lished to vindicate her memory, a delicate sketch of
their mutual love: "The partiality we conceived for each other was in
that mode which I have always considered as the purest and most refined
style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would
have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was
before and who was after. One sex did not take the priority which
long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that
delicacy which is so severely imposed. I am not conscious that either
party can assume to have been the agent or the patient, the toil
spreader or the prey in the affair. When in the course of things, the
disclosure came, there was nothing in a manner for either party to
disclose to the other.... There was no period of throes and resolute
explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting into love."

The two lovers, in strict obedience to the principles of _Political
Justice_, made their home, at first with no legal union, in a little
house in the Polygon, Somers Town, then the extreme limit of London,
separated from the suburban village of Camden Town by open fields and
green pastures. A few doors away Godwin had his study, where he spent
most of his industrious day, often breakfasted and sometimes slept. Both
partners of this daringly unconventional union had their own particular
friends and retained their separate places in society. Some quaint notes
have survived, which passed between them, borrowing books or making
appointments. "Did I not see you, friend Godwin," runs one of these, "at
the theatre last night? I thought I met a smile, but you went out
without looking round. We expect you at half-past four." It was the
coming of a child which induced them to waive their theories and face
for its sake a repugnant compliance with custom. They were married in
Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797, and the insignificant fact was
communicated only gradually, and with laboured apologies for the
inconsistency, to their friends.

Southey, who met them in this month, has left a lively portrait: "Of all
the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay's countenance is the
best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression
somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display--an
expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary
Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and ...
they are