CHAPTER VII.

THE WOLLSTONECRAFTS. 1759—1791.

GODWIN'S increasing intimacy with Mary Wollstonecraft has been already noticed. She had not made any great impression on him at their earliest meetings, nor, when he first knew her, had she ceased to consider herself as virtually the wife of Imlay, whose name she bore. The treatment she had received from this person, however, was such that when the connection was finally dissolved, the bitterness of parting was already past, and the affectionate friendship existing between herself and Godwin passed easily into a warmer feeling. There were, however, many reasons on both sides which rendered the idea of marriage distasteful. Mrs Shelley has left a note in regard to her father which must be given at length.

"He was very averse to marriage. Poverty was a strong argument against it. When he concocted a code of morals in 'Political Justice,' he warmly opposed a system which exacted a promise to be kept to the end of life, in spite of every alteration of circumstance and of feeling. Objections to marriage are usually supposed to infer an approval, and even practice, of illicit intercourse. This was far from being the case with Godwin. He was in a supreme degree a conscientious man, utterly opposed to anything like vice or libertinism, nor did his sense of duty permit him to indulge in any deviation from the laws of society, which, though he might regard as unjust, could not, he felt, be infringed without deception and injury to any woman who should act in opposition

to them. The loss of usefulness to both parties, which the very stigma brings, the natural ties of children, entailing duties which necessitate the duration of any connection, and which, if tampered with, must end in misery, all these motives were imperative in preventing him from acting on theories, which yet he did not like to act against.

"Among his acquaintance were several women, to whose society he was exceedingly partial, and who were all distinguished for personal attraction and talents. Among them may be mentioned the celebrated Mary Robinson, whom to the end of his life he considered as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but though he admired her so greatly, their acquaintance scarcely attained intimate friendship. It was otherwise with Mrs Inchbald; he saw her frequently, he delighted in her manners, her conversation, her loveliness; yet he was not in love, and, above all, never thought of marrying her. He was intimate with Miss Alderson, afterwards Mrs Opie, but their friendship is purely such as is formed every day in society. He admired her beauty and sprightliness. She liked his conversation and respected his talents.

"There was yet another favourite. She was married, and this circumstance was a barrier to every sentiment except friendship, but he certainly experienced for her more of tenderness and preference than for any other among his acquaintance."

It will be plain from what has been already said that Mrs Shelley may possibly have been misinformed about Miss Alderson. There seems reason to believe that Godwin did contemplate marriage with her, and did make a proposal on the subject to Dr Alderson, if not to the lady herself. The lady to whom Mrs Shelley alludes in the last paragraph is of course Mrs Reveley, afterwards Mrs Gisborne. It may be added that Godwin's dislike of what in "Political Justice" he terms "co-habitation," ie., in his use of the word, the living perpetually in the same house with another person, and having no time or place which can be

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considered absolutely one's own, without unkindness or incivility, worked greatly in aid of his graver theoretical objections to marriage. It is now necessary to give a detailed account of her who broke the even tenor of Godwin's passionless existence, who for his sake altered not a little her own views, and whose character has been a mark for severer censure than those of women who to a far greater extent than herself have run counter to the prejudices and instincts of ordinary society.

Mary Wollstonecraft, who was born April 27, 1759, was the eldest daughter of a large family, the children of a man who had inherited and spent a considerable fortune. The family appear to have been originally of Irish extraction, but Mary's grandfather was a respectable manufacturer in Spitalfields, and realized the property which his son squandered. Her mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Dixon. She was Irish, and of good family. Mr Wollstonecraft was not bred to any profession, but after he had come to the end of his money he left Hoxton, where he had lived for a short time, and after many changes of residence-to Essex and to Beverley, in Yorkshire, among others he went to live at Laugharne in Pembrokeshire, where he had a farm. He soon, however, returned to London for a time. Mary Godwin's mother died in 1780, leaving six children-Edward, an attorney, settled near the Tower in London; Mary, Everina, and Eliza, James, afterwards in the Navy; and Charles, who finally emigrated to America. Mr Wollstonecraft speedily married again, but though his wife seems to have done what she could to keep him out of difficulties, he was a man of idle and dissipated habits, and dropped ever lower in fortune and respectability.

His home became no fit place for his daughters, who indeed were obliged to endeavour to earn their own livelihood.

Mary had a friend in Fanny Blood, a girl of her own age, and whose circumstances were somewhat similar. Fanny Blood supported her family as an artist, and lived for some time at Walham Green, where Mary joined her, and earned her livelihood by helping Mrs Blood, who took in needlework. She looked to an independent career as a teacher in a school; Everina went to keep her brother's house; and Eliza married, when circumstances occurred which threw on her a far greater amount of responsibility and difficulty.

Eliza Wollstonecraft had married a Mr Bishop, but the marriage had proved from the first an unhappy one. It is more than probable there were faults on both sides. All the Wollstonecraft sisters were enthusiastic, excitable, and hasty - tempered, apt to exaggerate trifles, sensitive to magnify inattention into slights, and slights into studied insults. All had bad health of a kind which is especially trying to the nerves, and Eliza had in excess the family temperament and constitution. With a great desire for culture and self-improvement, she had less actual education than Everina, and very far less than her gifted sister Mary, so that there was little to counteract the waywardness of a hasty disposition. Yet with all this there can be no doubt that Bishop was a man of furious violence, and from the letters which remain it would seem that many of the painful scenes in Mary's unfinished novel, "The Wrongs of Women," are simple transcriptions of what she had known or even witnessed in her sister's married life.

Mary, much attached to all her brothers and sisters, was devoted to Eliza, and considered no sacrifice too great to make for her. To save her from her misery, she at once gave up all hopes for the time of an independent career,

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and so soon as it was determined that Eliza should leave her husband, resolved to make a home for her. On Mary fell the real responsibility of urging so strong a step as her sister's flight not only from Mr Bishop, but also from their child. But Mrs Bishop's reason had all but given way under her trials, and to escape was the immediate and only course which presented itself. As soon as a final separation from Bishop had been effected, Mary took lodgings at Islington with Fanny Blood. The scheme proposed was that Mary and Eliza should obtain daily pupils, and that Fanny Blood should maintain herself as an artist. This plan was tried for a very short time, but with no success, and the sisters then removed to Newington Green, where they had some influential friends, and soon obtained about twenty day-scholars. A relation, Mrs Campbell, and her little son, came to board with them, as well as another lady and her three children. This flash of prosperity induced Mary to take a larger house, the expense of which involved her in serious difficulties. The sum due for the board of the three children was irregularly paid, and the Green proved too small a place in those days to support a day-school, which should prove remunerative. It subsisted, however, in a languishing state for two years and a half.

George Blood, Mrs Skeys' younger brother, had also a great share of her affection. His disposition and the unfortunate condition of his home, since his father was a drunken spendthrift, attracted her to the lad, and she felt also much for him because he entertained a hopeless, unrequited love for her sister Everina, who was considerably older than herself. Somewhat wild and reckless while a mere lad, and somewhat unsettled, he accepted a situation as clerk near Lisbon, with hopes of promotion, but abandoned it almost at once. He then returned to Ire