CALEB WILLIAMS. BY WILLIAM GODWIN, AUTHOR OF "ST. LEON," " MANDEVILLE," ETC. "Amid the woods the tiger knows his kind; LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN CUNNINGHAM, CROWN-COURT FLEET-STREET, AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1841. CALEB WILLIAMS. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. THE following narrative is intended to answer a purpose more general and important than immediately appears upon the face of it. The question now afloat in the world respecting THINGS AS THEY ARE is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols, in the warmest terms, the existing constitution of society. It seemed as if something would be gained for the decision of this question, if that constitution were faithfully developed in its practical effects. What is now presented to the public is no refined and abstract speculation; it is a study and delineation of things passing in the moral world. It is but of late that the inestimable importance of political principles has been adequately apprehended. It is now known to philosophers, that the spirit and character of the government intrudes itself into every rank of society. But this is a truth highly worthy to be communicated to persons whom books of philosophy and science are never likely to reach. Accordingly, it was proposed, in the invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of If the author shall have taught a va-/ aluable lesson, without subtracting from the interest and passion by which a performance of this sort ought to be characterised, he will have reason to congratulate himself upon the vehicle he has chosen. man. May 12, 1794. This preface was withdrawn in the original edition, in compliance with the alarms of booksellers. "Caleb Williams" made his first appearance in the world, in the same month in which the sanguinary plot broke out against the liberties of Englishmen, which was happily terminated by the acquittal of its first intended victims in the close of that year. Terror was the order of the day; and it was feared that even the humble novelist might be shown to be constructively a traitor. October 29, 1795. CHAPTER I. My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. I have been a mark for the vigilance of tyranny, and I could not escape. My fairest prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to entreaties, and untired in persecution. My fame, as well as my happiness, has become his victim. Every one, as far as my story has been known, has refused to assist me in my distress, and has execrated my name. I have not deserved this treatment. My own conscience witnesses in behalf of that innocence, my pretensions to which are regarded in the world as incredible. There is now, however, little hope that I shall escape from the toils that universally beset me. I am incited to the penning of these memoirs only by a desire to divert my mind from the deplorableness of my situation, and a faint idea that posterity may by their means be induced to render me a justice which my contemporaries refuse. My story will, at least, appear to have that consistency which is seldom attendant but upon truth. I was born of humble parents, in a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me, but an education free from the usual sources of depravity, and the inheritance, long since lost by their unfortunate progeny! of an honest fame. I was taught the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information from conversation or books. My improvement was greater than my condition in life afforded room to expect. There are other circumstances deserving to be mentioned as having influenced the history of my future life. I was somewhat above the middle stature. Without being particularly athletic in appearance, or large in my dimensions, I was uncommonly vigorous and active. My joints were supple, and I was formed to excel in youthful sports. The habits of my mind were, to a certain degree, at war with the dictates of boyish vanity. I had considerable aversion to the boisterous gaiety of the village gallants, and contrived to satisfy my love of praise with an unfrequent apparition at their amusements. My excellence in these respects, however, gave a turn to my meditations. I delighted to read of feats of activity, and was particularly interested by tales in which corporeal ingenuity or strength are the means resorted to for supplying resources and conquering difficulties. I inured myself to mechanical pursuits, and devoted much of my time to an endeavour after mechanical invention. The spring of action which, perhaps more than any other, characterised the whole train of my life, was curiosity. It was this that gave me my mechanical turn; I was desirous of tracing the variety of effects which might be produced from given causes. It was this that made me a sort of natural philosopher: I could not rest till I had acquainted myself with the solutions that had been invented for the phenomena of the universe. In fine, this produced in me an invincible attachment to books of narrative and romance. I panted for the unravelling of an adventure with an anxiety, perhaps almost equal to that of the man whose future happiness or misery