings were given to study, his afternoons to writing, his evenings to society or the theatre; the old names occur, which have appeared in the Diaries for years—Mackintosh, Basil Montagu, the Lambs, but few new names—in fact old age was creeping on Godwin, though his powers of mind were quite undimmed. Charles Clairmont had found occupation for himself, but still lived mainly with the Godwins; Jane was with the Shelleys abroad, or afterwards at Binfield; Fanny had more and more taken her place as a daughter at home, and, as she wrote to Mrs Shelley, “got on very well with Mamma, whose merits she could see, though she could not really like her.”

It was characteristic of Godwin, and was indeed one of the best parts of his character, that he always considered that principles were to be carried out at any cost. That the Allies were guided by immediate and pressing political needs to do all that in them lay to prevent the possibility of another Buonapartist rule, would have seemed to him no reason at all. To destroy individualism in the name of liberty seems to him the great and inexpiable crime against liberty. Individualism was to be asserted at whatever immediate cost.

To return to Godwin’s home-life. After the Shelleys returned from France, bringing Miss Clairmont with them, the latter was after a time received in Skinner Street as an occasional visitor, and in March 1816, the Shelleys being then at Binfield, Godwin paid a visit to Bracknell, and thence walked over to see his daughter. From that time there was fairly frequent intercourse established between himself and Shelley, both by letter and by visits from Shelley when in town.

On April 7, 1816, Godwin started on a tour to Scotland; his business relations with Fairley and Constable had become somewhat complicated, and the hope of making personally some satisfactory arrangement led him to undertake this long journey. The diary will give in his own words a condensed but interesting account of his fellow travellers, associates, and reading during this time.

“April 7, Su. Call on Lambert. Mail for York; Adey from Ware.

232

WILLIAM GODWIN

“April 8, M. Breakfast at Huntingdon, smuggling old woman: dine at Newark: tea Doncaster, ex-captain of Militia: sleep, Tavern, York.

“9, Tu. Call on Wolstenholme, Todd and Nicol: walk w. Nicol on the walls (Clifford’s Tower and Jail), Minster and St Mary’s Abbey: Paterson dines. Write to M. J., Fanny, Davison, and Fairley.

“10, W. Dine at Darlington: pass Durham: sleep at Newcastle, intelligent bailiff, pleasing gentleman, Cumberland farmer.

“11, Th. Miss Farkison fr. Mrs Waters: Morpeth: breakfast at Alnwick: dine at Berwick: Pease Bridge: Dunglas: Dunbar: Edinburgh: Fairley sups.

“12, F. Call on Constable; adv. Leslie, Napier, Evanses, Cadel: Castle Hill, Writers’ Library: dinner Mathews, R. Miller, Wrench, Ballantine, Downie, Playfair, Wilson, Buchanan, Thomson, Cadel, and Russell, player.

“13, Sa. Explanation; write to M. J. Shop adv. Forster (clouds), Jeffrey, &c.: walk w. Leslie, Calton Hill and Holyrood House: dinner Matthews, Wrench, Evanses, Leslie, Peter Hill, and G. H. Walker: Buchan’s card.

“14, Su. Write to M. J. Jeffrey and Boswell call: meet Ballantine: Matthews, Wench, Foster, Willison and 2 Cadels dine. Invited by Buchan.

“15, M. Call on Buchan, Fletchers and Murray (w. Fairley), Ferguson, Macdonald, Nairn and Cadel: Holyrood House and Hume w. Mathews: shop, Dalzel, Duncan and Yaniewiczes: dine at Napier’s w. Bruntons, Playfair, Leslie, Pellings.

“16, Tu. Write to M. J. Shop, Morrit, and Boswell: chaise to Kinneal w. Constable and Dr Miller: visit Linlithgow: adv. Miss Cruickshank; sleep.

GODWIN IN SCOTLAND.

233

“April 17, W. Ferrier, on Apparitions, pp. 139. Parisina: Knox v. Crosraguel ça la. Sleep.

“18, Th. Return; see Hopetoun House, Roseberry and Barnton Parks: dine at Ballantine’s w. Belcours, Douglases, Leslie, Fraser, and Constable: adv. Ainslie. Deep snow.

“19, F. Write to M. J. Shop, Hepburn and Crawford: call on Raeburn w. R. Miller and Yaniewicz (W. C.): dine at Boswell’s w. Mackenzie and fille, Jeffrey, Brewster, Coventry, L. and C.: invite Cranston.

