Adieu. Believe me your affectionate friend, Mary Imvay.® And then Rowan to Mary. This letter was written before the news of Mary’s tragic death had reached 5 Thomas Cooper, second cousin and pupil of Godwin; he became an actor and toured America. 6 This letter was first printed in Rowan’s Autobiography (1840). 393 SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOIRS him. He added a postscript on receipt of this sad information.”
_ Brandywine, near Wilmington, Delaware, Sept. 15, 1797.
Dear Mapam.—I rejoice most sincerely that you have such a companion, protector, and friend as I believe him to be, whose name the papers inform me you now bear. I have been much to blame. In the more than two years that I have been in America I have written only thrice to you. You were not happy. I had no right to trouble you with my dark reveries. I was displeased with my past and my present conduct and undecided as to my future; how could I speak comfort to so wounded a mind as your’s? NowI may be allowed to croak. You know it was my fashion in Paris. Through my wife’s prudent conduct she has been permitted to remain in possession of my property, and I have thus become a pensioner of the Irish Government. That I have spent only what was necessary for my subsistence does not satisfy me. Every letter which I receive from Mrs. H. R., though couched in the most affectionate terms, yet shows me that what I called acting from principle was in her idea wild ambition or foolish vanity. A mode has been pointed out to me by which I might possibly rejoin my family, but it is a renunciation of principle. I cannot accede to the proposition. I should be for ever unhappy, and, I think, should disgrace my children even as long as it was remem- bered that I was their ancestor. As my growling, however, signified little, I set about procuring an independence, and with this view commenced calico printer, &c., on the banks of the Brandywine.
7] have already quoted a short passage from this letter in my account of Rowan.
304 fe C) go Me Bethe Bie oe I have connected myself with a good sans culotte dyer from Manchester, who had two great faults which forced him to quit that place—he could read and he could speak. I rent the place where we are. Aldred, my partner, has the stone mansion, and I have a most romantic corner built, upon a surface of 18 ft. square, a house in the second stage of civilization, viz. a log house, where Charles, who has a daughter, live and cook, &c., just as you saw in the Rue Mousseaux.
Nov. 17.—This has been lying by me, and the last papers announce a melancholy event—and have you so shortly enjoyed the calm repose I hoped you were in possession of (?). I hope the report is false; if true, let this convey my condolence to Pets. we ARCHD. HAMILTON Rowan.
Before tracing Mary’s footsteps through the year 1796, it is desirable to examine that last book of hers to appear during her life-time: the Letters from Sweden, etc., to which reference has just been made. $ I cannot agree with Kegan Paul’s statement that this book consists merely of Mary’s letters to Imlay ‘divested of all that was personal and private.’ Undoubtedly she used these letters as a chronological basis and took some passages from them, but her book as a whole is obviously a new creation.
Godwin’s theory as to the production and publica- tion date of these letters is as follows:...The most inapprehensive reader may conceive what was the mental torture she endured, when he considers, that she was twice, within an interval 8 Letters / Written / During a short Residence / In / Sweden, Norway, and Denmark / By Mary Wollstonecraft. / London: J. Johnson, St. Paul’s Church-Yard. / 1796.
M,W, 305 U : a = SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOIRS of four months, from the end of May to the beginning of October, prompted by it to purposes of suicide. Yet in this period she wrote her Letters from — Norway. Shortly after its expiration, she prepared them for the press, and they were published in the — close of that year.: I am a little dubious about accepting this date, q for the book’s earliest notice was in the following February. Of the book itself Godwin writes: The narrative of this voyage is now before the world, and perhaps a book of travels that so — irresistibly seizes on the heart, never, in any other — instance, found its way from the press. The occasional harshness and ruggedness of character, that diversify her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, here totally disappear. If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with melancholy, and dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius which com- mands all our admiration. Affliction has tempered her heart to a softness almost more than human; and the gentleness of her spirit seems precisely to accord with all the romance of unbounded attach- ment.
The anonymous author of 4 Defence calls them: Letters so replete with correctness of remark, delicacy of feeling, and pathos of expression, that they will cease to exist only with the language in which they are written.
