[1] An "advocate" was a layman who had been invested with part of an
ecclesiastic estate, on condition that he defended the rest, and
exercised the blood-ban in lieu of the ecclesiastical owner (see
ADVOCATE, sec. _Advocatus ecclesiae_).
GODFREY OF VITERBO (c. 1120-c. 1196), chronicler, was probably an
Italian by birth, although some authorities assert that he was a Saxon.
He evidently passed some of his early life at Viterbo, where also he
spent his concluding days, but he was educated at Bamberg, gaining a
good knowledge of Latin. About 1140 he became chaplain to the German
king, Conrad III.; but the greater part of his life was spent as
secretary (_notarius_) in the service of the emperor Frederick I., who
appears to have thoroughly trusted him, and who employed him on many
diplomatic errands. Incessantly occupied, he visited Sicily, France and
Spain, in addition to many of the German cities, in the emperor's
interests, and was by his side during several of the Italian campaigns.
Both before and after Frederick's death in 1190 he enjoyed the favour of
his son, the emperor Henry VI., for whom he wrote his _Speculum regum_,
a work of very little value. Godfrey also wrote _Memoria seculorum_, or
_Liber memorialis_, a chronicle dedicated to Henry VI., which professes
to record the history of the world from the creation until 1185. It is
written partly in prose and partly in verse. A revision of this work was
drawn up by Godfrey himself as _Pantheon_, or _Universitatis libri qui
chronici appellantur_. The author borrowed from Otto of Freising, but
the earlier part of his chronicle is full of imaginary occurrences.
_Pantheon_ was first printed in 1559, and extracts from it are published
by L. A. Muratori in the _Rerum Italicarum scriptores_, tome vii.
(Milan, 1725). The only part of Godfrey's work which is valuable is the
_Gesta Friderici I._, verses relating events in the emperor's career
from 1155 to 1180. Concerned mainly with affairs in Italy, the poem
tells of the sieges of Milan, of Frederick's flight to Pavia in 1167, of
the treaty with Pope Alexander III. at Venice, and of other stirring
episodes with which the author was intimately acquainted, and many of
which he had witnessed. Attached to the _Gesta Friderici_ is the _Gesta
Heinrici VI._, a shorter poem which is often attributed to Godfrey,
although W. Wattenbach and other authorities think it was not written by
him. The _Memoria seculorum_ was very popular during the middle ages,
and has been continued by several writers.
Godfrey's works are found in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica_, Band
xxii. (Hanover, 1872). The _Gesta Friderici I. et Heinrici VI._ is
published separately with an introduction by G. Waitz (Hanover, 1872).
See also H. Ulmann, _Gotfried von Viterbo_ (Gottingen, 1863), and W.
Wattenbach, _Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_, Band ii. (Berlin, 1894).
(A. W. H.*)
GODHRA, a town of British India, administrative headquarters of the
Panch Mahals district of Bombay, and also of the Rewa Kantha political
agency; situated 52 m. N.E. of Baroda on the railway from Anand to
Ratlam. Pop. (1901) 20,915. It has a trade in timber from the
neighbouring forests.
GODIN, JEAN BAPTISTE ANDRE (1817-1888), French socialist, was born on
the 26th of January 1817 at Esqueheries (Aisne). The son of an artisan,
he entered an iron-works at an early age, and at seventeen made a tour
of France as journeyman. Returning to Esqueheries in 1837, he started a
small factory for the manufacture of castings for heating-stoves. The
business increased rapidly, and for the purpose of railway facilities
was transferred to Guise in 1846. At the time of Godin's death in 1888
the annual output was over four millions of francs (L160,000), and in
1908 the employees numbered over 2000 and the output was over L280,000.
An ardent disciple of Fourier, he advanced a considerable sum of money
towards the disastrous Fourierist experiment of V. P. Considerant (q.v.)
in Texas. He profited, however, by its failure, and in 1859 started the
_familistere_ or community settlement of Guise on more carefully laid
plans. It comprises, in addition to the workshops, three large
buildings, four storeys high, capable of housing all the work-people,
each family having two or three rooms. Attached to each building is a
vast central court, covered with a glass roof, under which the children
can play in all weathers. There are also creches, nurseries, hospital,
refreshment rooms and recreation rooms of various kinds, stores for the
purchase of groceries, drapery and every necessity, and a large theatre
for concerts and dramatic entertainments. In 1880 the whole was turned
into a co-operative society, with provision by which it eventually
became the property of the workers. In 1871 Godin was elected deputy for
Aisne, but retired in 1876 to devote himself to the management of the
_familistere_. In 1882 he was created a knight of the legion of honour.
Godin was the author of _Solutions sociales_ (1871); _Les Socialistes
et les droits du travail_ (1874); _Mutualite sociale_ (1880); _La
Republique du travail et la reforme parlementaire_ (1889). See
Bernardot, _Le Familistere de Guise et son fondateur_ (Paris, 1887);
Fischer, _Die Familistere Godin's_ (Berlin, 1890); Lestelle, _Etude
sur le familistere de Guise_ (Paris, 1904); D. F. P., _Le Familistere
illustre, resultats de vingt ans d'association_, 1880-1900 (Eng.
trans., _Twenty-eight years of co-partnership at Guise_, by A.
Williams, 1908).
GODIVA, a Saxon lady, who, according to the legend, rode naked through
the streets of Coventry to gain from her husband a remission of the
oppressive toll imposed on his tenants. The story is that she was the
beautiful wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia and lord of Coventry. The
people of that city suffering grievously under the earl's oppressive
taxation, Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who
obstinately refused to remit the tolls. At last, weary of her
entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would ride naked
through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and
after issuing a proclamation that all persons should keep within doors
or shut their windows, she rode through, clothed only in her long hair.
