Delphi Complete Works of William Godwin 1st ed. (2022), page 459
part #1 of Delphi Classics Series
101 Xenophon, Memorabilia, Lib. I, c. 1.
102 Plutarch, ubi supra.
103 Plato, Theages.
104 Ibid.
105 Livius, Lib. I, c. 16.
106 Dionysius Halicarnassensis.
107 Livius, Lib. I, c. 19, 21.
108 Livius, Lib. I, c. 31.
109 Ibid.
110 Livius, Lib. I, c. 36.
111 Livius, Lib. I, c. 39.
112 Livius, Lib. III, c. 6, et seqq.
113 Epod. V.
114 Metamorphoses, Lib. VII.
115 Lib. VI.
116 Horat., de Arte Poetica, v. 150.
117 Plutarch, North’s Translation.
118 Matt. c. xii, v. 24, 27.
119 Acts, c. viii.
120 Clemens Romanus, Recognitiones, Lib. II, cap. 9. Anastasius Sinaita, Quaestiones; Quaestio 20.
121 Clemens Romanus, Constitutiones Apostolici, Lib. VI, cap. 7.
122 Acts, c. xiii.
123 Ibid, c. xix.
124 Suetonius, Lib. VI, cap. 14.
125 Tacitus, Historiae, Lib. IV, cap. 81. Suetonius, Lib. VIII, cap. 7.
126 Hume, Essays, Part III, Section X.
127 Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, Lib. I, cap. 5, 6.
128 Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, Lib. I, c. 10.
129 Ibid, c.13.
130 Ibid, c. 13, 14.
131 Philostratus, Lib. IV, c. 10.
132 Philostratus, Lib. IV, c. 25.
133 Philostratus, Lib. IV, c. 45.
134 Philostratus, Lib. VIII, c. 5.
135 Ibid, c. 26.
136 Philostratus, Lib. VIII, c. 29, 30.
137 Ibid, c. 29.
138 Lampridius, in Vita Alex. Severi, c. 29
139 c. 24.
140 Philostratus, Lib. I, c. 3.
141 Zosimus, Lib, IV, cap. 13. Gibbon observes, that the name of Theodosius, who actually succeeded, begins with the same letters which were indicated in this magic trial.
142 Zosimus, Lib. IV, cap. 14.
143 Gibbon, Chap. VIII.
144 This word is of Sanscrit original.
145 “They cut themselves with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.” I Kings, xviii, 28.
146 Otherwise, Deeves.
147 D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale.
148 D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale.
149 It is in Selden’s Collection of Ballads in the Bodleian Library. See Letters from the Bodleian, Vol. I, p. 120 to 126.
150 Spenser, Fairy Queen, Book III, Canto III, stanza 9, et seqq.
151 William of Malmesbury, Lib. II, c. 10.
152 William of Malmesbury, Lib. II, c. 10.
153 Naudé, Apologie des Grands Hommes Accusés de Magie. Malmesbury, ubi supra.
154 Naudé, Apologie des Grands Hommes Accusés de Magie, chap. 19.
155 Mornay, Mysterium Iniquitalis, p. 258. Coeffeteau, Reponse à ditto, p. 274.
156 Ibid.
157 Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 206, 207.
158 Ibid. p. 207, 208.
159 Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 243, 244.
160 Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 244, 245.
161 Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 246.
162 Ibid, p. 248, 249.
163 Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 249.