Southey wrote to his friend Joseph Cottle, on March 13, 1797: Have you ever met with Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters from Sweden and Norway? She has made 306 me in love with a cold climate, and frost and snow, with a northern moonlight.
William Bates, in his biographical sketches for The Maclise Portrait Gallery, says: Mary Wollstonecraft has left one book, at least, which ought to give her a permanent place in literature. This is her Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796, 8vo), of which it may safely be said that they contain more soul and feeling than any epistolary work in the language, and more irresis- . tibly make the reader in love with the writer.
Perhaps the secret of this book’s charm lies in her method of writing it. She says in the ‘ Advertise- ment’: THE writing of travels, or memoirs, has ever been a pleasant employment; for vanity or sensibility always renders it interesting. In writing these desultory letters, I found I could not avoid being continually the first person—‘ the little hero of each tale.’ I tried to correct this fault, if it be one, for they were designed for publication; but in pro- portion as I arranged my thoughts, my letter, I found, became stiff and affected: I, therefore, determined to let my remarks and reflections flow unrestrained, as I perceived that I could not give a just description of what I saw, but by relating the effect different objects had produced on my mind and feelings, whilst the impression was still fresh.
A person has a right, I have sometimes thought, when amused by a witty or interesting egotist, to talk of himself when he can win our attention by acquiring our affection. Whether I deserve to rank among this privileged number, my readers 307 meer Stee oe Sone can ‘judge—and I gave them lea _ the book, if they do not wish to become acquainted, With ane: The praise of the Letters by SARC REET revi was nearly unanimous. Almost the only excep was the writer of the review in The Monthly Mt who could see nothing but faults and heresy. a Rather than attempt the difficult task of extractin ng. from a book that is all good, I would merely recom: mend Mary’s letters to lovers of literature. Her descriptions of scenery; her opinions—so amazing — in their modernity—on hygiene, freedom of thought, | the burdens of conventionality and so forth; he love for her child; her affectionate observation ‘simple folk and her hatred of ‘ business men ’—are all so winning and so impressive, that the book must. be its own advocate. Certainly no finer one could be imagined.
The time of Mary’s last parting with Imlay and of © the renewal of her acquaintance with Godwin was — now very near. On Imlay’s return from his stay in ~ Paris they met again on two separate occasions. The — first of these was ‘ when Imlay had been already more | than a fortnight in town’ (say in February 1796) and Mary unexpectedly happened on him in the Christie — house, then ‘ full of company.’
Her child was with her. She entered, and in a firm manner, immediately led up the child, now near two years of age, to the knees of its father. He retired with Mary into another apartment, and promised to dine with her at her lodging, I believe, 308 a 7 a eee, oO Re ee Oe me aes PARTING FROM IMLAY the next day. At this meeting, the next day, he aroused anew all Mary’s hopes, by his amiable conduct with her. But it was not to last, and the final encounter took place in April, on her return from Berkshire. They met by accident upon the New Road; he alighted from his horse, and walked with her for some time; and the rencounter passed, as she assured me, without producing in her any oppressive emotion.® Godwin tells us that ‘the day after this interview (the one in February), she set out upon a visit to the country (‘to Berkshire,’ adds the second edition), where she spent nearly the whole of the month of March...She was at the house of an old and intimate friend, a lady of the name of Cotton, whose partiality for her was strong and sincere. Mrs. Cotton’s near-neighbour was Sir William East,! and, from the joint effect of the kindness of her friend, and the hospitable and distinguishing attentions of this respectable family, she derived considerable benefit.’
® Kegan Paul, William Godwin, i. 286, 7.
1Sir William East, first Bart. (1737-8-1819), of Hall Place, Berks., High Sheriff, 1766-7, cr. Baronet June 5, 1766; m. 1st June 29, 1763, Hannah, second daughter of Henry Cassamajor, and secondly, July 28, 1768, Miss Jackson, having by his first wife issue. Sir Gilbert, second Bart., Augustus Henry; Mary, m. 1785, Sir William Clayton, fourth Earl of Marden, and had a second son, Sir George East.