“20, Sa. Breakfast at Murray’s w. Dewar, Ritchie, Fairley, &c., sit: Heriot’s Hospital: dine at Fletcher’s w. Brown, Craigs, Mr Miller, Miss Miller, and Miss Wilks.

“21, Su. Call on Jeffrey: Playfair calls n. Nicholsons and Jas. Ballantine’s w. Ballantine: Hugh Murray, Jamieson, Willison, and G. H. Walker dine.

“22, M. Breakfast at Ainslie’s w. Dr Ainslie and wife, Mr and Mrs Gray, Clarinda, Constable, &c.: meet Mrs Fletcher: call on Playfair and Dewar: sit: Yaniewiczes, Duncans, Ainslies and Leslie dine.

“23, Tu. Dine at Hepburn’s, Barfoot, w. Macallum, Walker, Hope, Inglis and family: sleep at Oman’s.

“24. W. Breakfast, Yaniewicz’s: shop, Dr Jamieson: Advocates’ Library: meet W. Erskine and R. Miller: call with Mrs Y. on Sir W. D. Gray, Campbell, Dewar, Ritchie, Fairley, &c., dine: Theatre w. Y’s, Duncan, Gordon, &c., sup: sleep at Oman’s, call on Gregoryn.

“25. Th. Breakfast at Brodies, w. Moore and Hepburn: call on Forster: meet Fleming: chaise w. Constable and Ballantine: dine at Abbotsford: sleep.

“26. F. Constable and Ballantine depart: Melrose w. Scott; adv. Buchann. Chas. Erskine and wife dine: take coach at Selkirk.

234

WILLIAM GODWIN

“April 27. Sa. Breakfast at Carlisle: coach to Penrith: chaise along Ulswater: dine at Wordsworth’s: call w. him on Jackson; adv. Wakefield: circuit of Grasmere: Derwent Coleridge dines: write to M. J. and Thos. Moore.

“28. Su. Derwent dines: horse to Kendal: sleep.

“29. M. Coach: breakfast at Lancaster: dine at Preston with Dilworth and Latham: sleep at Manchester.

“30. Tu. Call on Reddish, Dean and Jackson; adv. Kershaw: chaise w. Jackson and Kershaw: dine at Walker’s, Longford, w. do., Mrs Walker, Charles and 2 sisters.

“May 1. W. Call on Jackson and Dean, and (w. Kershaw) at Church, College and Hawkes. Coach evening; Stockport, Macclesfield; tea at Leek: sleep at Ashbourne.

“2. Th. Call on Mooren. seek Boothby. Coach: dine at Derby: sleep at Leicester. Write to M. J. grocer from Perth, settled in Leicestershire. Coburg Marriage.

“3. F. Coach: dine at Woburn, w. squirrel-hunt: sleep in Skinner St. H. Robinson calls.”

Through the summer of 1816 the Diary is thickly strewn with the entries of deaths. Mrs Jordan, the Bishop of Llandaff, who had been Godwin’s earliest literary patron, and Sheridan died within the same fortnight, June-July, the last especially being a loss which was sensibly felt by one who had ever admired his political career. Day after day which succeeded the funeral saw Godwin standing by Sheridan’s grave; the poetry in the man’s nature, which refused to exhibit itself in his tragedies, was wont to exhibit itself unconsciously in these pilgrimages to what became to him sacred shrines, and a walk to a dead man’s grave was the kind of hero worship which was with him a favourite form of devotion.

In September 1816 Mrs Bishop and Everina Wollstonecraft were in London, and saw a good deal of Godwin and his family. They left London on September 24th, and it was arranged that Fanny should follow her aunts early in October, and spend some time with the relatives of whom she had seen so little. It is not quite clear where she was to join her aunts, who had been long in Ireland, but, as far as can be gathered from the slight indications in the Diaries and letters, it would seem that the sisters had gone into South Wales, where some of the family still resided, that Fanny was to join them there, and cross with them to Ireland from Bristol or Haverfordwest.

Before leaving London she wrote a cheerful letter to Mary Shelley, then at Bath, and on the 7th of October she started to join her aunts. But she never reached them. On her arrival at Bristol, she wrote, what Mrs Shelley calls in her Diary, “a very alarming letter,” and Shelley started at once for Bristol. He returned that night, hoping that these fears were vain, as Fanny had pursued her journey. At Swansea she put an end to herself, without having written any further letter either to Godwin, her sister, or her aunts, who were expecting her arrival, except a few lines without address.