One person disobeyed her proclamation, a tailor, ever afterwards known
as Peeping Tom. He bored a hole in his shutters that he might see Godiva
pass, and is said to have been struck blind. Her husband kept his word
and abolished the obnoxious taxes.
The oldest form of the legend makes Godiva pass through Coventry market
from one end to the other when the people were assembled, attended only
by two soldiers, her long hair down so that none saw her, "apparentibus
cruribus tamen candidissimis." This version is given in _Flores
historiarum_ by Roger of Wendover, who quoted from an earlier writer.
The later story, with its episode of Peeping Tom, has been evolved by
later chroniclers. Whether the lady Godiva of this story is the Godiva
or Godgifu of history is undecided. That a lady of this name existed in
the early part of the 11th century is certain, as evidenced by several
ancient documents, such as the Stow charter, the Spalding charter and
the Domesday survey, though the spelling of the name varies
considerably. It would appear from _Liber Eliensis_ (end of 12th
century) that she was a widow when Leofric married her in 1040. In or
about that year she aided in the founding of a monastery at Stow,
Lincolnshire. In 1043 she persuaded her husband to build and endow a
Benedictine monastery at Coventry. Her mark, "[cross] Ego Godiva
Comitissa diu istud desideravi," was found on the charter given by her
brother, Thorold of Bucknall--sheriff of Lincolnshire--to the
Benedictine monastery of Spalding in 1051; and she is commemorated as
benefactress of other monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Wenlock,
Worcester and Evesham. She probably died a few years before the Domesday
survey (1085-1086), and was buried in one of the porches of the abbey
church. Dugdale (1656) says that a window, with representations of
Leofric and Godiva, was placed in Trinity Church, Coventry, about the
time of Richard II. The Godiva procession, a commemoration of the
legendary ride instituted on the 31st of May 1678 as part of Coventry
fair, was celebrated at intervals until 1826. From 1848 to 1887 it was
revived, and recently further attempts have been made to popularize the
pageant. The wooden effigy of Peeping Tom which, since 1812, has looked
out on the world from a house at the north-west corner of Hertford
Street, Coventry, represents a man in armour, and was probably an image
of St George. It was removed from another part of the town to its
present position.
GODKIN, EDWIN LAWRENCE (1831-1902), American publicist, was born in
Moyne, county Wicklow, Ireland, on the 2nd of October 1831. His father,
James Godkin, was a Presbyterian minister and a journalist, and the son,
after graduating in 1851 at Queen's College, Belfast, and studying law
in London, was in 1853-1855 war correspondent for the London _Daily
News_ in Turkey and Russia, being present at the capture of Sevastopol,
and late in 1856 went to America and wrote letters to the same journal,
giving his impressions of a tour of the southern states of the American
Union. He studied law in New York City, was admitted to the bar in 1859,
travelled in Europe in 1860-1862, wrote for the London _News_ and the
New York _Times_ in 1862-1865, and in 1865 founded in New York City the
_Nation_, a weekly projected by him long before, for which Charles Eliot
Norton gained friends in Boston and James Miller McKim (1810-1874) in
Philadelphia, and which Godkin edited until the end of the year 1899. In
1881 he sold the _Nation_ to the New York _Evening Post_, and became an
associate editor of the _Post_, of which he was editor-in-chief in
1883-1899, succeeding Carl Schurz. In the 'eighties he engaged in a
controversy with Goldwin Smith over the Irish question. Under his
leadership the _Post_ broke with the Republican party in the
presidential campaign of 1884, when Godkin's opposition to Blaine did
much to create the so-called Mugwump party (see MUGWUMP), and his organ
became thoroughly independent, as was seen when it attacked the
Venezuelan policy of President Cleveland, who had in so many ways
approximated the ideal of the _Post_ and _Nation_. He consistently
advocated currency reform, the gold basis, a tariff for revenue only,
and civil service reform, rendering the greatest aid to the last cause.
His attacks on Tammany Hall were so frequent and so virulent that in
1894 he was sued for libel because of biographical sketches of certain
leaders in that organization--cases which never came up for trial. His
opposition to the war with Spain and to imperialism was able and
forcible. He retired from his editorial duties on the 30th of December
1899, and sketched his career in the _Evening Post_ of that date.
Although he recovered from a severe apoplectic stroke early in 1900, his
health was shattered, and he died in Greenway, Devonshire, England, on
the 21st of May 1902. Godkin shaped the lofty and independent policy of
the _Post_ and the _Nation_, which had a small but influential and
intellectual class of readers. But as editor he had none of the personal
magnetism of Greeley, for instance, and his superiority to the influence
of popular feeling made Charles Dudley Warner style the Nation the
"weekly judgment day." He was an economist of the school of Mill, urged
the necessity of the abstraction called "economic man," and insisted
that socialism put in practice would not improve social and economic
conditions in general. In politics he was an enemy of sentimentalism and
loose theories in government. He published _A History of Hungary, A.D.
300-1850_ (1856), _Government_ (1871, in the American Science Series),
_Reflections and Comments_ (1895), _Problems of Modern Democracy_ (1896)
and _Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy_ (1898).
See _Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin_, edited by Rollo Ogden (2
vols., New York, 1907).
GODMANCHESTER, a municipal borough in the southern, parliamentary
division of Huntingdonshire, England, on the right bank of the Ouse, 1
m. S.S.E. of Huntingdon, on a branch of the Great Eastern railway. Pop.