309 IX 1796-1797 MARY’S MEETING WITH GODWIN AND THEIR MARRIAGE—MARY’S DEATH IN CHILDBIRTH —TRIBUTES.
Kecan Paut fixes the time of Godwin’s renewed acquaintance with Mary at a rather early date. He quotes from Godwin’s records of the year 1795 an account of this gathering: In my little deserted mansion I received, on the 22nd of April, a party of twelve persons, the most of whom good-humouredly invited themselves to dine with me, and for whom I ordered provisions from a neighbouring coffee-house. Among this party were Dr. Parr and his two daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh, Mr. Holeroft, Mrs. Wollstone- craft, and Mrs. Inchbald. I was also introduced about this time by Merry, the poet, to a most accomplished and delightful woman, the celebrated Mrs. Robinson.
Kegan Paul remarks that Godwin’s Diary records (‘in scarce intelligible private notes’) the increasing intimacy with Mary Wollstonecraft, of which more hereafter, and there is some evidence that Godwin, 310 ee my child” >) “ Be calm by William Blake From the original drawing 13) Pp. 207 (cf. above, MEETING WITH GODWIN during this year, might, even at his mature age, have said in reference to her as Proteus said of Julie: Thou hast metamorphos’d me, Made me neglect my studies, lose my time; for the record of work is slender, and there is less evidence of interest in public questions.
The same authority, in his ‘ Prefatory Memoir,’ throws additional light on these early meetings. Speaking of Mary Hays he remarks: She was a lady of some literary fame in her own day, which fame she long survived, dying in 1843, aged eighty-three. At her house Mary Wollstone- craft met William Godwin once or twice before she went to Norway, and there they met again when after her separation from Imlay she went once more into society.
Godwin wrote as follows to Miss Hays in answer to her invitation to him to renew the acquaintance: I will do myself the pleasure of waiting on you on Friday, and shall be happy to meet Mrs. Woll- stonecraft, of whom I know not that I ever said a word of harm, and who has frequently amused herself by depreciating me. But I trust you acknowledge in me the reality of a habit upon which I pique myself, that I speak of the qualities of others uninfluenced by personal considerations, and am as prompt to do justice to an enemy as to a friend.
Godwin himself relates their next meeting; he says: ‘It was on the fourteenth of April that I first saw her after her excursion into Berkshire.’ He also 311 SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOIRS tells us that, since her return, she had taken a residence — in Cumming-Street, Pentonville, not far from where — he dwelt.
Gradually the friendship melted into love, as meeting followed meeting. Godwin has told his own story of that ripening affection. How inaccurate © was the gossip current about Mary throughout this — year is shown by the following extract from Farington’s Diary: Nov. 11, 1796.—I told Opie it had been reputed that he was going to be married to Mrs. Wolsten- — craft, but that could not be as she is already married to Mr. Imlay an American. He replied that would not have been an obstacle if he had had any such intention, as Mrs. Wolstencraft had herself informed him that she never was married to Imlay, but lived under his protection as an American to avoid a prison and had a Child by him.
So ended the year 1796 and began the last year of Mary’s life. She was officially married to Godwin in Old St. Pancras Church, March 29, Godwin’s friend James Marshal, and the clerk of the church, being the only witnesses. This marriage brought a number of letters and comments from friends; some from contemporaries not quite so friendly.
First, Thomas Holcroft: April 6, 1797. From my very heart and soul I give you joy.
I think you the most extraordinary married pair in existence. May your happiness be as pure as 1 firmly persuade myself it must be. I hope and expect to see you both, and very soon. If you show coldness, or refuse me, you will do injustice siz _— Z 2 ’ MARRIAGE TO GODWIN to a heart which, since it has really known you, never for a moment felt cold to you.
I cannot be mistaken concerning the woman you have married. It is Mrs. W. Your secrecy a little pains me. It tells me you do not yet know me. T. Hoxcrort.
Godwin himself wrote to announce his marriage to Mary Hays: April 10.
My fair neighbour desires me to announce to you a piece of news, which it is consonant to the regard that she and I entertain for you, you should learn rather from us than from any other quarter. She bids me remind you of the earnest way in which you pressed me to prevail upon her to change her name, and she directs me to add, that it has happened to me, like many other disputants, to be entrapped in my own toils; in short, that we found that there was no way so obvious for her to drop the name of Imlay, as to assume the name of Godwin. Mrs. Godwin—who the devil is that? —will be glad to see you at No. 29, Polygon, Somers Town, whenever you are inclined to favour her with a call.?
