ee years later (1797) Godwin once more restated the main positions of
_Political Justice_. _The Enquirer_ is a volume of essays, which range
easily over a great variety of subjects from education to English style.
His opinions have neither advanced nor receded, and the mood is still
one of assurance, enthusiasm, and hope. The only noteworthy change is in
the style. _Political Justice_ belongs to the generation of Gibbon,
eloquent, elaborate and periodic at its best; heavy and slightly verbose
at its worst. With _The Enquirer_ we are just entering the generation of
Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. The language is simpler and more flexible, the
construction of the sentences more varied, the mood more vivacious, and
the tone more conversational. The best things in the book belong to that
social psychology, the observation of men in classes and professions, in
which this age excelled. There is an outspoken attack on the clergy, as
a class of men who have vowed themselves to study without enquiry, who
must reason for ever towards a conclusion fixed by authority, whose very
survival depends on the perennial stationariness of their understanding.
Another essay attempts a vivacious criticism of "common honesty," the
moral standard of the average decent citizen, a code of negative virtues
and moral mediocrity which is content to avoid the obvious unsocial sins
and concerns itself but little to enforce positive benevolence. The
reader who would meet Godwin at his best should turn to the essay _On
Servants_. Starting from the universal reluctance of the upper and
middle classes to allow their children to associate closely with
servants, he enlarges the confession of the systematic degradation of a
class which this separation involves, into a condemnation of our whole
social structure.

* * * * *

The year 1797 marks the culmination of Godwin's career, and it would
have been well for his fame if it had been its end. He had just passed
his fortieth year; he had made the most notable contribution to English
political thought since the appearance of the _Wealth of Nations_; he
had won the gratitude and respect of his friends by his intervention in
the trial of the Twelve Reformers. He was famous, prosperous, popular,
and his good fortune brought to his calm temperament the stimulus of
excitement and high spirits which it needed. There came to him in this
year the crown of a noble love. It was in the winter of 179