reform the world, urges him to acquire a vicarious
maturity by reading history, and refers him to _Political Justice
passim_ for the arguments which demonstrate the error of any attempt to
improve mankind by forming political associations.

It is questionable how far the world has to thank Godwin for dissuading
ardent young men from any practical effort to realise their ideals. It
is just conceivable that, if the generation which hailed him as prophet
had been stimulated by him to do something more than fold its hands in
an almost superstitious veneration for the Slow Approach of Truth, there
might have arisen under educated leaders some movement less class-bound
than Whig Reform, less limited than the Corn Law agitation, and more
intelligent than Chartism. But, if politics lost by Godwin's quietism,
literature gained. It was Godwin's mission in life to save poets from
Botany Bay; he rescued Shelley, as he had rescued Southey and Coleridge.
It was by scattering his pity and his sympathy on every living creature
around him, and squandering his fortune and his expectations in charity,
while he dodged the duns and lived on bread and tea, that Shelley
followed in action the principles of universal benevolence. Godwin
omitted the beasts; but Shelley, practising vegetarianism and buying
crayfish in order to return them to the river, realised the "boast" of
the poet in _Alastor_:--

If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherished these my kindred--

We hear of his gifts of blankets to the poor lace-makers at Marlow, and
meet him stumbling home barefoot in mid-winter because he had given his
boots to a poor woman.

Perhaps the most characteristic picture of this aspect of Shelley is
Leigh Hunt's anecdote of a scene on Hampstead Heath. Finding a poor
woman in a fit on the top of the Heath, Shelley carries her in his arms
to the lighted door of the nearest house, and begs for shelter. The
householder slams it in his face, with an "impostors swarm everywhere,"
and a "Sir, your conduct is extraordinary."

"Sir," cried Shelley, "I am sorry to say that _your_ conduct is not
extraordinary.... It is such men as you who madden the spirits and the
patience of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes in
this country (which is very probable), recollect what I tell you. You
will have your house, that you refuse to put this miserable woman into,
burnt over your h