A letter * from ‘ Anna Letitia Barbauld’ to ‘ Mrs. Beecroft ’ contains the following sentences: Hampstead. 17th April, 1797...I suppose you have seen it in the papers the marriage of Mr. Godwin and Mrs. Imlay alias Miss Woolstonecraft. A very suitable match, but numberless are the squibs that are thrown at Mr.
1 Kegan Paul, William Godwin, i. 240. 2Tbid. in his ‘ Prefatory Memoir’ to his 1879 book, Letters, p. lv. ® Recently in the possession of Messrs. Maggs of London. 313 SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOIRS Godwin on the occasion, and he winces not a little on receiving the usual congratulations. In order to give the connection as little as possible the appearance of such a vulgar and debasing tie as matrimony, the parties have established separate establishments, and the husband only visits his mistress like a lover when each is dressed, rooms in order, &c. And this may possibly last till they have a family, then they will probably join quietly in one menage, like other folks.
He says he submitted to the ceremony in com- pliance with the prejudices of Mrs. Imlay. Now as it is plain she had them not, at one time at least, the excuse will barely serve. But marriage is so much the dictate of nature, that one may say with little probability of being mistaken to the great despiser of it, ‘ to this complexion thou must come at last.’
Mrs. Inchbald ‘ expressed her feelings freely ’: April 11, 1797.
I most sincerely wish you and Mrs. Godwin joy. But, assured that your joyfulness would obliterate from your memory every trifling engagement, I have entreated another person to supply your place, and perform your office in securing a box on Reynold’s night. If I have done wrong, when you next marry, I will act differently.
Joseph Ritson wrote to his nephew, Joseph Frank, of Stockton: 10 June, 1797.
I neither have read, nor have any inclination to read, Godwin’s essays; though I have no doubt that the work has merit...I suppose I might call ‘The Enquirer’ an unhappy title, from the author’s having already published ‘ An Enquiry’; 314 MARRIAGE TO GODWIN perhaps, however, you, who have perused the book, may find the name sufficiently apposite to justify the repetition. It would seem as if one was always to be enquiring, without ever coming to a con- clusion.
You have heard, by the way, that he is lately married to Mary (alias Mistress) Wolstonecraft, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, which he was supposed to hold in the utmost detestation or contempt. His cara sposa, it seems, had been deceived by trusting to the honour of philosophy of one hackney author already.-..-.4 The Milnes-Gaskell MS., already cited, says, of the delay in announcing the marriage: Mrs. Procter told me that Godwin concealed his marriage with Mary Wollstonecraft because she was in the receipt of an annuity from 3 people! ® Kegan Paul informs us that ‘ into one plan of God- win’s, which may seem strange, his wife willingly fell. His strong view on the possibility that families may 4 The Letters of Joseph Ritson, Esq., Edited chiefly from Originals in the possession of his Nephew. To which is prefixed a Memoir of the author by Sir Harris Nicolas, K.C.M.G. In Two Volumes. London: William Pickering.
1833. 5 Mary’s own daughter confirms this curious statement: My father narrowly circumscribed both his receipts and disbursements. The maintenance of a family had never been contemplated, and could not at once be provided for. My mother, accustomed to a life of struggle and poverty, was so beloved by her friends, that several, and Mr. Johnson in particular, had stood between her and any of the annoyances and mortifications of debt. But this must cease when she married...(Letter quoted by Kegan Paul, William Godwin, 1. 239.)
315 SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOIRS weary of the society of their different members, led — him to take rooms in a house in Evesham Place, about twenty doors from that in the Polygon, Somers Town, which was their joint home.’ The same MS. cited immediately above remarks on this arrangement: ‘The party who lives in the other house, God" of his wife.’