depended on its issue. I read, I devoured compositions of this sort. They took possession of my soul; and the effects they produced were frequently discernible in my external appearance and my health. My curiosity, however, was not entirely ignoble village anecdotes and scandal had no charms for me my imagination must be excited; and when that was not done, my curiosity was dormant. The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland, a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used to call in occasionally at my father's. He observed the particulars of my progress with approbation, and made a favourable report to his master of my industry and genius. In the summer of the year- --, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our county after an absence of several months. This was a period of misfortune to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead in our cottage. I had lost my mother some years before. In this forlorn situation I was surprised with a message from the squire, ordering me to repair to the mansion-house the morning after my father's funeral. solemnity in his air, which, for want of ex perience, I imagined was the inheritance of the great, and the instrument by which the distance between them and their inferiors was maintained. His look bespoke the unquietness of his mind, and frequently wandered with an expression of disconsolateness and anxiety. My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire. Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conception of men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and approbation. This kindness soon restored to me a considerable part of my self-possession, though I still felt restrained by the graceful, but unaltered dignity of his carriage. When Mr. Falkland had satisfied his curiosity, he proceeded to inform me that he was in want of a secretary, that I appeared to him sufficiently qualified for that office, and that, if, in my present change of situation, occasioned by the death of my father, I approved of the employment, he would take me into his family. I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and was warm in the expression of my acknowledgments. I set eagerly about the disposal of the little property my father had left, in which I was assisted by Mr. Collins. I had not now a relation in the world, upon whose kindness and interposition I had any direct claim. But, far from regarding this deserted situation with terror, I formed golden visions of the station I was about to occupy. I little suspected that the gaiety and lightness of heart I had hitherto enjoyed were upon the point of leaving me for ever, and that the rest of my days were devoted to misery and alarm. My employment was easy and agreeable. It consisted partly in the transcribing and arranging certain papers, and partly in writing from my master's dictation letters of business, as well as sketches of literary composition. Many of these latter consisted of an analytical survey of the plans of different authors and conjectural speculations upon hints they afforded, tending either to the detection of their errors, or the carrying forward their discoveries. All of them bore powerful marks of a profound and elegant mind, well stored with literature, and possessed of an uncommon share of activity and discrimination. My station was in that part of the house which was appropriated for the reception of books, it being my duty to perform the functions of librarian as well as secretary. Here my hours would have glided in tranquillity and peace, had not my situation included in it circumstances totally different from those which attended me in my father's cottage. In early life my mind had been much engrossed by reading and reflection: my intercourse with my fellow mortals was occasional and short. But, in my new residence, I was excited by every motive of interest and novelty to study my master's character; and I found in it an ample field for specu Though I was not a stranger to books, I had no practical acquaintance with men. I had never had occasion to address a person of this elevated rank, and I felt no small uneasiness and awe on the present occasion. I found Mr. Falkland a man of small stature, with an extreme delicacy of form and appearance. In place of the hard favoured and inflexible visages I had been accustomed to observe, every muscle and petty line of his countenance seemed to be in an inconceivable degree preg. nant with meaning. His manner was kind, attentive, and humane. His eye was full of animation; but there was a grave and sadlation and conjecture. His mode of living was, in the utmost degree, intended only to put any thing in order that I recluse and solitary. He had no inclination to might find out of its place. As I opened the scenes of revelry and mirth. He avoided the door, I heard at the same instant a deep groan, busy haunts of men; nor did he seem desirous expressive of intolerable anguish. The sound to compensate for this privation by the confi- of the door in opening seemed to alarm the perdence of friendship. He appeared a total son within; I heard the lid of a trunk hastily stranger to every thing which usually bears the shut, and the noise as