164 Ibid.
165 Hollinshed, History of Scotland, p. 251.
166 Naudé.
167 Godwin, Praesulibus, art. Gronthead.
168 Naudé c. 18.
169 Johannes de Becka, apud Trithemii Chronica, ann. 1254.
170 Freind, History of Physick, Vol. II, p. 234 to 239.
171 Bacon, Epist. ad Clement. IV.
172 Ubi supra.
173 See page 261.
174 Naudé, Cap. 17.
175 Ibid.
176 Commentaries, Book IV. chap. vi.
177 Life of Chaucer, c. xviii.
178 Wotton, Reflections on Learning, Chap. X.
179 See above, p. 29.
180 Biographic Universelle.
181 Naudé.
182 Moreri.
183 Enfield, History of Philosophy, Book VIII, chapter i.
184 Moreri.
185 Watson, Chemical Essays, Vol. I.
186 Fuller, Worthies of England.
187 Watson, ubi supra.
188 Sir Thomas More, History of Edward the Fifth.
189 Buck, Life and Reign of Richard III.
190 Hutchinson on Witchcraft.
191 I Samuel, xv, 23.
192 Doctrine of Divorce, Preface.
193 Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, p. 746.
194 Alciatus, Parergon Juris, L. VIII, cap. 22.
195 Danaeus, apud Delrio, Proloquium.
196 Bartholomaeus de Spina, De Strigibus, c. 13.
197 Biographie Universelle.
198 Biographie Universelle.
199 Hospinian, Historia Sacramentaria, Part II, fol. 131.
200 Bayle.
201 Paulus Jovius, Elogia Doctorum Virorum, c.101.
202 Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, Lib. II, Quaestio xi, S. 18.
203 Delrio, Lib. II, Quaestio xxix. S. 7.
204 Wierus, Lib. II, c.v. S. 11, 12.
205 Cent. I, cap. 70.
206 De Praestigiis Demonum, Lib. II, cap. iv, sect. 8.
207 Durrius, apud Schelhorn, Amoenitates Literariae, Tom. V, p.50, et seqq.
208 Memoirs, p. 14.
209 Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, Letter IV.
210 Appendix to Johannes Glastoniensis, edited by Hearne.
211 Camden, anno 1693, 1694.
212 Pitcairn, Trials in Scotland in Five Volumes, 4to.
213 King James’s Works, p. 135.
214 King James’s Works, p. 135, 136.
215 Truth brought to Light by Time. Wilson, History of James I.
216 Fuller, Church History of Britain, Book X, p. 74. See also Osborn’s Works, Essay I: where the author says, he “gave charge to his judges, to be circumspect in condemning those, committed by ignorant justices for diabolical compacts. Nor had he concluded his advice in a narrower circle, as I have heard, than the denial of any such operations, but out of reason of state, and to gratify the church, which hath in no age thought fit to explode out of the common people’s minds an apprehension of witchcraft.” The author adds, that he “must confess James to have been the promptest man living in his dexterity to discover an imposture,” and subjoins a remarkable story in confirmation of this assertion.
217 Discovery of the Witches, 1612, printed by order of the Court.
218 History of Whalley, by Thomas Dunham Whitaker, p. 215.
219 Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, Vol. II, p. 507.
220 Heylyn, Life of Laud.
221 Hutchinson on Witchcraft.
222 Menagiana, Tom. II, p. 252, et seqq.
223 Judges, v, 20.
224 Certainty of the World of Spirits.
225 Trial of the Witches executed at Bury St. Edmund’s.
226 Narrative translated by Dr. Horneck, apud Satan’s Invisible World by Sinclair, and Sadducismus Triumphatus by Glanville.
227 Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World; Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World; Neal, History of New England.
228 Menagiana, Tom II, p. 264. Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV, Chap. xxxi.
The Memoir
St Pancras Old Church, Somers Town, central London — Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft were married here on 29 March 1797. They moved into two adjoining houses in Somers Town, so that they could both still retain their independence; they often communicated by notes delivered by servants.
Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798)
First published in January 1798, four months after Mary Wollstonecraft died of septicaemia, Godwin’s account of his first wife’s life is wracked with sorrow. It was inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, which was unusually frank for its time. Godwin does not shrink from presenting the parts of Wollstonecraft’s life that late eighteenth-century British society would judge either immoral or in bad taste, such as her close friendship with a woman, her love affairs, her illegitimate child, her suicide attempts and her agonising death two days after giving birth to Mary. In the Preface, Godwin explains, “There are not many individuals with whose character the public welfare and improvement are more intimately connected than the author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Joseph Johnson, the publisher to both Wollstonecraft and Godwin (and who had first introduced them), tried to dissuade him from including explicit details, but Godwin refused.