While Mary was living in this pseudo-single state she wrote these two notes to her new friend Mrs. Reveley, whose son Henry was one of Fanny’s playmates: Dear Mapa, Little Eliza has been here two or three hours; and appears so horrified at not seeing her playmates, that I send to remind you of your promise. The boy is so fine it would be a pity to deprive them of the expected pleasure; nay, we hope to see Henry return with the messenger, though you should have chanced to misunder- stand me.® Little Fanny would be very glad to have the promised Rake, in the course of a day or two, be- cause she wishes to make Hay in the fields opposite to her house. If Henry will bring it she shall like to have a tumble with him on the Hay. The Pitchfork has been used every day.
Fanny sends her love to Henry, and wishes him to direct his next letter to herself, and she will put it up with her books, in her own closet.
* This note is now printed for the first time. The original was inserted by Frederick Locker-Lampson in his copy of Mary: A Fiction. Locker-Lampson has written in ink on the fly-leaf to which this note is attached: ‘ The autograph of Mary Wollstonecraft, probably addressed to Mrs. Reveley, in the early days of their acquaintance. Mrs. R.’s boy was certainly called Henry.’
316 LETTERS TO GODWIN Mama hopes to see Mrs. Reveley on Saturday (half after four) if not before. She sent a note yesterday by the Post.
Polygon, Wednesday morning.?
It is here permissible to give a few extracts from _Mary’s letters to Godwin from the beginning of the year up to her tragic death.
Jan. 5, 1797. Thursday morning.
I was very glad that you were not with me last night, for I could not rouse myself. To say the truth, I was unwell and out of spirits; I am better to-day.
I shall take a walk before dinner, and expect to see you this evening, chez moi, about eight, if you have no objection.
Jan 12, 1797. Thursday morning.
I am better this morning, but it snows so in- cessantly, that I do not know how I shall be able to keep my appointment this evening. What say you? But you have no petticoats to dangle in the snow. Poor women—how they are beset with plagues—within and without.
Feb. 3, 1797. Friday morning.
Mrs. Inchbald was gone into the City to dinner, so I had to measure back my steps.
Today I find myself better, and, as the weather is fine, mean to call on Dr. Fordyce...I believe I feel affectionate to you in proportion as I am in spirits; still I must not dally with you, when I can do anything else. There is a civil speech for you to chew.
7 This note, also, is now first printed. The original is in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Collection, San Marino, California.
5A SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOTRS Feb. 20, 1797.
Everina’s cold is so bad, that unless pique argues her, she will not go out to-day. For to-morrow, I think I may venture no promise...
Will you send the second volume of ‘ Caleb,’ ® and pray lend me a bit of India rubber. I have lost mine...You will not forget we are to dine at four. I wish to be exact, because I have promised to let Mary go and assist her brother this afternoon. I have been tormented all this morning by puss, who has had four or five fits. I could not conceive what occasioned them, and took care that she should not be terrified. But she flew up my chimney, and was so wild, that I thought it right to have her drowned. Fanny imagines she was sick, and ran away.
I must dine to-day with Mrs. Christie, and mean to return as early as] can; they seldom dine before five.
Should you call and find only books, have a little patience, and I shall be with you.
Do not give Fanny a cake to-day. I am afraid she staid too long with you yesterday.
You are to dine with me on Monday, remember; the salt beef awaits your pleasure.
Saturday, April 8, 1797.
I have just thought it would be very pretty in you to call on Johnson to-day. It would spare me some awkwardness, and please him; and I want you to visit him often of a Tuesday. This is quite dis- interested, as I shall never be of the party. Do, you would oblige me. But when I press anything, it is always with a true wifish submission to your judgment and inclination. Remember to leave the key of No. 25 with us, on account of the wine.
8 Things as They Are: or, chet Wilhiams, 3 vols. 1794. 31 Peel eRS (7 OGODWIN April 11th, 1797.
I wish you would desire Mr. Marshal to call on me. Mr. Johnson or somebody else has always taken the disagreeable business of settling with tradesmen off my hands. I am perhaps as unfit as yourself to do it, and my time appears to me as valuable as that of other persons accustomed to employ themselves. Things of this kind are easily settled with money I know; but I am tormented by the want of money, and feel, to say the truth, as if I was not treated with respect, owing to your desire not to be disturbed.
