he would have
settled himself promptly to plot out a scheme, and within a few
months a historical romance on the house of Coburg, accompanied
perchance by a preface setting forth the evils of monarchy, would
have been in the hands of the publisher. Unlike Miss Austen,
Godwin had neither a sense of humour nor a fastidious artistic
conscience to save him from undertaking incongruous tasks. He
seems never even to have suspected the humour of life, and would
have perceived nothing ludicrous in the spectacle of the author
of _Political Justice_ embarking on such a piece of work. Those
disquieting flashes of self-revelation that more imaginative men
catch in the mirror of their own minds and that awaken sometimes
laughter and sometimes tears, never disturbed Godwin's serenity.
He brooded earnestly over his speculations, quietly ignoring
inconvenient facts and never shrinking from absurd conclusions.
In theory he aimed at disorganising the whole of human society,
yet in actual life he was content to live unobtrusively,
publishing harmless books for children; and though he abhorred
the principle of aristocracy, he did not scruple to accept a
sinecure from government through Lord Grey. Notwithstanding his
stolid inconsistency and his deficiency in humour, Godwin is a
figure whom it is impossible to ignore or to despise. He was not
a frothy orator who made his appeal to the masses, but the leader
of the trained thinkers of the revolutionary party, a political
rebel who, instead of fulminating wildly and impotently after the
manner of his kind, expressed his theories in clear, reasonable
and logical form. It is easy, but unprofitable, to sneer at the
futility of some of Godwin's conclusions or to complain of the
aridity of his style. His _Political Justice_ remains,
nevertheless, a lucidly written, well-ordered piece of
intellectual reasoning. Shelley spoke of Godwin's _Mandeville_ in
the same breath with Plato's _Symposium_[74] and the ideas
expressed in _Political Justice_ inspired him to write not merely
_Queen Mab_ but the _Revolt of Islam_ and _Prometheus Unbound_.
Godwin's plea for the freedom of the individual and his belief in
the perfectibility of man through reason had a far-reaching
effect that cannot be readily estimated, but, as his theories
only concern us here in so far as they affect two of his novels,
it is unnecessary to pursue the trail of his influence further.

That the readers of fiction in the last decad