verted into a permanent literary brilliant. Mr. Godwin, whose abilities are indisputable, endeavours thus to dignify and render illustrious his sorrows for the loss of his wife; we therefore regret the necessity of observing that not only the general reader, but the most judicious and reflecting part of mankind, will arraign the prudence and the utility of these memoirs, though he himself commences them with this sentence of high expectation: ‘ there are not many individuals, etc.’
After an exordium so splendid, we could not expect to find such a narrative;—a narrative which we must indeed read with pity and concern, but which we should have advised the author to bury in oblivion. Blushes would suffuse the cheeks of most husbands, if they were forced to relate those anecdotes of their wives which Mr. Godwin voluntarily proclaims to the world. Virtue and vice are weighed by him in a balance of his own. He neither looks to marriage with respect, nor to suicide with horror. He relates with complacency of Mary Wollstonecraft, afterward his wife, that she cultivated a platonic affection for Mr. Fuseli, the painter;—that she cohabited with Mr. Imlay as his wife, took his name, and had a child by him, without being married; and that she even lived with Mr. G. himself, and was pregnant by him; and that it was only her pregnancy which induced them to think of marriage; fearing that, otherwise, she might be excluded from society. He gravely records, also (what was mentioned at the time in the news- papers, and was considered by some persons as calumny,) her attempt to drown herself in the Thames in consequence of the ill-treatment which she experienced from Mr. Imlay.
346 4 3 a “ 7 CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS How the public welfare and improvement are connected with or can be advanced by the studied and uniform eulogium of such conduct will not be easily Derecived. wc The New Annual Register for the Year 1798, p. 271.
The ‘Memoirs of the Author of &c.’ by William Godwin, are a singular tribute of respect to the memory of a well beloved wife. The subject of them was a woman of undoubted talents and genius, and possessed of many excellent qualities. For the praise which he bestows upon the former, notwithstanding that it may be thought exaggerated, and for the sensibility with which he speaks of the latter, we find no difficulty in accounting. But she was one who, unhappily for herself, seems never to have had those good principles instilled into her mind, which would have enabled her to controul and govern her passions; and who, under the influence of a warm constitution, and warm imagination, formed to herself ideas of female delicacy, and the intercourse between the sexes, in direct variance with those generally adopted by the world, and incompatible in the opinion of all old-fashioned moralists, with the order and well-being of society. Upon these notions she acted in life: and her husband has thought proper to present the public with a picture of her love adventures, and of some other extraordinary circumstances, which were whispered concerning her while living, but which the good natured part of mankind were willing to resolve into scandal and calumny. This appears to us a very extraordinary method of doing justice to her memory. And we should be sorry, could we suppose the moral taste of the world to be so vitiated, as that these Memoirs would be much read without exciting lively emotions of disgust and concern.
347 INDEX Adams, John, 266.
Alderson, Amelia, xxvii.
Allen, Mr., 3, 20.
Anderson, George, 49.
Answer to Burke’s Reflections, 52, 202.
Babcock, Elisha, 258.
Backman, Elias, xliv, 224, 243, 295.
Baldwin, Ruth, 257, 258.
Barking, 13, 138.
Barry, Mr., 320.
Bates, William, xxvi, 307.
Bath, 22, 152, 170.
Beverley, 14, 138.
Bishop, Mr., 155.
— Eliza, see Wollstonecraft, Eliza.
Blake, William, xxxii, xxxix, xlili, 207-214.
Blenkinsop, Mrs., 113, 323.
Blood family, 161, 188.
— George, 159.
Boll, Thomas, 226.
Bonnycastle, Mr., 49, 202.
Bournemouth Churchyard, 325.
Burgh, Mrs., 28, 34.
Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, 51, 181, 193-199.
Caleb, Williams, xxvi.
Campbell, Col. John, 231.
Cave of Fancy, xxxviii, 44, 158, 202.
— Miss, 249.
Clare, Mr., 16.
— Mrs,, 18, 42.
Clarke, Dr., 117, 119.
Clough, —, 263.
Comedy, destroyed by God- win, 96.
Cotton, Mrs., 94, 309.
Cristall, Mr., 187, 188.
— Ann Batten, 187.
Cumming Street, Pentonville, 98, 312.
Curran, Amelia, 328.
East, Sir William, 94, 309. Ellyson, Peter, 295. Emigrants, The, 237-243.
Enfield, 22, 152.
English Exercises, xlv, 139.
Enquiry concerning Political Justice, xxv.
Epping Forest, 9, 13.
Essay on Sepulchres, xxvi. — Eton, 39, 159-161.
Fauchet, —, 237.
Fenwick, Mr. and Mrs., 119, ; 120.
Filliettaz, Mons. and Mme., 66, 220, 221, 266.