April 20th [1797].
April 20th [1797].
I am pained by the recollection of our conversation last night. The sole principle of conduct of which I am conscious in my behaviour to you, has been in everything to study your happiness. I found a wounded heart, and as that heart cast itself on me, it was my ambition to heal it. Do not let me be wholly disappointed.
Let me have the relief of seeing you this morning. If I do not call before you go out, call on me.
April 20th [1797]. Fanny is delighted with the thought of dining with you. But I wish you to eat your meat first, and let her come up with the pudding. I shall probably knock at your door on my way to Opie’s; ® but should I not find you, let me request you not to be late this evening. Do not give Fanny butter with her pudding.
Saturday morning, May 2Ist, 1797...Montague called on me this morning, that is breakfasted with me, and invited me to go with him and the Wedgwoods into the country to-morrow, and return the next day. As I love the country, 9 She was then sitting to Opie for her portrait. 319 SUPPLEMENT TO MEMOIRS and think with a poor mad woman I knew, that there is God, or something very consolatory in the air, I should without hesitation have accepted the invitation but for my engagement with your sister. To her even I should have made an apology, could I have seen her, or rather have stated that the circumstances would not occur again. As it is I am afraid of wounding her feelings, because an engagement often becomes important in proportion as it has been anticipated. I began to write to ask your opinion regarding the propriety of sending to her, and feel as I write that 1 had better conquer my desire of contemplating unsophisticated nature than give her a moment’s pain. Mace It is interesting to observe the calm, unimpassioned tone, in which all these notes are written. There are here none of the constant outbursts of love and longing that occur so frequently in her letters to Imlay. Mary’s affection for Godwin was true and loyal, but there was no ardent warmth in it, for Godwin was not the kind of person to inspire such a feeling.
On the third of June, Godwin and his friend Basil Montagu set off on a walking tour which lasted until nearly the end of the month. This protracted absence roused Mary’s indignation.
Mary wrote to her husband while he was away: Saturday, half after one o’clock.
. [have little to tell you of myself. I am very well. Mrs. Reveley drank tea with me one morning, and I spent a day with her, which would have been a very pleasant one, had I not been a little too much fatigued by a previous.visit to Mr. Barry. Fanny often talks of you, and made Mrs. Reveley laugh by 1 Kegan Paul, William Godwin, i. pp. 241-6. 320 ied LETTERS TO GODWIN telling her, when she could not find the monkey to show it to Henry, ‘that it was gone into the country.’ I suppose that Everina would assume some airs at seeing you. She has very mistaken notions of dignity of character...June 19, Monday almost i2 o’clock.
One of the pleasures you tell me that you pro- mised yourself from your journey was the effect your absence might produce on me. Certainly at first my affection was increased, or rather was more alive. But now it is just the contrary. Your later letters might have been addressed to anybody, and will serve to remind you where you have been, though they resemble nothing less than mementos of affection.
I wrote to you at Dr. Parr’s; you take no notice of my letter. Previous to your departure, I requested you not to torment my by leaving the day of your return undecided. But whatever tenderness you took away with you seems to have evaporated on the journey, and new objects, and the homage of vulgar minds restored you to your icy philosophy...In short, your being so late to-night, and the chance of your not coming, shows so little consideration, that unless you suppose me to be a stick or a stone, you must have forgot to think, since you have been on the wing...And thus, after he had returned and called on her Once: June 25, 1797.
I know that you do not like me to go to Holcroft’s. I think you right in principle, but a little wrong in the present application.
When I lived alone, I always dined on a Sunday with company, in the evening, if not at dinner, at St. P{aul’s with Mr. Johnson], generally also of a Tuesday, and some other day at Fuseli’s.
M.W. 321 x SUPPLEMENT TO MEM oe Ae weler eee ae Cae. I like to see new fa udy, and return from Norway, or rather since I have accef _ of invitations, I have dined every third Sunday Twiss’s, nay oftener, for they sent for me when 1 had any extraordinary company. I was glad t go, because my lodging was noisy of a Sunday, ant Mr. S.’s house and spirits were so altered, that my ~ visits depressed him, instead of exhilarating me. I am then, you perceive, thrown out of my track, — and have not traced another. But so far from — wishing to intrude on yours, I had written to Mrs. — Jackson, and mentioned Sunday, and am now sorry © that I did not fix on to-day as one of the days for sitting for my picture. _ — To Mr. Johnson I would go without ceremony, but — it is not convenient for me at present to make haphazard visits. — Should Carlisle? chance to call on you this morning, send him to me; but by himself, for he often has a companion with him, which would defeat my purpose.