(1901) 2017. It has a beautiful Perpendicular church (St Mary's) and an
agricultural trade, with flour mills. The town is governed by a mayor, 4
aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 4907 acres.
A Romano-British village occupied the site of Godmanchester. The town
(_Gumencestre, Gomecestre_) belonged to the king before the Conquest and
at the time of the Domesday survey. In 1213 King John granted the manor
to the men of the town at a fee-farm of L120 yearly, and confirmation
charters were granted by several succeeding kings, Richard II. in
1391-1392 adding exemption from toll, pannage, &c. James I. granted an
incorporation charter in 1605 under the title of bailiffs, assistants
and commonalty, but under the Municipal Reform Act of 1835 the
corporation was changed to a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors.
Godmanchester was formerly included for parliamentary purposes in the
borough of Huntingdon, which has ceased to be separately represented
since 1885. The incorporation charter of 1605 recites that the burgesses
are chiefly engaged in agriculture, and grants them a fair, which still
continues every year on Tuesday in Easter week.
See _Victoria County History, Huntingdon_; Robert Fox, _The History of
Godmanchester_ (1831).
GODOLLO, a market town of Hungary, in the county of
Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, 23 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900)
5875. Godollo is the summer residence of the Hungarian royal family, and
the royal castle, built in the second half of the 18th century by Prince
Anton Grassalkovich, was, with the beautiful domain, presented by the
Hungarian nation to King Francis Joseph I. after the coronation in 1867.
In its park there are a great number of stags and wild boars. Godollo is
a favourite summer resort of the inhabitants of Budapest. In its
vicinity is the famous place of pilgrimage Maria-Besnyo, with a fine
Franciscan monastery, which contains the tombs of the Grassalkovich
family.
GODOLPHIN, SIDNEY GODOLPHIN, EARL OF (c. 1645-1712), was a cadet of an
ancient family of Cornwall. At the Restoration he was introduced into
the royal household by Charles II., with whom he had previously become a
favourite, and he also at the same period entered the House of Commons
as member for Helston. Although he very seldom addressed the House, and,
when he did so, only in the briefest manner, he gradually acquired a
reputation as its chief if not its only financial authority. In March
1679 he was appointed a member of the privy council, and in the
September following he was promoted, along with Viscount Hyde
(afterwards earl of Rochester) and the earl of Sunderland, to the chief
management of affairs. Though he voted for the Exclusion Bill in 1680,
he was continued in office after the dismissal of Sunderland, and in
September 1684 he was created Baron Godolphin of Rialton, and succeeded
Rochester as first lord of the treasury. After the accession of James
II. he was made chamberlain to the queen, and, along with Rochester and
Sunderland, enjoyed the king's special confidence. In 1687 he was named
commissioner of the treasury. He was one of the council of five
appointed by King James to represent him in London, when he went to join
the army after the landing of William, prince of Orange, in England,
and, along with Halifax and Nottingham, he was afterwards appointed a
commissioner to treat with the prince. On the accession of William,
though he only obtained the third seat at the treasury board, he had
virtually the chief control of affairs. He retired in March 1690, but
was recalled on the November following and appointed first lord. While
holding this office he for several years continued, in conjunction with
Marlborough, a treacherous intercourse with James II., and is said even
to have anticipated Marlborough in disclosing to James intelligence
regarding the intended expedition against Brest. Godolphin was not only
a Tory by inheritance, but had a romantic admiration for the wife of
James II. He also wished to be safe whatever happened, and his treachery
in this case was mostly due to caution. After Fenwick's confession in
1696 regarding the attempted assassination of William III., Godolphin,
who was compromised, was induced to tender his resignation; but when the
Tories came into power in 1700, he was again appointed lord treasurer
and retained office for about a year. Though not a favourite with Queen
Anne, he was, after her accession, appointed to his old office, on the
strong recommendation of Marlborough. He also in 1704 received the
honour of knighthood, and in December 1706 he was created Viscount
Rialton and earl of Godolphin. Though a Tory he had an active share in
the intrigues which gradually led to the predominance of the Whigs in
alliance with Marlborough. The influence of the Marlboroughs with the
queen was, however, gradually supplanted by that of Mrs Masham and
Harley, earl of Oxford, and with the fortunes of the Marlboroughs those
of Godolphin were indissolubly united. The services of both were so
appreciated by the nation that they were able for a time to regard the
loss of the queen's favour with indifference, and even in 1708 to
procure the expulsion of Harley from office; but after the Tory reaction
which followed the impeachment of Dr Sacheverel, who abused Godolphin
under the name of Volpone, the queen made use of the opportunity to take
the initiatory step towards delivering herself from the irksome thraldom
of Marlborough by abruptly dismissing Godolphin from office on the 7th
of August 1710. He died on the 15th of September 1712.
Godolphin owed his rise to power and his continuance in it under four
sovereigns chiefly to his exceptional mastery of financial matters; for
if latterly he was in some degree indebted for his promotion to the
support of Marlborough, he received that support mainly because
Marlborough recognized that for the prosecution of England's foreign
wars his financial abilities were an indispensable necessity. He was
cool, reserved and cautious, but his prudence was less associated with
high sagacity than traceable to the weakness of his personal antipathies
and prejudices, and his freedom from political predilections. Perhaps it
was his unlikeness to Marlborough in that moral characteristic which so
tainted Marlborough's greatness that rendered possible between them a
friendship so intimate and undisturbed: he was, it would appear,
exceptionally devoid of the passion of avarice; and so little advantage
did he take of his opportunities of aggrandizement that, though his
style of living was unostentatious,--and in connexion with his favourite
pastimes of horse-racing, card-playing and cock-fighting he gained
perhaps more than he lost,--all that he left behind him did not,
according to the duchess of Marlborough, amount to more than L12,000.