Fingal, Lord, 167.
Finsbury Place and Square, 90, 91, 299.
Fordyce, Dr. George, 49, 114, TiS elit Ons 1 7s — Dr. James, 54.
59, 259, 77) 260, XXxi, Grant, Mrs. Anne (MacVicar), 2L73 Gregory, Dr., 54. — Allene, xxxvi.
Hall, Rev. John, 199.
Hamilton, Gawin, 252.
Hays, Mary, xxviii, xxix, 175, 311, 313, 333.
Hazlitt, William, 332.
Hints, designed for a continua- tion of the Rights of Wo- man, XXxix.
Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution, 69, 201 n., 266-271.
Hite, Isaac, 231.
Holcroft, Thomas, 312, 321.
Holder, Capt., 229.
Horne, Mr., 188.
Hunter, Mrs. John, 49.
Imlay family, 226, 227.
Jebb, Mrs., 219 n.
Jochmann, Carl Gustav, 250.
Johnson, Dr., 29, 176.
King, Margaret, afterwards Countess Mount Cashel, 40, 167 n., 170, 178 n.
— Mary Elizabeth, 165.
Kingsborough, Viscount and Knapp, Samuel Lorenzo, 204, 205 n.
Lamb, Charles, xxvi.
Laurent, Madame, 221.
Le Brun, 233-235.
Lee, Henry, 229.
Letter to the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, 195-198.
Letters from Norway, xxxv, 96, 45> : Newington Green, Mary’s Letters on the Management of school at, 26, 29, 37, 39, Infants, 1i0. 159. 350 . Newington Butts, 18, Lyonnet, —, 236.
Mansfield, Katherine, x. Marriage, LOI-103. Marshal, James, 120, ao 319, = 331, 332- ry Mary, A Fiction, xliv, 42, ee i 138, 140, 143, 152, 155, 170, 174. Mason, Mrs., 149. “Mason, Mr. and Mrs.,’ Massey, Miss, 139. Maxwell, Mr., 302, 303. ~— Memoirs of the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, xxvi, 3, 335- 348. Memoirs of William Godwin, XXXV. Mitchelstown, 162, 165-167. Montagu, Basil, 119, 120, 186 7., 319, 320, 324. Monthly Mirror, 327-331. Moore, Miss, 170.
More, Hannah, 216. Mount Cashel, Countess, King, Margaret.
Myburg and Co., 295.
178%. a see New Robinson, 45.
ee ae ee ee bee ee ee Northcote, Mr., 182, 183. — James, 328-330. Norway, voyage to, 84.
Ogden, Amos, 231.
Ollier, Charles, 333.
Opie, John, xxvii, xxxvi, 312, 319, 327-331.
Original Stories from Real Life, xxxii, xliii, 44, 174, 177, 178 n., 207-214.
Parr, De., 321.
Paul, Kegan, xxv, ef seq.
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, 186, 330.
Poetry and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature, xxxix.
Poignand, Dr., 113-115, 117.
Priestley, Dr., 176.
Rawlins, Sophia, 183.
— Henry, 316.
Rickman, Clio, 225.
Ritson, Joseph, 314.
Rothwell, R., 328.
— Mrs., 303, 304.
Russell, Mr., 293.
— William, 330.
INDEX St. Leon, xxxi.
St. Pancras Church, 123, 312, 325.
Salzmann’s Elements of Mora- lity, xxxii, 45, 199-202.
Schools, vice in, 160.
Schweizer, Jean Gaspard, 224, 246-248.
Shean, Mrs., 262.
Shelley, Lady, 328, 329.
Short Observations on the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke’s Re- fiections, 195.
Siddons, Mrs., 331.
Skepper, Miss, 186 7.
Skeys, Hugh, 31.
— Mrs., 49.
Skinner, Dr., 229.
Slop Dr 3327333- Smith, Mrs. Charlotte, 219 n.
Southey, Robert, xxx, xxxi, 306.
Stodart, —, 332.
Stone, Mrs., 265.
— John Hurford, 224.
Taylor, G. R. Stirling, 198. — Thomas, 150, 200. Things as they are, xxv. Thomson, James, 254.
San : a ‘Tumer, Mr., 18 Tuthill, Vindication of the Rights of | Men, 195, 196.
Vindication of the Rights of \ — Mary, tributes to Bes — Mrs. Mary (wife of Chariags = — Robert, 142.
Wolzogen, Baron de, 247. Wrongs of Woman; or Maria, brilliant intellect io De] san eae of os ae ness and SSysnpataye 32 on affection between per-_ sons of opposite sex, 61 her power of intuition 125; attempts suicide, 83, 87, 295, 208; portraits of, 327-332; see also Chronological epee xili- xxiv.
204.
‘202.
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