t a time in
each locality in which he made his home, that his wife saw but little of
her relations and old acquaintances; while no sooner had his children
made new friends, than they were separated from them.

To whatever town they went, the Wollstonecrafts seem to have given signs
of gentility and good social standing, which won for them, if not many,
at least respectable friends. At Barking an intimacy sprang up between
them and the family of Mr. Bamber Gascoyne, Member of Parliament. But
Mary was too young to profit by this friendship. It was most ruthlessly
interrupted three years later, when, in 1768, the restless head of the
house, whose industry in Barking had not equalled the enterprise which
brought him there, took his departure for Beverly, in Yorkshire.

This was the most complete change that he had as yet made. Heretofore his
wanderings had been confined to Essex. But he either found in his new
home more promising occupation and congenial companionship than he had
hitherto, or else there was a short respite to his feverish restlessness,
for he continued in it for six years. It was here Mary received almost
all the education that was ever given her by regular schooling. Beverly
was nothing but a small market-town, though she in her youthful
enthusiasm thought it large and handsome, and its inhabitants brilliant
and elegant, and was much disappointed, when she passed through it many
years afterwards, on her way to Norway, to see how far the reality fell
short of her youthful idealizations. Its schools could not have been of a
very high order, and we do not need Godwin's assurance to know that Mary
owed little of her subsequent culture to them. But her education may be
said to have really begun in 1775, when her father, tired of farming and
tempted by commercial hopes, left Beverly for Hoxton, near London.

Mary was at this time in her sixteenth year. The effect of her home
life, under which most children would have succumbed, had been to develop
her character at an earlier age than is usual with women. In spite of the
tyranny and caprice of her parents, and, indeed, perhaps because of them,
she had soon asserted her individuality and superiority. When she had
recognized the mistaken motives of her mother and the weakness of her
father, she had been forced to rely upon her own judgment and
self-command. It is a wonderful proof of her fine instincts that, though
she must have known her strength, she did not reb