Godolphin married Margaret Blagge, the pious lady whose life was written
by Evelyn, on the 16th of May 1675, and married again after her death in
1678. His son and successor, Francis (1678-1766), held various offices
at court, and was lord privy seal from 1735 to 1740. He married
Henrietta Churchill (d. 1733), daughter of the duke of Marlborough, who
in 1722 became in her own right duchess of Marlborough. He died without
male issue in January 1766, when the earldom became extinct, and the
estates passed to Thomas Osborne, 4th duke of Leeds, the husband of the
earl's daughter Mary, whose descendant is the present representative of
the Godolphins.
A life of Godolphin was published in 1888 in London by the Hon. H.
Elliot.
GODOY, ALVAREZ DE FARIA, RIOS SANCHEZ Y ZARZOSA, MANUEL DE (1767-1851),
duke of El Alcudia and prince of the Peace, Spanish royal favourite and
minister, was born at Badajoz on the 12th of May 1767. His father, Don
Jose de Godoy, was the head of a very ancient but impoverished family of
nobles in Estremadura. His mother, whose maiden name was Maria Antonia
Alvarez de Faria, belonged to a Portuguese noble family. Manuel boasts
in his memoirs that he had the best masters, but it is certain that he
received only the very slight education usually given at that time to
the sons of provincial nobles. In 1784 he entered the Guardia de Corps,
a body of gentlemen who acted as the immediate body-guard of the king.
His well-built and stalwart person, his handsome foolish face, together
with a certain geniality of character which he must have possessed,
earned him the favour of Maria Luisa of Parma, the princess of Asturias,
a coarse, passionate woman who was much neglected by her husband, who on
his part cared for nothing but hunting.
When King Charles III. died in 1788, Godoy's fortune was soon made. The
princess of Asturias, now queen, understood how to manage her husband
Charles IV. Godoy says in his memoirs that the king, who had been
carefully kept apart from affairs during his father's life, and who
disliked his father's favourite minister Floridablanca, wished to have a
creature of his own. This statement is no doubt true as far as it goes.
But it requires to be completed by the further detail that the queen put
her lover in her husband's way, and that the king was guided by them,
when he thought he was ruling for himself through a subservient
minister. In some respects King Charles was obstinate, and Godoy is
probably right in saying that he never was an absolute "viceroy," and
that he could not always secure the removal of colleagues whom he knew
to be his enemies. He could only rule by obeying. Godoy adopted without
scruple this method of pushing his fortunes. When the king was set on a
particular course, he followed it; the execution was left to him and the
queen. His pliability endeared him to his master, whose lasting
affection he earned. In practice he commonly succeeded in inspiring the
wishes which he then proceeded to gratify. From the very beginning of
the new reign he was promoted in the army with scandalous rapidity, made
duke of El Alcudia, and in 1792 minister under the premiership of
Aranda, whom he succeeded in displacing by the close of the year.
His official life is fairly divided by himself into three periods. From
1792 to 1798 he was premier. In the latter year his unpopularity and the
intrigues of the French government, which had taken a dislike to him,
led to his temporary retirement, without, however, any diminution of the
king's personal favour. He asserts that he had no wish to return to
office, but letters sent by him to the queen show that he begged for
employment. They are written in a very unpleasant mixture of gush and
vulgar familiarity. In 1801 he returned to office, and until 1807 he was
the executant of the disastrous policy of the court. The third period of
his public life is the last year, 1807-1808, when he was desperately
striving for his place between the aggressive intervention of Napoleon
on the one hand, and the growing hatred of the nation, organized behind,
and about, the prince of Asturias, Ferdinand. On the 17th of March 1808
a popular outbreak at Aranjuez drove him into hiding. When driven out by
hunger and thirst he was recognized and arrested. By Ferdinand's order
he was kept in prison, till Napoleon demanded that he should be sent to
Bayonne. Here he rejoined his master and mistress. He remained with them
till Charles IV. died at Rome in 1819, having survived his queen. The
rest of Godoy's life was spent in poverty and obscurity. After the death
of Ferdinand VII., in 1833, he returned to Madrid, and endeavoured to
secure the restoration of his property confiscated in 1808. Part of it
was the estate of the Soto de Roma, granted by the cortes to the duke of
Wellington. He failed, and during his last years lived on a small
pension granted him by Louis Philippe. He died in Paris on the 4th of
October 1851.
As a favourite Godoy is remarkable for the length of his hold on the
affection of his sovereigns, and for its completeness. Latterly he was
supported rather by the husband than by the wife. He got rid of Aranda
by adopting, in order to please the king, a policy which tended to bring
on war with France. When the war proved disastrous, he made the peace of
Basel, and was created prince of the Peace for his services. Then he
helped to make war with England, and the disasters which followed only
made him dearer to the king. Indeed it became a main object with Charles
IV. to protect "Manuelito" from popular hatred, and if possible secure
him a principality. The queen endured his infidelities to her, which
were flagrant. The king arranged a marriage for him with Dona Teresa de
Bourbon, daughter of the infante Don Luis by a morganatic marriage,
though he was probably already married to Dona Josefa Tudo, and
certainly continued to live with her. Godoy, in his memoirs, lays claim
to have done much for Spanish agriculture and industry, but he did
little more than issue proclamations and appoint officers. His
intentions may have been good, but the policy of his government was
financially ruinous. In his private life he was not only profligate and
profuse, but childishly ostentatious. The best that can be said for him
is that he was good-natured, and did his best to restrain the
Inquisition and the purely reactionary parties.
