's _Political
Justice_,--and in 1794 he was tried, though with no result, for high
treason, with Horne Tooke and others. This brought him into the society
of the young Jacobin school,--Coleridge, and the rest,--but was
disastrous to the success of his plays; and when he went abroad in 1799
he entered on an extraordinary business of buying old masters (which
were rubbish) and sending them to England, where they generally sold for
nothing. He returned, however, and died on 23rd March 1809.

Holcroft's theatre will best receive such notice as it requires in
connection with the other drama of the century. Of his novels, _Alwyn_,
the first, had to do with his experiences as an actor, and _Hugh Trevor_
is also supposed to have been more or less autobiographical. Holcroft's
chief novel, however, is _Anna St. Ives_, a book in no less than seven
volumes, though not very large ones, which was published in 1792, and
which exhibits no small affinities to Godwin's _Caleb Williams_, and
indeed to the _Political Justice_ itself. And Godwin, who was not above
acknowledging mental obligations, if he was rather ill at discharging
pecuniary ones, admits the influence which Holcroft had upon him. _Anna
St. Ives_, which, like so many of the other novels of its day, is in
letters, is worth reading by those who can spare the time. But it cannot
compare, for mere amusement, with the very remarkable _Memoir_ above
referred to. Only about a fourth of this is said to be in Holcroft's own
words; but Hazlitt has made excellent matter of the rest, and it
includes a good deal of diary and other authentic work. In his own part
Holcroft shows himself a master of the vernacular, as well as (what he
undoubtedly was) a man of singular shrewdness and strength of mental
temper.

The Novel school of the period (to which Holcroft introduces us) is full
and decidedly interesting, though it contains at the best one
masterpiece, _Vathek_, and a large number of more or less meritorious
attempts in false styles. The kind was very largely written--much more
so than is generally thought. Thus Godwin, in his early struggling days,
and long before the complete success of _Caleb Williams_, wrote, as has
been mentioned, for trifling sums of money (five and ten guineas), two
or three novels which even the zeal of his enthusiastic biographer does
not seem to have been able to recover. Nor did the circulating library,
even then a flourishing institution, lack hands more o