William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VII. 1806-1811
William Godwin to Mary Jane Godwin, 24 May 1811
“——I send Charles’s book agreeably to his desire: I want to win his
heart; whether I shall succeed or no I know not. He said he could read with
particular satisfaction to himself on the ![]()
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sea-shore, and I wish him to be indulged. I know
from reflection as well as experience, that a book read when it is desired is
worth fifty of a book forced on the reader, without regard to seasons and
occasions. The very choice of the book is taken out of my hands: T. T. undertook to procure for him Paine’s ‘Age of Reason:’ this I objected to. It
is written in a vein of banter and impudence, and though I do not wish the
young man to be the slave of the religion of his country, there are few things
I hate more than a young man, with his little bit of knowledge, setting up to
turn up his nose, and elevate his eyebrows, and make his sorry joke at
everything the wisest and best men England ever produced have treated with
veneration. Therefore I preferred a work by Anthony
Collins, the friend of Locke, written with sobriety and learning, to the broad grins
of Thomas Paine. Do not, I entreat you, grudge 1s. 6d.,
the price, I am told, of the carriage of this parcel, to the gratifying the
inclination of your son in this most important era of his life. . . . .
Observe, I totally object to Mary’s reading in Charles’s
book. I think it much too early for him, but I have been driven, so far as he
is concerned, from the standing of my own judgment by the improper conduct of
T. T.”
Charles Gaulis Clairmont (1795-1850)
The son of Charles Gaulis [Clairmont] and Mary Jane Clairmont [Godwin]; he was
apprenticed to Archibald Constable in Edinburgh (1811) and from 1816 lived mostly on the
Continent, settling in Vienna.
Anthony Collins (1676-1729)
Educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, he was a philosopher, friend of
John Locke, and author of
A Discourse of Free-Thinking
(1713).
John Locke (1632-1704)
English philosopher; author of
Essay concerning Human
Understanding (1690) and
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
(1695).
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
English-born political radical; author of
Common Sense (1776),
The Rights of Man (1791), and
The Age of
Reason (1794).
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851)
English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife
of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of
Frankenstein (1818)
and
The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works
(1839-40).
Thomas Turner (1836 fl.)
Of Binfield in Berkshire; he was a London attorney and friend of William Godwin who in
1812 married Cornelia de Boinville.