AUTHORITIES.--Godoy's _Memoirs_ were published in Spanish, English and
French in 1836. A general account of his career will be found in the
_Memoires sur la Revolution d'Espagne_, by the Abbe de Pradt (1816).
GODROON, or GADROON (Fr. _godron_, of unknown etymology), in
architecture, a convex decoration (said to be derived from raised work
on linen) applied in France to varieties of the bead and reel, in which
the bead is often carved with ornament. In England the term is
constantly used by auctioneers to describe the raised convex decorations
under the bowl of stone or terra-cotta vases. The godroons radiate from
the vertical support of the vase and rise half-way up the bowl.
GODWIN, FRANCIS (1562-1633), English divine, son of Thomas Godwin,
bishop of Bath and Wells, was born at Hannington, Northamptonshire, in
1562. He was elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1578, took his
bachelor's degree in 1580, and that of master in 1583. After holding two
Somersetshire livings he was in 1587 appointed subdean of Exeter. In
1590 he accompanied William Camden on an antiquarian tour through Wales.
He was created bachelor of divinity in 1593, and doctor in 1595. In 1601
he published his _Catalogue of the Bishops of England since the first
planting of the Christian Religion in this Island_, a work which
procured him in the same year the bishopric of Llandaff. A second
edition appeared in 1615, and in 1616 he published an edition in Latin
with a dedication to King James, who in the following year conferred
upon him the bishopric of Hereford. The work was republished, with a
continuation by William Richardson, in 1743. In 1616 Godwin published
_Rerum Anglicarum, Henrico VIII., Edwardo VI. et Maria regnantibus,
Annales_, which was afterwards translated and published by his son
Morgan under the title _Annales of England_ (1630). He is also the
author of a somewhat remarkable story, published posthumously in 1638,
and entitled _The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither,
by Domingo Gonsales_, written apparently some time between the years
1599 and 1603. In this production Godwin not only declares himself a
believer in the Copernican system, but adopts so far the principles of
the law of gravitation as to suppose that the earth's attraction
diminishes with the distance. The work, which displays considerable
fancy and wit, was translated into French, and was imitated in several
important particulars by Cyrano de Bergerac, from whom (if not from
Godwin direct) Swift obtained valuable hints in writing of Gulliver's
voyage to Laputa. Another work of Godwin's, _Nuncius inanimatus
Utopiae_, originally published in 1629 and again in 1657, seems to have
been the prototype of John Wilkins's _Mercury, or the Secret and Swift
Messenger_, which appeared in 1641. He died, after a lingering illness,
in April 1633.
GODWIN, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1759-1797), English miscellaneous writer,
was born at Hoxton, on the 27th of April 1759. Her family was of Irish
extraction, and Mary's grandfather, who was a respectable manufacturer
in Spitalfields, realized the property which his son squandered. Her
mother, Elizabeth Dixon, was Irish, and of good family. Her father,
Edward John Wollstonecraft, after dissipating the greater part of his
patrimony, tried to earn a living by farming, which only plunged him
into deeper difficulties, and he led a wandering, shifty life. The
family roamed from Hoxton to Edmonton, to Essex, to Beverley in
Yorkshire, to Laugharne, Pembrokeshire, and back to London again.
After Mrs Wollstonecraft's death in 1780, soon followed by her husband's
second marriage, the three daughters, Mary, Everina and Eliza, sought to
earn their own livelihood. The sisters were all clever women--Mary and
Eliza far above the average--but their opportunities of culture had been
few. Mary, the eldest, went in the first instance to live with her
friend Fanny Blood, a girl of her own age, whose father, like
Wollstonecraft, was addicted to drink and dissipation. As long as she
lived with the Bloods, Mary helped Mrs Blood to earn money by taking in
needlework, while Fanny painted in watercolours. Everina went to live
with her brother Edward, and Eliza made a hasty and, as it proved,
unhappy marriage with a Mr Bishop. A legal separation was afterwards
obtained, and the sisters, together with Fanny Blood, took a house,
first at Islington, afterwards at Newington Green, and opened a school,
which was carried on with indifferent success for nearly two years.
During their residence at Newington Green, Mary was introduced to Dr
Johnson, who, as Godwin tells us, "treated her with particular kindness
and attention."
In 1785 Fanny Blood married Hugh Skeys, a merchant, and went with him to
Lisbon, where she died in childbed after sending for Mary to nurse her.
"The loss of Fanny," as she said in a letter to Mrs Skeys's brother,
George Blood, "was sufficient of itself to have cast a cloud over my
brightest days.... I have lost all relish for pleasure, and life seems a
burden almost too heavy to be endured." Her first novel, _Mary, a
Fiction_ (1788), was intended to commemorate her friendship with Fanny.
After closing the school at Newington Green, Mary became governess in
the family of Lord Kingsborough, in Ireland. Her pupils were much
attached to her, especially Margaret King, afterwards Lady Mountcashel;
and indeed, Lady Kingsborough gave the reason for dismissing her after
one year's service that the children loved their governess better than
their mother. Mary now resolved to devote herself to literary work, and
she was encouraged by Johnson, the publisher in St Paul's churchyard,
for whom she acted as literary adviser. She also undertook translations,
chiefly from the French. _The Elements of Morality_ (1790) from the
German of Salzmann, illustrated by Blake, an old-fashioned book for
children, and Lavater's _Physiognomy_ were among her translations. Her
_Original Stories from Real Life_ were published in 1791, and, with
illustrations by Blake, in 1796. In 1792 appeared _A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman_, the work with which her name is always associated.