of fastening a lock. I appellation of pleasure. His features were conceived that Mr. Falkland was there, and scarcely ever relaxed into a smile, nor did that was going instantly to retire; but at that moair which spoke the unhappiness of his mind at ment a voice, that seemed supernaturally treany time forsake them; yet his manners were mendous, exclaimed, "Who is there?" The by no means such as denoted moroseness and voice was Mr. Falkland's. The sound of it misanthropy. He was compassionate and con- thrilled my very vitals. I endeavoured to ansiderate for others, though the stateliness of his swer, but my speech failed, and being incapable carriage and the reserve of his temper were at of any other reply, I instinctively advanced no time interrupted. His appearance and gewithin the door into the room. Mr. Falkland neral behaviour might have strongly interested was just risen from the floor upon which he had all persons in his favour; but the coldness of been sitting or kneeling. His face betrayed his address, and the impenetrableness of his strong symptoms of confusion. With a violent sentiments, seemed to forbid those demonstra-effort, however, these symptoms vanished, and tions of kindness to which one might otherwise have been prompted. instantaneously gave place to a countenance sparkling with rage. "Villain!" cried he, Such was the general appearance of Mr. "what has brought you here?" I hesitated a Falkland; but his disposition was extremely confused and irresolute answer. "Wretch!" unequal. The distemper which afflicted him interrupted Mr. Falkland, with uncontrollable with incessant gloom had its paroxysms. impatience, "you want to ruin me. You set Sometimes he was hasty, peevish, and tyran-yourself as a spy upon my actions; but bitterly nical; but this proceeded rather from the tor- shall you repent your insolence. Do you think ment of his mind than an unfeeling disposition; you shall watch my privacies with impunity?" and when reflection recurred, he appeared I attempted to defend myself. "Begone, devil!" willing that the weight of his misfortune should rejoined he. "Quit the room, or I will trample fall wholly upon himself. Sometimes he en- you into atoms." Saying this, he advanced tirely lost his self-possession, and his behaviour towards me. But I was already sufficiently was changed into frenzy: he would strike his terrified, and vanished in a moment. I heard forehead, his brows became knit, his features the door shut after me with violence; and thus distorted, and his teeth ground one against the ended this extraordinary scene. other. When he felt the approach of these symptoms, he would suddenly rise, and, leaving the occupation, whatever it was, in which he was engaged, hasten into a solitude upon which no person dared to intrude. I saw him again in the evening, and he was then tolerably composed. His behaviour, which was always kind, was now doubly attentive and soothing. He seemed to have something of which he wished to disburthen his mind, but to want words in which to convey it. I looked at him with anxiety and affection. He made two unsuccessful efforts, shook his head, and then, a manner that I could feel proceeded from a mind pregnant with various emotions, though I could not interpret them. Having done this, he seemed immediately to recollect himself, and to take refuge in the usual distance and solemnity of his manner. It must not be supposed that the whole of what I am describing was visible to the persons about him; nor, indeed, was I acquainted with itin the extent here stated but after a consider-putting five guineas into my hand, pressed it in able time, and in gradual succession. With respect to the domestics in general, they saw but little of their master. None of them, except myself, from the nature of my functions, and Mr. Collins, from the antiquity of his service and the respectableness of his character, ap proached Mr. Falkland, but at stated seasons and for a very short interval. They knew him only by the benevolence of his actions, and the principles of inflexible integrity by which he was ordinarily guided; and though they would sometimes indulge their conjectures respecting his singularities, they regarded him upon the whole with veneration, as a being of a superior order. One day, when I had been about three months in the service of my patron, I went to a closet, or small apartment, which was separated from the library by a narrow gallery that was lighted by a small window near the roof. I had conceived that there was no person in the room, and I easily understood that secrecy was one of the things expected from me; and, indeed, my mind was too much disposed to meditate upon what I had heard and seen, to make it a topic of indiscriminate communication. Mr. Collins, however, and myself, happened to sup together that evening, which was but seldom the case, his avocations obliging him to be much abroad. He could not help observing an uncommon de. jection and anxiety in my countenance, and affectionately inquired into the reason. I endeavoured to evade his questions, but my youth and ignorance of the world gave me little advantage for that purpose. Beside this, I had been accustomed to view Mr. Collins with con |