death' and repeated them three or four times in great agitation, calling at the same time for George Barnwell to come and kill him, but George was laughing so heartily behind the scenes that for some time he could not relieve his uncle, and his uncle said no more than 'O death-do-do'-till his nephew came and stabbed him, and laughed at him in the agonies of death.

"I have just received information that the Coldstream is all killed except fifteen, and that the Duke is in the number of the slain. Among the rest of the information you are to give me, let the sale of your pamphlet and the title be included-what Mr Holcroft has lately written-what Mr Marshall is about. In short, tell me something about everybody. Do you know anything concerning the Dysons now?

"Remember me to all my acquaintance in London: say something for me to each, what you shall judge proper, just the same as if I had written. T. COOPER."

The Same to the Same.

"SOUTHAMPTON, Oct. 18, 1793.

"Glory be to Thee, O God, for all the manifold goods which day after day Thou bestowest upon me! Would you believe it? I have had a benefit—such a benefit—a kind of Irish one, by which I have lost upwards of six pounds—at least I remain that much indebted to our managers. How strange, how despicable are the dispositions of tyrants! The morning after my night, this Davies came to me to do something for him in a pantomime which is performed to-night for his benefit. I readily consented. Things have turned out that I am not of much consequence to him to-night, and this morning, instead of the smiling, smirking face of yesterday, he addressed me with a stiff Hibernian frown-' Mr Cooper, I want some money-I must have money. I'll not pay the salaries, sir, till you have paid me. Blood, sir, why am I to pay money out of my own pocket?' The absent politician, too, has attempted to speak to me. 'Mr Tyler, have you heard any news to-day? Mr Cooper, about your night (a pause). I have not seen the Star

Oh,

AN ACTOR'S DIFFICULTIES.

97

to-day. Sir, walk this way, if you please.' I was going to follow but Mrs Somebody met him, and he immediately began to settle the business of the nation. He dared imagine that it was for me to wait his pleasure. About half-an-hour afterwards he repeated his request, and I told him I was engaged.

"The usual method of payment in cases of deficiency of the changes is by stopping 3s. or 4s. per week out of the salary; but on account of my great deficiency, he says he will stop the whole week's salary until it is paid. In case he attempts it, it is my present intention to leave him immediately, not secretly. No; what I dare do, I dare do openly. If he pursues other steps, I have arrived at such a happy disregard of my personal affairs, that it will scarcely give me a moment's concern.

"You will wonder, perhaps, how I came to fail so much. There are three or four sufficient reasons. The first is, that the interest of a man of long standing and unusual acquaintance carries everything before it; next, that though the other weak interests are supremely blessed with the happy gifts of fawning servility, yet I have not so much of the spaniel about me; I cannot take my hat off to the great man's servant. If I were to lose £50 and fifty benefits, I cannot bow to flatter the man I despise. The third was that I was between two fires-one manager's daughter before, the other manager's wife after me.

66

I now want you or Mrs Holcroft to inform me whether Mr H. himself spoke to Mrs Wood relative to an engagement for me with her husband; or if not, who was it. "T. COOPER."

The Same to the Same.

"SOUTHAMPTON, Nov. 2, '93.

"If there were an appearance of reserve in my letters, relative to my present situation, it could be only an appearance; for I have not, nor have I ever had, the least wish to conceal anything. If I did not expatiate at large on the subject, it was because I had no desire to excite any man's compassion; for I feel no compassion for myself; or in other words, I am quite indifferent about it,

as I have told you before. I have lived partly upon a little money which I had saved, and partly upon credit, which has involved me in debt near £2. But I shall considerably decrease it by means of about a guinea, which I got last night, by joining with two others who had failed, and buying a bad stock-night of the managers at an under-price. This, with the loan of a guinea, which you are so kind as to offer me, will pretty well bring me about, so that I shall probably still remain with Messrs C. and D., if they promise to allow me a salary after this town, and will pay the bill for printing the tickets for my benefit. But if he refuses, my former resolution will remain unbroken. You may depend on seeing me in London very soon-how soon will in some measure depend on Mr Davies's acceptance or rejection of my proposals. If he refuse, I shall not stay to play for his benefit. At all events, you will see me in less than a fortnight.

"If you can oblige me with this guinea, direct to me in any small parcel, at Mr Ling's, 15 Butcher Row, and send it by Mr Cox's coach, which sets out every morning from the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill.

"When I spoke relative to the School for Arrogance to Mr Davies, he said, 'If Mr Holcroft had really been inclined to serve me, he certainly could not have refused so small a favour.' I smiled within myself at the confined ideas of a selfish man.

"I should be glad if you would not make it public that I am coming to town. "Tis, I grant, a childish wish, but it would be a pleasure to surprise my friends. Though childish, it is innocent, and as it would be a pleasure, I hope it will be a sufficient reason with you to comply with my request.

T. COOPER.

CHAPTER V.

GODWIN'S WORKS AND POLITICS. 1783-1794.

WITH the publication of "Political Justice" Godwin first became known as an author, and appeared before the world under his own name, except so far as the "Sketches of History" were an exception.

The six sermons which bear that wholly inappropriate title are on the characters of Aaron, Hazael and Jesusfour sermons being devoted to the last. They are fair specimens of Nonconformist pulpit oratory, and, with the exception of one or two sentences, are remarkable chiefly for the extreme lucidity of style. Then, as always, it was impossible to mistake Godwin's meaning. Simple and straightforward, his language rose sometimes to a rare eloquence, not because he desired it, or valued rhetoric for its own sake, but because the words he used were the fittest to clothe his most intimate convictions, and therefore appealed to the hearts of other men. An early and a diligent student of French literature, there is something in his own style of the characteristics of the better French writers, where the thoughts are seen through rather than in the language, like pebbles in a deep well, and invested with a beauty beyond their own.

Other points for which the Sermons are noticeable are these. Writing nominally as a strong Calvinist, and believing himself to uphold the absolute sovereignty of God, he yet strikes a note which, though he knew it not, was dissonant to all the rest. "God himself," he says in

Sermon I., "God himself has no right to be a tyrant." Of this passage the English Review, in a very favourable article, says: "In some instances his vivacity transports him beyond the bounds of decorum." It was the enunciation of a principle from which he was afterwards to draw unexpected conclusions.

Again, writing as an orthodox believer, he no doubt thought that he held that Jesus Christ was God, and by that fact different from all men, not to be compared or placed on the same level with them. But at the bottom of his mind was the feeling that if Jesus were to be loved and venerated, it was not as God, but for his likeness to, and his oneness with, humanity. And this found expression in the sentence which ends the Sermon on the Resignation of Aaron.

"May we all of us exemplify the quietness of an Aaron, and the unresentful mildness of a redeemer, that so we may be united with these great and illustrious characters for ever hereafter."

Little can here be said of the three novels which issued in such rapid succession from Godwin's brain and pen during the years 1783-4-"Damon and Delia," "The Italian Letters," and "Imogen; a Pastoral Romance," professing to be a translation from an old Welsh MS. These appear to have vanished into nothingness as well as forgetfulness, and the most diligent researches have as yet obtained only slight indications that once they were deemed interesting. But this need scarcely be regretted. The emotional part of Godwin's nature had never as yet been stirred, while he had gained no such experience of life as was his when he wrote "Caleb Williams."

It is, however, a real misfortune that much else which Godwin wrote at this date is buried in the pages of reviews,