It is not among the least oddities of this book that it is dedicated to
M. Talleyrand Perigord, late bishop of Autun. Mary Wollstonecraft still
believed him to be sincere, and working in the same direction as
herself. In the dedication she states the "main argument" of the work,
"built on this simple principle that, if woman be not prepared by
education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of
knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious
with respect to its influence or general practice." In carrying out this
argument she used great plainness of speech, and it was this that caused
all, or nearly all, the outcry. For she did not attack the institution
of marriage, nor assail orthodox religion; her book was really a plea
for equality of education, passing into one for state education and for
the joint education of the sexes. It was a protest against the
assumption that woman was only the plaything of man, and she asserted
that intellectual companionship was the chief, as it is the lasting,
happiness of marriage. She thus directly opposed the teaching of
Rousseau, of whom she was in other respects an ardent disciple.
Mrs Wollstonecraft, as she now styled herself, desired to watch the
progress of the Revolution in France, and went to Paris in 1792. Godwin,
in his memoir of his wife, considers that the change of residence may
have been prompted by the discovery that she was becoming attached to
Henry Fuseli, but there is little to confirm this surmise; indeed, it
was first proposed that she should go to Paris in company with him and
his wife, nor was there any subsequent breach in their friendship. She
remained in Paris during the Reign of Terror, when communication with
England was difficult or almost impossible. Some time in the spring or
summer of 1793 Captain Gilbert Imlay, an American, became acquainted
with Mary--an acquaintance which ended in a more intimate connexion.
There was no legal ceremony of marriage, and it is doubtful whether such
a marriage would have been valid at the time; but she passed as Imlay's
wife, and Imlay himself terms her in a legal document, "Mary Imlay, my
best friend and wife." In August 1793 Imlay was called to Havre on
business, and was absent for some months, during which time most of the
letters published after her death by Godwin were written. Towards the
end of the year she joined Imlay at Havre, and there in the spring of
1794 she gave birth to a girl, who received the name of Fanny, in
memory of the dear friend of her youth. In this year she published the
first volume of a never completed _Historical and Moral View of the
French Revolution_. Imlay became involved in a multitude of
speculations, and his affection for Mary and their child was already
waning. He left Mary for some months at Havre. In June 1795, after
joining him in England, Mary left for Norway on business for Imlay. Her
letters from Norway, divested of all personal details, were afterwards
published. She returned to England late in 1795, and found letters
awaiting her from Imlay, intimating his intention to separate from her,
and offering to settle an annuity on her and her child. For herself she
rejected this offer with scorn: "From you," she wrote, "I will not
receive anything more. I am not sufficiently humbled to depend on your
beneficence." They met again, and for a short time lived together, until
the discovery that he was carrying on an intrigue under her own roof
drove her to despair, and she attempted to drown herself by leaping from
Putney bridge, but was rescued by watermen. Imlay now completely
deserted her, although she continued to bear his name.
In 1796, when Mary Wollstonecraft was living in London, supporting
herself and her child by working, as before, for Mr Johnson, she met
William Godwin. A friendship sprang up between them,--a friendship, as
he himself says, which "melted into love." Godwin states that "ideas
which he is now willing to denominate prejudices made him by no means
willing to conform to the ceremony of marriage"; but these prejudices
were overcome, and they were married at St Pancras church on the 29th of
March 1797. And now Mary had a season of real calm in her stormy
existence. Godwin, for once only in his life, was stirred by passion,
and his admiration for his wife equalled his affection. But their
happiness was of short duration. The birth of her daughter Mary,
afterwards the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the 30th of August 1797,
proved fatal, and Mrs Godwin died on the 10th of September following.
She was buried in the churchyard of Old St Pancras, but her remains were
afterwards removed by Sir Percy Shelley to the churchyard of St Peter's,
Bournemouth.
Her principal published works are as follows:--_Thoughts on the
Education of Daughters, ..._ (1787); _The Female Reader_ (selections)
(1789); _Original Stories from Real Life_ (1791); _An Historical and
Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, and
the effects it has produced in Europe_, vol. i. (no more published)
(1790); _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ (1792); _Vindication of
the Rights of Man_ (1793); _Mary, a Fiction_ (1788); _Letters written
during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark_ (1796);
_Posthumous Works_ (4 vols., 1798). It is impossible to trace the many
articles contributed by her to periodical literature.
A memoir of her life was published by Godwin in 1798. A large portion
of C. Kegan Paul's work, _William Godwin, his Friends and
Contemporaries_, was devoted to her, and an edition of the _Letters to
Imlay_ (1879), of which the first edition was published by Godwin, is
prefaced by a somewhat fuller memoir. See also E. Dowden, _The French
Revolution and English Literature_ (1897) pp. 82 et seq.; E. R.
Pennell, _Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin_ (1885), in the Eminent Women
Series; E. R. Clough, _A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights
of Woman_ (1898); an edition of her _Original Stories_ (1906), with
William Blake's illustrations and an introduction by E. V. Lucas; and
the _Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay_ (1908),
with an introduction by Roger Ingpen.
GODWIN, WILLIAM, (1756-1836), English political and miscellaneous
writer, son of a Nonconformist minister, was born on the 3rd of March
1756, at Wisbeach in Cambridgeshire. His family came on both sides of
middle-class people, and it was probably only as a joke that Godwin, a
stern political reformer and philosophical radical, attempted to trace
his pedigree to a time before the Norman conquest and the great earl
Godwine. Both parents were strict Calvinists. The father died young, and
never inspired love or much regret in his son; but in spite of wide
differences of opinion, tender affection always subsisted between
William Godwin and his mother, until her death at an advanced age.
