d so prejudiced that even the staid
bibliographer Allibone, in his "Dictionary of English Literature," a
place where one would think the most flagitious author safe from
animosity, speaks of Godwin's private life in terms that are little less
than scurrilous. Over against this persistent acrimony may be put the
fine eulogy of Mr. C. Kegan Paul, his biographer, to represent the
favourable judgment of our own time, whilst I will venture to quote one
remarkable passage that voices the opinions of many among Godwin's most
eminent contemporaries.

In "The Letters of Charles Lamb," Sir T.N. Talfourd says:

"Indifferent altogether to the politics of the age, Lamb could
not help being struck with productions of its newborn energies
so remarkable as the works and the character of Godwin. He
seemed to realise in himself what Wordsworth long afterwards
described, 'the central calm at the heart of all agitation.'
Through the medium of his mind the stormy convulsions of society
were seen 'silent as in a picture.' Paradoxes the most daring
wore the air of deliberate wisdom as he pronounced them. He
foretold the future happiness of mankind, not with the
inspiration of the poet, but with the grave and passionless
voice of the oracle. There was nothing better calculated at once
to feed and to make steady the enthusiasm of youthful patriots
than the high speculations in which he taught them to engage, on
the nature of social evils and the great destiny of his species.
No one would have suspected the author of those wild theories
which startled the wise and shocked the prudent in the calm,
gentlemanly person who rarely said anything above the most
gentle commonplace, and took interest in little beyond the
whist-table."

WILLIAM GODWIN (1756-1836) was son and grandson of Dissenting ministers,
and was destined for the same profession. In theology he began as a
Calvinist, and for a while was tinctured with the austere doctrines of
the Sandemanians. But his religious views soon took an unorthodox turn,
and in 1782, falling out with his congregation at Stowmarket, he came up
to London to earn his bread henceforward as a man of letters. In 1793
Godwin became one of the most famous men in England by the publication
of his "Political Justice," a work that his biographer would place side
by side with the "Speech for Unlicensed Printing," the "Essay on
Education," and "