impassioned reasoning and
glowing eloquence, the fabric of voluptuous prejudice has been shaken to
its foundation and totters towards its fall; while her philosophic mind,
taking a wider range, perceived and lamented in the defects of civil
institutions interwoven in their texture and inseparable from them the
causes of those partial evils, destructive to virtue and happiness, which
poison social intercourse and deform domestic life." Her eulogist
concludes by calling her the "ornament of her sex, the enlightened
advocate for freedom, and the benevolent friend of humankind."

It is more than probable, however, that this was written by a personal
friend; for a year later the same magazine, in its semi-annual
retrospect of British literature, expressed somewhat altered opinions.
This time it says: "It is not for us to vindicate Mary Godwin from the
charge of multiplied immorality which is brought against her by the
candid as well as the censorious, by the sagacious as well as the
superstitious observer. Her character in our estimation is far from being
entitled to unqualified praise; she had many faults; she had many
transcendent virtues. But she is now dead, and we shall

'No farther seek her merits to disclose,
Or draw her frailties from the dread abode;
There they alike in trembling hope repose,
The bosom of her father and her God!'"

The notice in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for October, 1797, the month
after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise.
The following is the sentence it passed upon her: "Her manners were
gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing,
without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness
of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding
and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical
skill in education was ever superior to her speculations upon that
subject; nor is 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