ntry towns. He published a
forgotten volume of sermons, and his development both in politics and
theology was evidently slow. At twenty-seven, as a young pastor at
Beaconsfield, we find him a Whig and a Unitarian, who looked up to Dr.
Priestley as his master. He had now begun to study the French
philosophers, whom Hoxton had doubtless refuted, but did not read. He
was not a successful pastor, and it was as much his relative failure in
the pulpit as his slowly broadening beliefs which caused him to take to
letters for a livelihood. His long literary career begins in 1783 with
some years of prentice work in Grub Street. He wrote a successful
pamphlet in defence of the Coalition, which brought him to the notice of
the Whig chiefs, worked with enthusiasm at a _Life of Chatham_ which has
the merit of a rather heavy eloquence, contributed for seven years to
the _Annual Register_ and wrote three novels which evidently enjoyed an
ephemeral success. He lived the usual nomadic life of the young man of
letters, and differed from most of his kind chiefly by his industry, his
abstinence, and his methodical habits of study, which he never relaxed
even when he was writing busily for bread.

We find him rising early, and reading some portion of a Greek or Latin
classic before breakfast. He acquired by this practice a literary
knowledge of the classics and used it in his later essays with an ease
and intimacy which many a scholar would envy. He wrote for three or four
hours in the morning, composing slowly and frequently recasting his
drafts. The afternoon and evening were devoted to eager converse and hot
debate with friends, and to the reading of modern books in English,
French and Italian, with not infrequent visits to the theatre. A brief
diary carefully kept with a system of signs and abbreviations in a queer
mixed jargon of English, French and Latin records his anxious use of his
time, and shows to the end of his eighty years few wasted days. If
industry was his most conspicuous virtue, he gave proof at the outset of
his life of an independence rare among poor men who have their career to
make. Sheridan, who acted as the literary agent of the Whigs, wished to
engage him as a professional pamphleteer and offered him a regular
salary. He refused to tie himself to a party, though his views at this
time were those of an orthodox and enthusiastic admirer of Fox.

Godwin was to become the apostle of Universal Benevolence. It was a
virt