Godwin’s record is still more brief. On the 9th, below the account of the reading and visits of the day, is the one word “Swansea,” and next day, no doubt in consequence of a similar letter from Bristol to that received by Mrs Shelley, he started by the Bristol coach. From Bristol he went back to Bath, finding that all was over, and that Shelley had gone to Swansea, and the next day he returned to London. For some unexplained reason he did not visit his daughter at Bath. He wrote to Shelley at Swansea, and to Jane Clairmont, who was with his daughter in her lodgings, not a quarter of a mile from the York House Hotel, where he slept.

The theory, which owes its origin to Miss Clairmont, that Fanny was in love with Shelley, and that his flight with her sister prompted self-destruction, is one above all others absolutely groundless. To Shelley, as to Mary, she was an attached sister; she was never in love with him, either before or after her sister’s flight.

One month after this occurrence to the very day, another suicide, for which unhappily it is all too easy to account, finds entry in Godwin’s Diary. On Saturday, Nov. 9th, Harriet Shelley drowned herself in the Serpentine. The body was not found till Dec. 10th, and on the 16th Godwin received a letter on the subject from Shelley. It is not the object or the duty of this work to discuss the relations between Shelley and poor Harriet, and so much as is necessary has been already said, but it is impossible to pass over this tragical event without one remark. Whatever view may be taken of the breach between husband and wife, it is absolutely certain that Harriet’s suicide was not directly caused by her husband’s treatment. However his desertion of her contributed or did not contribute to the life she afterwards led, the immediate cause of her death was that her father’s door was shut against her, though he had at first sheltered her and her children. This was done by order of her sister, who would not allow Harriet access to the bed-side of her dying father.

A frequent correspondence followed between Godwin and Shelley, and on December 24th the former wrote a letter to his daughter, the first which had passed between them

SHELLEY’S MARRIAGE.

245

since she left her home. She is carefully described in the diary as M. W. G. Shelley’s second marriage took place on Monday, December 30; the entries relating to it in Godwin’s diary are extremely curious, as though intended to mislead any one who might, without sufficient information, glance at his book. It is probable that the diary in use during the year always lay on his desk, obvious to prying eyes, while those not in use were locked away. However this may be, the entries are as follows:—

The intercourse now resumed between the father and daughter was again cordial and constant. Godwin frequently visited the Shelleys at Marlow, and the diary for 1817 records excursions by water with Peacock and his son-in-law to row the boat, Mrs Godwin, Mrs Shelley, and Jane as the other sitters. They went to Medmenham and Hurley, when the talk was “of novels and perfectibility.” There were other days when Godwin and his daughter drove in a gig, and Peacock and Shelley walked to meet them at a given point, Bisham or Hampden, in the bright October weather, the last autumn of Shelley’s stay in England.

In March 1818 the Shelleys went to Italy. The immediate cause of the journey was a demand from Byron, then at Venice, for Allegra, his natural daughter, who had been under Mrs Shelley’s care from the time of her birth—about a year and a quarter before. Though Mrs Shelley had given the child all a mother’s care, and had accepted the charge ungrudgingly, there was every reason that Byron should have the superintendence of Allegra’s education, and that she should be removed from her mother’s influence, less likely now to reach her under Byron’s roof than anywhere else. But there was so much reason to fear that Byron might change his mind, that when once the summons came, scarcely a moment was lost in preparing to carry it out; and the Shelleys, with Miss Clairmont, took the child as far as Milan or Leghorn, whence it was sent to Byron at Venice, with its nurse.

Moore’s note in Byron’s life is as follows:—“This little child had been sent to him by its mother about four or five months before, under the care of a Swiss nurse, a young girl not above nineteen or twenty years of age, and in every respect unfit to have the charge of such an infant, without the superintendence of some more experienced person.”

248

WILLIAM GODWIN

This is not quite correct. Byron had himself sent for the child, and the nurse had never been intended by Mrs Shelley to do more without superintendence than to take the child the short journey in Italy to her father’s home. Lord Byron, no doubt, found himself somewhat embarrassed by the difficulties of his charge, and the child was unintentionally neglected. But no blame whatever attached to Mrs Shelley for the selection of the nurse, and she felt as strongly as Byron, that Allegra’s mother was the worst person possible to train the child.