The memoir was heavily criticised and Godwin was forced to revise it for a second edition in August of the same year. His frankness was not always appreciated by the people he named; Wollstonecraft's sisters, Everina and Eliza, lost students at the school they ran in Ireland as a result of the Memoir.
The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine attacked the book, writing that “if it does not shew what it is wise to pursue, it manifests what it is wise to avoid. It illustrates both the sentiments and conduct resulting from such principles as those of Mrs. Wollstonecroft and Mr. Godwin. It also in some degree accounts for the formation of such visionary theories and pernicious doctrines.”
Joseph Johnson (1738-1809) was an influential London bookseller and publisher. His publications covered a wide variety of genres and a broad spectrum of opinions on important issues. Johnson is best known for publishing the works of radical thinkers such as Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Thomas Malthus, Erasmus Darwin and Joel Barlow, feminist economist Priscilla Wakefield, as well as religious dissenters such as Joseph Priestley, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Gilbert Wakefield, and George Walker.
CONTENTS
CHAP. I.
CHAP. II
CHAP. III.
CHAP. IV.
CHAP. V.
CHAP. VI.
CHAP. VII.
CHAP. VIII.
CHAP. IX.
CHAP. X.
Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie, c. 1797
CHAP. I.
1759-1775.
IT HAS ALWAYS appeared to me, that to give to the public some account of the life of a person of eminent merit deceased, is a duty incumbent on survivors. It seldom happens that such a person passes through life, without being the subject of thoughtless calumny, or malignant misrepresentation. It cannot happen that the public at large should be on a footing with their intimate acquaintance, and be the observer of those virtues which discover themselves principally in personal intercourse. Every benefactor of mankind is more or less influenced by a liberal passion for fame; and survivors only pay a debt due to these benefactors, when they assert and establish on their part, the honour they loved. The justice which is thus done to the illustrious dead, converts into the fairest source of animation and encouragement to those who would follow them in the same carreer. The human species at large is interested in this justice, as it teaches them to place their respect and affection, upon those qualities which best deserve to be esteemed and loved. I cannot easily prevail on myself to doubt, that the more fully we are presented with the picture and story of such persons as the subject of the following narrative, the more generally shall we feel in ourselves an attachment to their fate, and a sympathy in their excellencies. There are not many individuals with whose character the public welfare and improvement are more intimately connected, than the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
The facts detailed in the following pages, are principally taken from the mouth of the person to whom they relate; and of the veracity and ingenuousness of her habits, perhaps no one that was ever acquainted with her, entertains a doubt. The writer of this narrative, when he has met with persons, that in any degree created to themselves an interest and attachment in his mind, has always felt a curiosity to be acquainted with the scenes through which they had passed, and the incidents that had contributed to form their understandings and character. Impelled by this sentiment, he repeatedly led the conversation of Mary to topics of this sort; and, once or twice, he made notes in her presence, of a few dates calculated to arrange the circumstances in his mind. To the materials thus collected, he has added an industrious enquiry among the persons most intimately acquainted with her at the different periods of her life.
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April 1759. Her father’s name was Edward John, and the name of her mother Elizabeth, of the family of Dixons of Ballyshannon in the kingdom of Ireland: her paternal grandfather was a respectable manufacturer in Spitalfields, and is supposed to have left to his son a property of about 10,000l. Three of her brothers and two sisters are still living; their names, Edward, James, Charles, Eliza, and Everina. Of these, Edward only was older than herself; he resides in London. James is in Paris, and Charles in or near Philadelphia in America. Her sisters have for some years been engaged in the office of governesses in private families, and are both at present in Ireland.
