DR PARR ON POLITICS. 137 pernicious, any treason more atrocious, than the deliberate, technical, systematic perversion of law? My bosom glowed with honest rage when I saw the snares that were laid for men's lives in that odious address to the Grand Jury; but I doubt whether the dagger of an assassin, reeking with blood, would have given a more violent shock to my feelings than the.close of Eyre's speech at the Old Bailey. I can make great allowances for the projects of statesmen, the errors and prejudices of princes, and even the outrages of conquerors; but when I see the ministers of public justice thirsting with canine fury for the blood of a fellow-creature, my soul is all on fire. . . I very strongly disapproved of the Convention; I would oppose the doctrine of universal suffrage; I look with a watchful, and perhaps with an unfriendly, eye upon all political associations; I wish to see the people enlightened, but not inflamed; I would resist with my pen, and perhaps with my sword, any attempts to subvert the constitution of this country, but I am filled with agony when laws, intended for our protection, are stretched and distorted for our destruction . . . I am glad the charge was published, because it has been answered; and as I think the answer luminous in style, powerful in matter, and solid in principle, I am extremely desirous of knowing who is the author. He is entitled to my praise as a critic, and my thanks as an EnglishI shall not be satisfied till Mr Fox takes up, in Parliament, the subject of constructive treason; and I trust that, by perseverance, he will be no less successful than we have already seen him in vindicating the rights of juries. He is a sound and sober statesman, a real lover of his country, and a friend to the collective interests of social man. . . Remember me kindly to Mr Holcroft. Come again to see me at my parsonage, when the weather is finer, the days longer, the roads cleaner, and the aspect of public affairs less gloomy.-Believe me, dear sir, with great respect, your wellwisher and obedient servant, T. PARR." man. CHAPTER VI. FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES. 1794-1796. IN all the storm and stress of politics, when his male friends were almost all more or less in trouble, when Mrs Reveley was putting herself into the semi-hysterical state in which we have seen her, the friendship of Mrs Inchbald, who was no politician but only a very clever and very charming woman, was a great comfort to Godwin. Their correspondence was frequent, as also were their meetings; all Mrs Inchbald's letters are worth reading, but only a few can be given. Godwin sent the proofs of "Caleb Williams" to her, and her opinion of it must have pleased him as much as Marshal's criticism displeased him. The early tales from his pen had been forgotten, and he appeared before the world as a new novelist. The letters which follow were written while the story was still in reading, and she wrote in far too hot haste to dream of dating her letters, and usually to sign them. Mrs Inchbald to William Godwin. (No date.) "God bless you! 66 That was the sentence I exclaimed when I had read about half a page. "Nobody is so pleased when they find anything new as I am. I found your style different from what I have ever yet met. You MRS INCHBALD ON 'CALEB WILLIAMS? 139 come to the point (the story) at once, another excellence. I have now read as far as page 32 (I was then interrupted by a visitor) and do not retract my first sentence. I have to add to your praise that of a most minute, and yet most concise method of delineating human sensations. "I could not resist writing this, because my heart was burthened with the desire of saying what I think, and what I hope for. "My curiosity is greatly increased by what I have read, but if you disappoint me you shall never hear the last of it, and instead of 'God Bless,' I will vociferate, God -m you." The Same to the Same. "Monday evening. "SIR,-Your first volume is far inferior to the two last. Your second is sublimely horrible-captivatingly frightful. "Your third is all a great genius can do to delight a great genius, and I never felt myself so conscious of, or so proud of giving proofs of a good understanding, as in pronouncing this to be a capital work. "It is my opinion that fine ladies, milliners, mantua-makers, and boarding-school girls will love to tremble over it, and that men of taste and judgment will admire the superior talents, the incessant energy of mind you have evinced. "In these two last volumes, there does not appear to me (apt as I am to be tired with reading novels) one tedious line, still there are lines I wish erased. I shudder lest for the sake of a few sentences, (and these particularly marked for the reader's attention by the purport of your preface) a certain set of people should hastily condemn the whole work as of immoral tendency, and rob it of a popularity which no other failing it has could I think endanger. "This would be a great pity, especially as these sentences are trivial compared to those which have not so glaring a tendency, and yet to the eye of discernment are even more forcible on your side of the question. But if I find fault it is because I have no patience that anything so near perfection should not be perfection." She could take as well as give criticism in a thoroughly good-humoured manner. She had sent Godwin a MS., which was probably afterwards destroyed. It is, however, no doubt that to which a letter from Mr Hardinge, quoted in Boaden's "Life of Mrs Inchbald," alludes, under the title, "A Satire on the Times," and about which Boaden remarks that Hardinge's remark is unintelligible. "Oh! that I may be for ever called stupid by the person who wrote 'A Satire on the Times,' by setting a ship on fire and burning every soul in the book except a Lord of the Bedchamber, by whom she meant the k-"-Memoirs of Inchbald, Vol. I., P. 328. The Same to the Same. "I am infinitely obliged to you for all you have said, which amounts very nearly to all I thought. "But indeed I am too idle, and too weary of the old rule of poetical justice to treat my people, to whom I have given birth, as they deserve, or rather I feel a longing to treat them according to their deserts, and to get rid of them all by a premature death, by which I hope to surprise my ignorant reader, and to tell my informed one that I am so wise as to have as great a contempt for my own efforts as he can have. "And now I will discover to you a total want of aim, of execution, and every particle of genius belonging to a writer, in a character in this work, which from the extreme want of resemblance to the original, you have not even reproached me with the fault of not drawing accurately. "I really and soberly meant (and was in hopes every reader would be struck with the portrait) Lord Rinforth to represent his Most Gracious Majesty, George the 3rd. "I said at the commencement all Lords of Bedchambers were MRS INCHBALD ON GEORGE III. 141 mirrors of the Grand Personage on whom they attended, but having Newgate before my eyes, I dressed him in some virtues, and (notwithstanding his avarice) you did not know him. "The book is now gone to Mr Hardinge. Mr Holcroft is to have it as soon as his play is over, and though I now despair of any one finding out my meaning, yet say nothing about the matter to Mr Holcroft, but let my want of talent be undoubted, by his opinion conforming to yours. "And there, (said I to myself as I folded up the volumes) how pleased Mr Godwin will be at my making the King so avaricious, and there, (said I to myself) how pleased the King will be at my making him so very good at the conclusion, and when he finds that by throwing away his money he can save his drowning people he will instantly throw it all away for flannel shirts for his soldiers, and generously pardon me all I have said on equality in the book, merely for giving him a good character. "But alas, Mr Godwin did not know him in that character, and very likely he would not know himself." Some extracts from a letter to a young man, whose name is not preserved, may be interesting, for they represent Godwin in yet another light, and show at once his versatility, and his unceasing desire to help others in all their various needs. There is no date, but it belongs to this time, and seems to have been written to an Oxford man who was in some trouble of mind. William Godwin to (No date.) “... I am glad that my writings have in any degree contributed to your pleasure in moments of dejection and gloom. I should be much more glad if I could point out to you a remedy for your disease. Dr Darwin, you say, assures you it is a disease of the mind. There is perhaps some deception in that way of distributing the disorders of the human species. The mind and the |