Godwin kept up a constant correspondence with the Shelley’s, but the letters which passed are in great measure lost, and those that remain belong rather to a complete life of Shelley, which yet has to be written.

After the troubles of the past year or two, Godwin began a late summer of literary activity. His novel Mandeville was written in 1817, and the important Essay in answer to Malthus in 1818. In these years also were written many detached Essays, some of which were published in his lifetime under the title “Thoughts on Man,” and others have been only recently collected and edited, when their value has become rather antiquarian than literary. Old friends, too, from whom he had kept somewhat aloof, were resought; Basil Montagu, Mrs Inchbald, and other names unseen for some years, appear again in the Diaries; the routine of work and reading was resumed for each day, and society and the theatre again occupied many evenings. There was little pecuniary pressure, life on the whole was easy, and domestic troubles few. Mrs Godwin was able to visit some friends in France, with whom she had been intimate before her marriage, and a few extracts from her husband’s letters furnish some particulars of the family.

The following letter to Jeffrey is in answer to one which, as it appears, was written on Oct. 15th in reference to Mandeville, then just completed. Godwin’s letter is not to be found, but its contents are plain from the answer to it. A more excellent editorial letter was seldom written, and if reprinted, with the necessary alterations, it might serve as a useful circular, to be used by modern editors in answer to similar applications.

Hannah Godwin died on Dec. 27th, 1817, and her death and funeral are duly recorded in the Diary, as are from time to time visits from, and the deaths of, members of his family. But except the interchange of kindly intercourse occasionally, intimacy of thought and feeling had long

254

WILLIAM GODWIN

ceased between Godwin and his family. Save perhaps in early youth, there can be no cordial pleasure in family gatherings, when the relatives live in different intellectual worlds, and Godwin’s sympathies were at all times called out rather by community of mind than community of blood. Consanguinity is a fetish, to which even those whose faith in it is on the wane, find it difficult to pay only the legitimate respect.

A few letters to Mrs Godwin for 1818 may carry on the family history, and, though the events are few, they show Godwin in his lighter and pleasanter moods. Comparative freedom from care had softened Mrs Godwin’s temper, and the absence of her step-children and her own contributed to the same result. Charles Clairmont had found his way to Vienna, where he was engaged as tutor to the Imperial Princes, married a German lady, and made his home permanently on the continent. His sister, when not with the Shelleys, occasionally lived with him, and also became at one time governess in the family of Lady Mountcashel, who had, by a second marriage, become Mrs Mason, and was resident in Italy.

The remaining letter for the year, which seems worth preservation, relates to William Godwin, junior. The father’s matured and completed estimate of his son will appear in a later year; but though here the trouble that William had given at home is not unnaturally concealed, the close analysis of character, which was always a favourite pursuit of Godwin, is not abandoned, even when his interests and feelings might alike incline him to be less minute.

The answer to Malthus was published by Longmans, on Nov. 25th, 1820. But it was published for the author, and as will be seen by a subsequent letter to Mrs Shelley, failed to realize in any degree the sum on which the writer had counted.

≪ PREV

NEXT ≫

Thomas Massa Alsager (1779-1846) Journalist and music critic for the Times; he was the friend of Leigh Hunt and Thomas Barnes; John Keats was reading Alsager's copy of Chapman's poems when he wrote the famous sonnet.

Francis Bacon, first baron Verulam and viscount St Albans (1561-1626) English Jurist and philosopher; author of Essays (1597, 1625), The Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum Organum (1620).

James Ballantyne (1772-1833) Edinburgh printer in partnership with his younger brother John; the company failed in the financial collapse of 1826.

John Ballantyne (1774-1821) Edinburgh publisher and literary agent for Walter Scott; he was the younger brother of the printer James Ballantyne.

Eliza Bishop [née Wollstonecraft] (1763-1833) The younger sister of Mary Wollstonecraft; in 1782 she married Meredith Bishop from whom she later separated.

David Booth (1766-1846) Scottish autodidact; he taught school and published on grammar and political economy.

Sir Brooke Boothby, seventh baronet (1744-1824) English poet and dandy, educated at St John's College, Cambridge; he was an acquaintance of Rousseau and a member of Anna Seward's literary circle at Lichfield.

Sir Alexander Boswell, first baronet (1775-1822) Scottish poet, antiquary, and MP, the son of James Boswell; he was killed in a duel with James Stuart of Dunearn.

Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) Scottish natural philosopher and editor of the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia (1807-1830). He contributed to the Literary Gazette and invented the kaleidoscope.

Charles Parr Burney (1785-1864) The son of the younger Charles Burney; educated at Merton College, Oxford, he succeeded his father at the Greenwich Academy (1814-35) and was rector of Sible Hedingham and archdeacon of St. Albans (1840) and Colchester (1845).

Allegra Byron (1817-1822) Byron's illegitimate daughter by Claire Clairmont.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The author of Childe Harold and Don Juan.

Robert Cadell (1788-1849) Edinburgh bookseller who partnered with Archibald Constable, whose daughter Elizabeth he married in 1817. After Constable's death and the failure of Ballantyne he joined with Scott to purchase rights to the Waverley Novels.

Charles Gaulis Clairmont (1795-1850) The son of Charles Gaulis [Clairmont] and Mary Jane Clairmont [Godwin]; he was apprenticed to Archibald Constable in Edinburgh (1811) and from 1816 lived mostly on the Continent, settling in Vienna.

Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (1798-1879) The illegitimate daughter of the second Mrs. William Godwin; she was part of the Shelley household in Italy and the mother of Byron's daughter Allegra, afterwards working as a governess in Russia.

Derwent Coleridge (1800-1883) The son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; educated at St John's College, Cambridge, he was rector of Helston in Cornwall, principal of St Mark's College (1841), and a writer on education. He contributed to Knight's Quarterly Review.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) English poet and philosopher who projected Lyrical Ballads (1798) with William Wordsworth; author of Biographia Literaria (1817), On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other works.

Archibald Constable (1774-1827) Edinburgh bookseller who published the Edinburgh Review and works of Sir Walter Scott; he went bankrupt in 1826.

Andrew Coventry (1764-1832) Educated at University of Edinburgh, he was a Scottish physician and the first Professor of agriculture at Edinburgh University (1764-1831).

George Cranstoun, Lord Corehouse (1771-1850) Scottish judge and scholar, the brother-in-law of Dugald Stewart and friend of Walter Scott; he was raised to the bench in 1826 as Lord Corehouse.

William Henry Curran (1789 c.-1858) Irish barrister, the son and biographer of John Philpot Curran; he wrote for the Edinburgh Review and the New Monthly Magazine.

Cyrus the Great (d. 530 BC) Son of Cambyses, he was the founder of the Persian Empire. His life is celebrated in Xenophon's Cyropædia.

Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848) English essayist and literary biographer; author of Curiosities of Literature (1791). Father of the prime minister.

Thomas Davison (1766-1831) London printer who worked for Thomas Longman and John Murray.

Robert Dillworth (d. 1845) Liverpool bookseller (1799-1845) and operator of a circulating library.

Charles Erskine of Shielfield (1771-1825) Scottish Writer to the Signet; he was baron balie of Melrose and sheriff-substitute of Selkirkshire under Walter Scott.

David Steuart Erskine, eleventh earl of Buchan (1742-1829) Founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1780), he contributed essays to the Gentleman's Magazine, Scots Magazine, The Bee, and the Literary Gazette.

Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823) Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).

William Erskine, Lord Kinneder (1768-1822) The son of an episcopal clergyman of the same name, he was a Scottish advocate and a close friend and literary advisor to Sir Walter Scott.

John Fairley (1823 fl.) Edinburgh manufacturer of umbrellas and parasols who acted as William Godwin's book-agent in Scotland. He appears to have retired from business in 1823.

Elizabeth Farthing Beauchamp [née Westbrook] (1782 c.-1854) The elder sister of Harriet Westbrook, Shelley's first wife; in 1822 she married the banker Robert Farthing Beauchamp.

Eliza Fenwick [née Jago] (1766-1840) The daughter of Thomas Jago and wife of the journalist John Fenwick; she was a novelist and member of the Wollstonecraft-Godwin. In 1814 she emigrated to Barbados and spent her later years in the United States.

Eliza Ann Fenwick (1789-1827) The daughter of the writer Eliza Fenwick (d. 1840); she performed as an actress before emigrating to America with her mother, where she was unhappily married the actor William Rutherford; she died in New York.

Thomas James Fenwick (1769-1850) The brother of the newspaper editor John Fenwick; he was a linen-draper in Penzance who failed in 1803, and afterwards a clothier and tailor in Limehouse.

John Ferriar (1761-1815) Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a Manchester physician and friend of Walter Scott and Richard Heber; he published Illustrations of Sterne (1798).