I am doubtful whether the father of Mary was bred to any profession; but, about the time of her birth, he resorted, rather perhaps as an amusement than a business, to the occupation of farming. He was of a very active, and somewhat versatile disposition, and so frequently changed his abode, as to throw some ambiguity upon the place of her birth. She told me, that the doubt in her mind in that respect, lay between London, and a farm upon Epping Forest, which was the principal scene of the five first years of her life.
Mary was distinguished in early youth, by some portion of that exquisite sensibility, soundness of understanding, and decision of character, which were the leading features of her mind through the whole course of her life. She experienced in the first period of her existence, but few of those indulgences and marks of affection, which are principally calculated to sooth the subjection and sorrows of our early years. She was not the favourite either of her father or mother. Her father was a man of a quick, impetuous disposition, subject to alternate fits of kindness and cruelty. In his family he was a despot, and his wife appears to have been the first, and most submissive of his subjects. The mother’s partiality was fixed upon the eldest son, and her system of government relative to Mary, was characterized by considerable rigour. She, at length, became convinced of her mistake, and adopted a different plan with her younger daughters. When, in the Wrongs of Woman, Mary speaks of “the petty cares which obscured the morning of her heroine’s life; continual restraint in the most trivial matters; unconditional submission to orders, which, as a mere child, she soon discovered to be unreasonable, because inconsistent and contradictory; and the being often obliged to sit, in the presence of her parents, for three or four hours together, without daring to utter a word;” she is, I believe, to be considered as copying the outline of the first period of her own existence.
But it was in vain, that the blighting winds of unkindness or indifference, seemed destined to counteract the superiority of Mary’s mind. It surmounted every obstacle; and, by degrees, from a person little considered in the family, she became in some sort its director and umpire. The despotism of her education cost her many a heart-ache. She was not formed to be the contented and unresisting subject of a despot; but I have heard her remark more than once, that, when she felt she had done wrong, the reproof or chastisement of her mother, instead of being a terror to her, she found to be the only thing capable of reconciling her to herself. The blows of her father on the contrary, which were the mere ebullitions of a passionate temper, instead of humbling her, roused her indignation. Upon such occasions she felt her superiority, and was apt to betray marks of contempt. The quickness of her father’s temper, led him sometimes to threaten similar violence towards his wife. When that was the case, Mary would often throw herself between the despot and his victim, with the purpose to receive upon her own person the blows that might be directed against her mother. She has even laid whole nights upon the landing-place near their chamber-door, when, mistakenly, or with reason, she apprehended that her father might break out into paroxysms of violence. The conduct he held towards the members of his family, was of the same kind as that he observed towards animals. He was for the most part extravagantly fond of them; but, when he was displeased, and this frequently happened, and for very trivial reasons, his anger was alarming. Mary was what Dr. Johnson would have called, “a very good hater.” In some instance of passion exercised by her father to one of his dogs, she was accustomed to speak of her emotions of abhorrence, as having risen to agony. In a word, her conduct during her girlish years, was such, as to extort some portion of affection from her mother, and to hold her father in considerable awe.
In one respect, the system of education of the mother appears to have had merit. All her children were vigorous and healthy. This seems very much to depend upon the management of our infant years. It is affirmed by some persons of the present day, most profoundly skilled in the sciences of health and disease, that there is no period of human life so little subject to mortality, as the period of infancy. Yet, from the mismanagement to which children are exposed, many of the diseases of childhood are rendered fatal, and more persons die in that, than in any other period of human life. Mary had projected a work upon this subject, which she had carefully considered, and well understood. She has indeed left a specimen of her skill in this respect in her eldest daughter, three years and a half old, who is a singular example of vigorous constitution and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle, surgeon, of Soho-square, whom to name is sufficiently to honour, had promised to revise her production. This is but one out of numerous projects of activity and usefulness, which her untimely death has fatally terminated.
The rustic situation in which Mary spent her infancy, no doubt contributed to confirm the stamina of her constitution. She sported in the open air, and amidst the picturesque and refreshing scenes of nature, for which she always retained the most exquisite relish. Dolls and the other amusements usually appropriated to female children, she held in contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the active and hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to those of her own sex.
