task. Outside of the small
circle of friends and sympathizers who really loved him, he was by no
means popular. There were some who even seemed to think that the greatest
hardship of Mary's life was to have been his wife. Thus Roscoe, after
reading the Memoir, expressed the sentiments it aroused in him in the
following lines:--

"Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life,
As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;
But harder still thy fate in death we own,
Thus mourned by Godwin with a heart of stone."

Moreover, Godwin's views about marriage, as set forth in his "Political
Justice," were held in such abhorrence that the fact that he approved of
Mary's conduct was reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it.
His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary's reputation was
concerned. Indeed, it increased rather than lessened the asperity of her
detractors. It was greeted by the "European Magazine" for April, 1798,
almost immediately after its publication, by one of the most scathing
denunciations of Mary's character which had yet appeared.

"The lady," the article begins, "whose memoirs are now before us, appears
to have possessed good abilities, and originally a good disposition, but,
with an overweening conceit of herself, much obstinacy and self-will, and
a disposition to run counter to established practices and opinions. Her
conduct in the early part of her life was blameless, if not exemplary;
but the latter part of it was blemished with actions which must consign
her name to posterity (in spite of all palliatives) as one whose example,
if followed, would be attended with the most pernicious consequences to
society: a female who could brave the opinion of the world in the most
delicate point; a philosophical wanton, breaking down the bars designed
to restrain licentiousness; and a mother, deserting a helpless offspring
disgracefully brought into the world by herself, by an intended act of
suicide." Here follows a short sketch of the incidents recorded by
Godwin, and then the article concludes: "Such was the catastrophe of a
female philosopher of the new order, such the events of her life, and
such the apology for her conduct. It will be read with disgust by every
female who has any pretensions to delicacy; with detestation by every one
attached to the interests of religion and morality; and with indignation
by any one who might feel any regard for the unhappy woman, whose
frail