Mary Wollstonecraft. Elizabeth Robins Pennell
it possible to express the misfortune sustained in that respect by her children. This tribute we readily pay to her character, however adverse we may be to the system she supported in politics and morals, both by her writings and practice.”
In 1798 Godwin published his Memoir of Mary, together with her posthumous writings. He no doubt hoped by a clear statement of the principal incidents of her life to moderate the popular feeling against her. But he was the last person to have undertaken the task. Outside of the small circle of friends and sympathizers who really loved him, he was by no means popular. There were some who even seemed to think that the greatest hardship of Mary’s life was to have been his wife. Thus Roscoe, after reading the Memoir, expressed the sentiments it aroused in him in the following lines:—
“Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life,
As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;
But harder still thy fate in death we own,
Thus mourned by Godwin with a heart of stone.”
Moreover, Godwin’s views about marriage, as set forth in his “Political Justice,” were held in such abhorrence that the fact that he approved of Mary’s conduct was reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it. His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary’s reputation was concerned. Indeed, it increased rather than lessened the asperity of her detractors. It was greeted by the “European Magazine” for April, 1798, almost immediately after its publication, by one of the most scathing denunciations of Mary’s character which had yet appeared.
“The lady,” the article begins, “whose memoirs are now before us, appears to have possessed good abilities, and originally a good disposition, but, with an overweening conceit of herself, much obstinacy and self-will, and a disposition to run counter to established practices and opinions. Her conduct in the early part of her life was blameless, if not exemplary; but the latter part of it was blemished with actions which must consign her name to posterity (in spite of all palliatives) as one whose example, if followed, would be attended with the most pernicious consequences to society: a female who could brave the opinion of the world in the most delicate point; a philosophical wanton, breaking down the bars designed to restrain licentiousness; and a mother, deserting a helpless offspring disgracefully brought into the world by herself, by an intended act of suicide.” Here follows a short sketch of the incidents recorded by Godwin, and then the article concludes: “Such was the catastrophe of a female philosopher of the new order, such the events of her life, and such the apology for her conduct. It will be read with disgust by every female who has any pretensions to delicacy; with detestation by every one attached to the interests of religion and morality; and with indignation by any one who might feel any regard for the unhappy woman, whose frailties should have been buried in oblivion. Licentious as the times are, we trust it will obtain no imitators of the heroine in this country. It may act, however, as a warning to those who fancy themselves at liberty to dispense with the laws of propriety and decency, and who suppose the possession of perverted talents will atone for the well government of society and the happiness of mankind.”
This opinion of the “European Magazine” was the one most generally adopted. It was re-echoed almost invariably when Mary Wollstonecraft’s name was mentioned in print. A Mrs. West, who, in 1801, published a series of “Letters to a Young Man,” full of goodly discourse and moral exhortation, found occasion to warn him against Mary’s works, which she did with as much energy as if the latter had been the Scarlet Woman of Babylon in the flesh. “This unfortunate woman,” she says in conclusion, “has terribly terminated her guilty career; terribly, I say, because the account of her last moments, though intentionally panegyrical, proves that she died as she lived; and her posthumous writings show that her soul was in the most unfit state to meet her pure and holy judge.”
A writer in the “Beauties of England and Wales,” though animated by the same spirit, saw no reason to caution his readers against Mary’s pernicious influence, because of his certainty that in another generation she would be forgotten. “Few writers have attained a larger share of temporary celebrity,” he admits. “This was the triumph of wit and eloquence of style. To the age next succeeding it is probable that her name will be nearly unknown; for the calamities of her life so miserably prove the impropriety of her doctrines that it becomes a point of charity to close the volume treating of the Rights of Women with mingled wonder and pity.”
But probably the article which was most influential in perpetuating the ill-repute in which she stood with her contemporaries, is the sketch of her life given in Chalmers’s “Biographical Dictionary.” The papers and many books of the day soon passed out of sight, but the Dictionary was long used as a standard work of reference. In this particular article every action of Mary’s life is construed unfavorably, and her character shamefully vilified. Judging from Godwin’s Memoir, it decides that Mary “appears to have been a woman of strong intellect, which might have elevated her to the highest ranks of English female writers, had not her genius run wild for want of cultivation. Her passions were consequently ungovernable, and she accustomed herself to yield to them without scruple, treating female honor and delicacy as vulgar prejudices. She was therefore a voluptuary and sensualist, without that refinement for which she seemed to contend on other subjects. Her history, indeed, forms entirely a warning, and in no part an example. Singular she was, it must be allowed, for it is not easily to be conceived that such another heroine will ever appear, unless in a novel, where a latitude is given to that extravagance of character which she attempted to bring into real life.” Beloe, in the “Sexagenarian,” borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the “Biographical Dictionary,” which was furthermore accepted by almost every history of English literature and encyclopædia as the correct estimate of Mary’s character and teachings. It is, therefore, no wonder that the immorality of her doctrines and unwomanliness of her conduct came to be believed in implicitly by the too credulous public.
That she fully deserved this disapprobation and contempt seemed to many confirmed by the fact that her daughter, Mary Godwin, consented to live with Shelley before their union could be legalized. The independence of mother and daughter excited private as well as public animosity. There is in the British Museum a book containing a collection of drawings, newspaper slips, and written notes, illustrative of the history and topography of the parish of Saint Pancras. As Mary Wollstonecraft was buried in the graveyard of Saint Pancras Church, mention is made of her. A copy of the painting1 by Opie, which was supposed until very recently to be her portrait, is pasted on one of the pages of this book, and opposite to it is the following note, written on a slip of paper, and dated 1821: “Mary Wollstonecraft, a disgrace to modesty, an eminent instance of a perverted strong mind, the defender of the ‘Rights of Women,’ but an ill example to them, soon terminated her life of error, and her remains were laid in the cemetery of Saint Pancras, amidst the believers of the papal creed.
1 It was engraved and published in the “Monthly Mirror,” with Mary’s name attached to it, during her lifetime. When Mr. Kegan Paul published the “Letters to Imlay,” in 1879, there seemed no doubt of its authenticity. But since then it has been proved to be the portrait of the wife of an artist who lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
“There is a monument placed over her remains, being a square pillar.” (The inscription here follows.) “A willow was planted on each side of the pillar, but, like the character of Mary, they do not flourish. Her unfortunate daughters were reared by their infamous father for prostitution—one is sold to the wicked poet Shelley, and the other to attend upon her. The former became Mrs. Shelley.” The prejudice of the writer of these lines against the subject of them, together with his readiness to accept all the ill spoken of her, is at once shown in his reference to Claire, who was the daughter of the second Mrs. Godwin by her first husband, and hence no relation whatever to Mrs. Shelley. This mistake proves that he relied overmuch upon current gossip.
During all these years Mary was not entirely without friends, but their number was small. In 1803 an anonymous admirer published a defence of her character and conduct, “founded on principles of nature and reason as applied