King George IV of Great Britain (1762-1830) Prince Regent (1811-20) and King of Great Britain (1820-1830).

Marguerite Georges (1787-1867) French actress at the Théâtre Français in Paris.

Joseph Gerrald (1763-1796) Political radical and member of the London Corresponding Society; born in the West Indies, he was a pupil and friend of Samuel Parr who was convicted of sedition and died in Botany Bay.

Fanny Imlay Godwin (1794-1816) The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay; she lived in the Godwin household and died a suicide.

Hannah Godwin (d. 1817) The younger sister of William Godwin; she worked as a dressmaker in London.

Philip Hull Godwin (1765-1852) The younger brother of William Godwin; he was a farmer in East Bradenham, Norfolk.

Mary Godwin [née Wollstonecraft] (1759-1797) English feminist, author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); she married William Godwin in 1797 and died giving birth to their daughter Mary.

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.

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.

William Godwin jun. (1803-1832) The son of William and Mary Jane Godwin; he was a reporter for the Morning Chronicle who died of cholera.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English essayist and literary critic; author of Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817), Lectures on the English Poets (1818), and The Spirit of the Age (1825).

John Hepburn (1770 c.-1823) Scottish landowner of Bearford in Haddington; educated at Edinburgh University, he adopted radical views in the 1790s and was acquainted with Horne Tooke and William Godwin.

Peter Hill (1754-1837) Edinburgh bookseller and correspondent of Robert Burns; he first worked as a clerk for Thomas Creech; Archibald Constable later served as his apprentice.

Thomas Hill (1760-1840) English book-collector who entertained members of Leigh Hunt's circle at his cottage at Sydenham in Kent. He was a proprietor of the Monthly Mirror and later a writer for the Morning Chronicle. Charles Lamb described him as “the wettest of dry salters.”

Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809) English playwright and novelist; a friend of William Godwin indicted for treason in 1794; author of The Road to Ruin (1792). His Memoirs (1816) were completed by William Hazlitt.

Thomas Holcroft Jr. (1803-1852) The son of the dramatist and his wife Louisa Mercier Holcroft; he was a clerk in the House of Commons before 1819, spent time in India, and was Paris correspondent for the Morning Herald and secretary of the Asiatic Society.

Raphael Holinshed (1525 c.-1580 c.) English historian; published Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577), the source for several of Shakespeare's history plays.

Joseph Hume (1777-1855) After service in India he became a radical MP for Weymouth (1812), Aberdeen (1818-30, 1842-55), Middlesex (1830-37), and Kilkenny (1837-41); he was an associate of John Cam Hobhouse and a member of the London Greek Committee. Maria Edgeworth: “Don't like him much; attacks all things and persons, never listens, has no judgment.”

Gilbert Imlay (1754-1828) American writer, speculator, and radical who fathered a child, Fanny Imlay, with Mary Wollstonecraft.

Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821) English actress and playwright; author of two popular novels, A Simple Story (1791) and Nature and Art (1796).

John Jamieson (1759-1838) Scottish clergyman and antiquary educated at Glasgow University; he published Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 2 vols (1808).

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850) Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the Edinburgh Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of poetry.

Dorothy Jordan [née Phillips] (1761-1816) Irish actress; after a career in Ireland and the provinces she made her London debut in 1785; at one time she was a mistress of the Duke of Clarence.

James Kenney (1780-1849) Irish playwright, author of The World (1808); he was a friend of Lamb, Hunt, Moore, and Rogers.

Thomas Kershaw (1824 fl.) Manchester calico printer and radical friend of William Hazlitt; he was a member of the Manchester Constitutional Society and a patron of the painter Daniel Stringer.

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.

Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847) Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.

John Lambert (1816 fl.) He was the printer of the Morning Chronicle (1793-1810).

Leopold I King of Belgium (1790-1865) The son of Prince Francis Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; after serving in the Russian army he married Princess Charlotte in May 1816; in 1831 he was inaugurated as the first king of the Belgians.

Sir John Leslie (1766-1832) Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University, author of Experimental Enquiries into the Nature and Properties of Heat (1804), and contributor to the Edinburgh Review.

John Liston (1776 c.-1846) English comic actor who performed at the Haymarket and Covent Garden.

Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831) Scottish man of letters, author of The Man of Feeling (1770) and editor of The Mirror (1779-80) and The Lounger (1785-87).

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).