And a few days later: Sunday morning, July 3rd, 1797.
Mrs. Reveley can have no doubt about to-day, so we are to stay at home. I have a design upon you this evening to keep you quite to myself—I hope nobody will call!—and make you read the play.
I was thinking of a favourite song of my poor friend Fanny’s: ‘In a vacant rainy day, you shall be wholly mine,’ etc.
Unless the weather prevents you from taking your accustomed walk, call on me this morning, for I have something to say to you.; 2Dr. Anthony Carlisle. (1780-1840) afterward ‘ Sir Anthony.’ He unfortunately arrived, of his own volition, too late to save Mary’s life.
age : Te THE LAST CONFINEMENT The news that she had for Godwin was clearly that once again a child was quick within her. Kegan Paul says Mary ‘had a strong opinion that in all normal and natural cases (of childbearing) women were the proper persons to attend their own sex.’ She there- fore engaged Mrs. Blenkinsop, matron and midwife to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, to be with her. When Mrs. Blenkinsop arrived, soon after Mary Godwin was taken in labour on Wednesday, August 30, all seemed well. She had wished that Godwin should not be in the house, but she wrote him notes during her labour that can have but few parallels.
Aug. 30, 1797. I have no doubt of seeing the animal to-day; but must wait for Mrs. Blenkinsop to guess at the hour.
I have sent for her. Pray send me the newspaper.
I wish I had a novel or some book of sheer amusement to excite curiosity and while away the time.
Have you anything of the kind?
August 30, 1797. Mrs. Blenkinsop tells me everything is in a fair way, and that there is no fear of the event being put off till another day. Still at present she thinks I shall not immediately be freed from my load.
Iam very well. Call before dinner time, unless you receive another message from me.
Three o’clock. Aug. 30, 1797. Mrs. Blenkinsop tells me I am in the most natural state, and can promise me a safe delivery, but that I must have a little patience.® Those are the last lines that this wonderful lady ever wrote. Godwin has recorded in only too much * Kegan Paul, William Godwin, i. 272 323 _~ipa -elyed “ oe Mrs. Inchbald reported Mary’s death to Mrs. P in these words: 2 sa She was attended by a woman, whether | aa partiality or economy I| cant tell—from no affecte , is _prudery Iam sure. She had a very bad time, they at last send for an intimate friend of S, ma. Mr. Carlisle, a man of talents. He delivered her, as and told her he had saved her life: he left her for = two hours—returned, and pronounced she must die. Still she languished three or four days. This is the account I have heard, but not from him; he has written to me several times but they are more; ~ like distracted lines than any thing rational.4 - According to a note in the Milnes-Gaskell MS., Basil Montagu, step-father of the Mrs. Procter already mentioned, a brought Dr. A. Carlisle who prescribed a soothing © draught—‘I feel in heaven’ said Mrs. Godwin to her husband who entered the room: ‘I suppose, my - dear, that that is a form for saying you are in less pain. —‘ He deserved to De kicked,’ said Mrs. | Procter.
Kegan Paul’s comment on this tragic death is worthy and dignified:; She died in her prime, intellectual and physical, 3 leaving to the daughter to whom she then gave birth | a mingled inheritance of genius and sadness, of © 4 Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald, ii. 14. 324 PEaltH AND BURIAL | filial duty met by coldness at home, of deep wedded joys, and deep wedded sorrows. Her opinions have become in many particulars the commonplaces of our own day, while she who was the first to proclaim what is now held innocently was forgotten or assailed.
Mary [Wollstonecraft] was buried where she had been married, at old St. Pancras. This was then a quiet, almost a country churchyard, with its pretty Norman church embowered in trees. A _ long weeping willow shadowed the grave itself.