William Godwin was educated for his father's profession at Hoxton
Academy, where he was under Andrew Kippis the biographer and Dr Abraham
Rees of the _Cyclopaedia_, and was at first more Calvinistic than his
teachers, becoming a Sandemanian, or follower of John Glas (q.v.), whom
he describes as "a celebrated north-country apostle who, after Calvin
had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, has contrived a scheme
for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin." He
then acted as a minister at Ware, Stowmarket and Beaconsfield. At
Stowmarket the teachings of the French philosophers were brought before
him by a friend, Joseph Fawcet, who held strong republican opinions. He
came to London in 1782, still nominally a minister, to regenerate
society with his pen--a real enthusiast, who shrank theoretically from
no conclusions from the premises which he laid down. He adopted the
principles of the Encyclopaedists, and his own aim was the complete
overthrow of all existing institutions, political, social and religious.
He believed, however, that calm discussion was the only thing needful to
carry every change, and from the beginning to the end of his career he
deprecated every approach to violence. He was a philosophic radical in
the strictest sense of the term.
His first published work was an anonymous _Life of Lord Chatham_ (1783).
Under the inappropriate title _Sketches of History_ (1784) he published
under his own name six sermons on the characters of Aaron, Hazael and
Jesus, in which, though writing in the character of an orthodox
Calvinist, he enunciates the proposition "God Himself has no right to be
a tyrant." Introduced by Andrew Kippis, he began to write in 1785 for
the _Annual Register_ and other periodicals, producing also three novels
now forgotten. The "Sketches of English History" written for the _Annual
Register_ from 1785 onward still deserve study. He joined a club called
the "Revolutionists," and associated much with Lord Stanhope, Horne
Tooke and Holcroft. His clerical character was now completely dropped.
In 1793 Godwin published his great work on political science, _The
Inquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General
Virtue and Happiness_. Although this work is little known and less read
now, it marks a phase in English thought. Godwin could never have been
himself a worker on the active stage of life. But he was none the less a
power behind the workers, and for its political effect, _Political
Justice_ takes its place with Milton's _Areopagitica_, with Locke's
_Essay on Education_ and with Rousseau's _Emile_. By the words
"political justice" the author meant "the adoption of any principle of
morality and truth into the practice of a community," and the work was
therefore an inquiry into the principles of society, of government and
of morals. For many years Godwin had been "satisfied that monarchy was a
species of government unavoidably corrupt," and from desiring a
government of the simplest construction, he gradually came to consider
that "government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of
original mind." Believing in the perfectibility of the race, that there
are no innate principles, and therefore no original propensity to evil,
he considered that "our virtues and our vices may be traced to the
incidents which make the history of our lives, and if these incidents
could be divested of every improper tendency, vice would be extirpated
from the world." All control of man by man was more or less intolerable,
and the day would come when each man, doing what seems right in his own
eyes, would also be doing what is in fact best for the community,
because all will be guided by principles of pure reason. But all was to
be done by discussion, and matured change resulting from discussion.
Hence, while Godwin thoroughly approved of the philosophic schemes of
the precursors of the Revolution, he was as far removed as Burke himself
from agreeing with the way in which they were carried out. So logical
and uncompromising a thinker as Godwin could not go far in the
discussion of abstract questions without exciting the most lively
opposition in matters of detailed opinion. An affectionate son, and ever
ready to give of his hard-earned income to more than one ne'er-do-well
brother, he maintained that natural relationship had no claim on man,
nor was gratitude to parents or benefactors any part of justice or
virtue. In a day when the penal code was still extremely severe, he
argued gravely against all punishments, not only that of death. Property
was to belong to him who most wanted it; accumulated property was a
monstrous injustice. Hence marriage, which is law, is the worst of all
laws, and as property the worst of all properties. A man so passionless
as Godwin could venture thus to argue without suspicion that he did so
only to gratify his wayward desires. Portions of this treatise, and only
portions, found ready acceptance in those minds which were prepared to
receive them. Perhaps no one received the whole teaching of the book.
But it gave cohesion and voice to philosophic radicalism; it was the
manifesto of a school without which liberalism of the present day had
not been. Godwin himself in after days modified his communistic views,
but his strong feeling for individualism, his hatred of all restrictions
on liberty, his trust in man, his faith in the power of reason remained;
it was a manifesto which enunciated principles modifying action, even
when not wholly ruling it.
In May 1794 Godwin published the novel of _Caleb Williams, or Things as
they are_, a book of which the political object is overlooked by many
readers in the strong interest of the story. The book was dramatized by
the younger Colman as _The Iron Chest_. It is one of the few novels of
that time which may be said still to live.[1] A theorist who lived
mainly in his study, Godwin yet came forward boldly to stand by
prisoners arraigned of high treason in that same year--1794. The danger
to persons so charged was then great, and he deliberately put himself
into this same danger for his friends. But when his own trial was
discussed in the privy council, Pitt sensibly held that _Political
Justice_, the work on which the charge could best have been founded, was
priced at three guineas, and could never do much harm among those who
had not three shillings to spare.
From this time Godwin became a notable figure in London society, and
there was scarcely an important person in politics, on the Liberal side,
in literature, art or science, who does not appear familiarly in the
pages of Godwin's singular diary. For forty-eight years, beginning in
1788, and continuing to the very end of his life, Godwin kept a record
of every day, of the work he did, the books he read, the friends he saw.