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) English political economist educated at Jesus College, Cambridge; he was author of An Essay on the Principles of Population (1798; 1803).

James Marshall (d. 1832) Translator and literary jobber; he was a schoolmate and bosom friend of William Godwin, a drinking companion of Charles Lamb, and associate of Mary Shelley.

Queen Mary of Scotland (1542-1587) The controversial queen of Scotland (1561-1567) who found a number of champions in the romantic era; Sir Walter Scott treats her sympathetically in The Abbott (1820).

Charles Mathews (1776-1835) Comic actor at the Haymarket and Covent Garden theaters; from 1818 he gave a series of performances under the title of Mr. Mathews at Home.

Robert Miller (1828 fl.) Edinburgh bookseller; he was the partner of Alexander Manners (1794-1807) and afterwards his successor.

Basil Montagu (1770-1851) An illegitimate son of the fourth earl of Sandwich, he was educated at Charterhouse and Christ's College, Cambridge, and afterwards was a lawyer, editor, and friend of Samuel Romilly, William Godwin, and William Wordsworth.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French writer and moralist, magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux (1581-85); he was the author of Essais (1580, 1595).

Margaret Moore, countess of Mountcashell [née King] [Mrs. Mason] (1773-1835) The daughter of the second Earl of Kingston who employed Mary Wollstonecraft as her governess; in 1791 she married Stephen Moore, second Earl Mountcashell (d. 1822); she eloped with George William Tighe whom she married after the death of her husband. She was the “Mrs. Mason” of the Byron-Shelley circle at Pisa.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Irish poet and biographer, author of the Irish Melodies (1807-34), The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and Lalla Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.

Mary Anne Morgan [née Brent] (1828 fl.) The wife of John James Morgan (d. 1820) whom she married 15 December 1800; her sister Charlotte lived with the family.

Hugh Murray (1779-1846) Employed as a clerk in the excise office in Edinburgh, he was a writer on geography elected fellow of the Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Geographical Society of London; he was at one time editor of the Scots Magazine.

Macvey Napier (1776-1847) Scottish barrister, editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and from 1829 editor of the Edinburgh Review.

Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St. Helena (1815).

William Nicholson (1781-1844) Edinburgh painter who made portraits of many literary people; he was secretary of the Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) English poet and comic novelist; author of Headlong Hall (1816), Melincourt (1817), Nightmare Abbey (1818), Crotchet Castle (1831), and Gryll Grange (1860).

John Playfair (1748-1819) Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University and Whig man of letters who contributed to the Edinburgh Review.

Ann Radcliffe [née Ward] (1764-1823) Gothic novelist, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797).

Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) Scottish portrait painter and friend of Sir Walter Scott.

John Reddish (1750 c.-1822 fl.) Manchester bookseller; in 1822 he was convicted of seditious libel for selling A Political Dictionary.

William Ritchie (1781-1831) The son of a flax-dresser, he practiced law in Edinburgh before becoming one of the founders, and literary editor, of The Scotsman newspaper (1817).

Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) Attorney, diarist, and journalist for The Times; he was a founder of the Athenaeum Club.

Henry Blanch Rosser (1799 c.-1822) The son of Richard Rosser, a perfumer and neighbour of William Godwin; he was educated at Peterhouse and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge (B.A. 1823. He was Godwin's pupil and an acquaintance of Jeremy Bentham before going to Cambridge. He drowned while on a visit to Paris.

William Rutherford (1781-1829) The son of the Rev. Thomas Rutherford; he married Eliza Ann Fenwick (daughter of the novelist) in Barbados and left her to pursue an acting career in Britain; he died a suicide.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The Bard of Avon.

Harriet Shelley [née Westbrook] (1795-1816) Shelley's first wife, with whom he eloped in 1811 and who committed suicide after he had transferred his affections to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851) English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works (1839-40).

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of Queen Mab (1813), The Revolt of Islam (1817), The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821).

Sir Timothy Shelley, second baronet (1753-1844) Father of the poet, a whig MP for New Shoreham, who was disgusted by his son's atheism and imprudent connections.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) Anglo-Irish playwright, author of The School for Scandal (1777), Whig MP and ally of Charles James Fox (1780-1812).

Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) Professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University (1785-1809); he was author of Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792-93).

François-Joseph Talma (1763-1826) French tragic actor and reformer of the stage who was admired by Napoleon.

Arthur Thistlewood (1774-1820) English radical and disciple of Thomas Spence; he was hanged after the exposure of an assassination plot against the British cabinet.