Condensed in the highest degree, the diary is yet easy to read when the
style is once mastered, and it is a great help to the understanding of
his cold, methodical, unimpassioned character. He carried his method
into every detail of life, and lived on his earnings with extreme
frugality. Until he made a large sum by the publication of _Political
Justice_, he lived on an average of L120 a year.
In 1797, the intervening years having been spent in strenuous literary
labour, Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft (see GODWIN, MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT). Since both held the same views regarding the slavery of
marriage, and since they only married at all for the sake of possible
offspring, the marriage was concealed for some time, and the happiness
of the avowed married life was very brief; his wife's death on the 10th
of September left Godwin prostrated by affliction, and with a charge for
which he was wholly unfit--his infant daughter Mary, and her stepsister,
Fanny Imlay, who from that time bore the name of Godwin. His unfitness
for the cares of a family, far more than love, led him to contract a
second marriage with Mary Jane Clairmont in 1801. She was a widow with
two children, one of whom, Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, became the
mistress of Lord Byron. The second Mrs Godwin was energetic and
painstaking, but a harsh stepmother; and it may be doubted whether the
children were not worse off under her care than they would have been
under Godwin's neglect.
The second novel which proceeded from Godwin's pen was called _St Leon_,
and published in 1799. It is chiefly remarkable for the beautiful
portrait of Marguerite, the heroine, drawn from the character of his own
wife. His opinions underwent a change in the direction of theism,
influenced, he says, by his acquaintance with Coleridge. He also became
known to Wordsworth and Lamb. Study of the Elizabethan dramatists led to
the production in 1800 of the _Tragedy of Antonio_. Kemble brought it
out at Drury Lane, but the failure of this attempt made him refuse
_Abbas, King of Persia_, which Godwin offered him in the next year. He
was more successful with his _Life of Chaucer_, for which he received
L600.
The events of Godwin's life were few. Under the advice of the second Mrs
Godwin, and with her active co-operation, he carried on business as a
bookseller under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin, publishing several
useful school books and books for children, among them Charles and Mary
Lamb's _Tales from Shakespeare_. But the speculation was unsuccessful,
and for many years Godwin struggled with constant pecuniary
difficulties, for which more than one subscription was raised by the
leaders of the Liberal party and by literary men. He became bankrupt in
1822, but during the following years he accomplished one of his best
pieces of work, _The History of the Commonwealth_, founded on pamphlets
and original documents, which still retains considerable value. In 1833
the government of Earl Grey conferred upon him the office known as
yeoman usher of the exchequer, to which were attached apartments in
Palace Yard, where he died on the 7th of April 1836.
In his own time, by his writings and by his conversation, Godwin had a
great power of influencing men, and especially young men. Though his
character would seem, from much which is found in his writings, and from
anecdotes told by those who still remember him, to have been
unsympathetic, it was not so understood by enthusiastic young people,
who hung on his words as those of a prophet. The most remarkable of
these was Percy Bysshe Shelley, who in the glowing dawn of his genius
turned to Godwin as his teacher and guide. The last of the long series
of young men who sat at Godwin's feet was Edward Lytton Bulwer,
afterwards Lord Lytton, whose early romances were formed after those of
Godwin, and who, in _Eugene Aram_, succeeded to the story as arranged,
and the plan to a considerable extent sketched out, by Godwin, whose age
and failing health prevented him from completing it. Godwin's character
appears in the worst light in connexion with Shelley. His early
correspondence with Shelley, which began in 1811, is remarkable for its
genuine good sense and kindness; but when Shelley carried out the
principles of the author of _Political Justice_ in eloping with Mary
Godwin, Godwin assumed a hostile attitude that would have been
unjustifiable in a man of ordinary views, and was ridiculous in the
light of his professions. He was not, moreover, too proud to accept
L1000 from his son-in-law, and after the reconciliation following on
Shelley's marriage in 1816, he continued to demand money until Shelley's
death. His character had no doubt suffered under his long embarrassments
and his unhappy marriage.
Godwin's more important works are--_The Inquiry concerning Political
Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness_ (1793);
_Things as they are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams_ (1794); _The
Inquirer, a series of Essays_ (1797); _Memoirs of the Author of the
Rights of Woman_ (1798); _St Leon, a Tale of the Sixteenth Century_
(1799); _Antonio, a Tragedy_ (1800); _The Life of Chaucer_ (1803);
_Fleetwood, a Novel_ (1805); _Faulkner, a Tragedy_ (1807); _Essay on
Sepulchres_ (1809); _Lives of Edward and John Philips, the Nephews of
Milton_ (1815); _Mandeville, a Tale of the Times of Cromwell_ (1817);
_Of Population, an answer to Malthus_ (1820); _History of the
Commonwealth_ (1824-1828); _Cloudesley, a Novel_ (1830); _Thoughts on
Man, a series of Essays_ (1831); _Lives of the Necromancers_ (1834). A
volume of essays was also collected from his papers and published in
1873, as left for publication by his daughter Mrs Shelley. Many other
short and anonymous works proceeded from his ever busy pen, but many
are irrecoverable, and all are forgotten. Godwin's life was published
in 1876 in two volumes, under the title _William Godwin, his Friends
and Contemporaries_, by C. Kegan Paul. The best estimate of his
literary position is that given by Sir Leslie Stephen in his _English
Thought in the 18th Century_ (ii. 264-281; ed., 1902). See also the
article on William Godwin in W. Hazlitt's _The Spirit of the Age_
(1825), and "Godwin and Shelley" in Sir L. Stephen's _Hours in a
Library_ (vol. iii., ed. 1892).