George William Tighe [Mr. Mason] (1776-1837) The son of Edward Tighe, M.P., and his wife Anne Jones; he was educated at Eton (1785-94) and Lincoln's Inn. He eloped with the second Lady Mountcashell, whom he married in 1822 after the death of her husband; they lived in Pisa as Mr. and Mrs. Mason. Thomas Medwin describes him as the son of the poet Mary Tighe; perhaps he passed as such in the Byron-Shelley circle.

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

Felix Vaughan (1768 c.-1799) English barrister educated at the Inner Temple; he was part of the legal team for the defense in the 1794 treason trials.

Thomas Walker (1749-1817) Manchester cotton merchant and political radical acquitted of treason in 1794; the police magistrate Thomas Walker (1784-1836) was his son.

James Watson (1766-1838) English radical and ally of Henry Hunt; he was acquitted of a charge of high treason in 1817 following the Spa Fields riot.

Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff (1737-1816) Regius Professor of Divinity, Trinity College, Cambridge and bishop of Llandaff (1782); he published Apology for Christianity (1776) in response to Gibbon, and Apology for the Bible (1796) in response to Paine.

Josiah Wedgwood the younger (1769-1843) Of Maer Hall in Staffordshire, the son and successor of the famous potter; he was the patron of Coleridge and a founding member of the King of Clubs.

Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Soldier and statesman; commander in the Peninsular Campaign (1809-1813), he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and was prime minister (1828-1830).

John Westbrook (d. 1835) Of Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square, former proprietor of The Mount coffeehouse; he was the father of Harriet Shelley, the first wife of the poet.

Everina Wollstonecraft (1765-1841) The daughter of Edward John Wollstonecraft and younger sister of Mary Wollstonecraft; she was employed as a governess and schoolmistress.

John Wolstenholme (d. 1828) Bookseller in York and publisher of the Yorkshire Gazette.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) With Coleridge, author of Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.

Felix Yaniewicz (1762-1848) Violinist born in Vilna, Lithuania; he was a founder of the Philharmonic Society in London who spent his later years in Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal. (1802-1929). Founded by Francis Jeffery, Sydney Smith, and Henry Brougham, the Edinburgh Review was for decades a principal organ of Whig opinion in Britain.

Morning Chronicle. (1769-1862). James Perry was proprietor of this London daily newspaper from 1789-1821; among its many notable poetical contributors were Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Rogers, and Campbell.

Sir Alexander Boswell, first baronet (1775-1822) Heir followeth the coppie of the ressoning which was betuix the Abbote of Crosraguell and John Knox, in Mayboill concerning the Masse, in the yeare of God, a thousand fiue hundreth thre scoir and two yeares. (Edinburgh: G. Ramsay, 1812). Edited by Boswell.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “Parisina: a Poem” in The Siege of Corinth, a Poem; Parisina: a Poem. (London: Murray, 1816). A tale of incest founded on an incident recorded in Gibbon's Antiquities of the House of Brunswick.

John Ferriar (1761-1815) An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1813).

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) Mandeville. A Tale of the Seventeenth Century in England. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1817).

William Godwin (1756-1836) Of Population; an Enquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, being an Answer to Mr. Malthus's Essay on that Subject. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1820).

William Godwin (1756-1836) Thoughts on Man: his Nature, Productions, and Discoveries: interspersed with some Particulars respecting the Author. (London: E. Wilson, 1831). A collection of essays.

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) An Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the future Improvement of Society. With remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers. (London: J. Johnson, 1798). Reprinted by John Murray in 1815.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Letters and Journals of Lord Byron with Notices of his Life. 2 vols (London: Murray, 1830). The first authorized collection of Byron's letters and journals.

Plutarch (46 c.-120 c.) Plutarch’s Lives. Translated from the Greek by Several Hands. 4 vols (London: Jacob Tonson, 1683-85). With a life by John Dryden.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Guy Mannering, or, the Astrologer. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Ballantyne, 1815). The second of Scott's historical novels, published only a few months after Waverley.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Lady of the Lake: a Poem. (Edinburgh: John Ballantyne, 1810). A metrical romance set in the Highlands, often regarded as Scott's most successful poem.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Lay of the Last Minstrel: a Poem. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805). The first of Scott's metrical romances, the Lay recounts the love of Margaret of Branksome for Henry of Cranstoun during a sixteenth-century border raid.

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