An idea of Godwin and his wife at this period is to be had from Lamb’s letters. He refers constantly to Godwin as the Professor, and to his wife as the Professor’s Rib, who, he says, “has turned out to be a damned disagreeable woman, so much so as to drive Godwin’s old cronies”—among whom was Lamb—“from his house.”

It was a difficult household. Mrs. Godwin had two children by her first husband: a daughter whose right name was Mary Jane, but who called herself Claire—she lived to become the mistress of Lord Byron and the mother of his daughter Allegra; also a son, who was raised a pet and grew up to be a nuisance. Godwin’s immediate contribution to the establishment was the illegitimate daughter of his first wife, who claimed Imlay for her father, and his own daughter Mary, whose mother had died in giving her birth. In due course there was born another son, christened William, after his father.

Mrs. Godwin—who was a “managing woman”—had more confidence in trade than in literature. She opened a bookshop in Hanway Street under the name of Thomas Hodgkins, the manager; subsequently in Skinner Street, under her own name, M. J. Godwin. From this shop there issued children’s books, the prettiest and wisest, for “a penny plain and tuppence colored,” and more. “The Children’s Book-Seller,” as he called himself, was presently successful, and parents presented his little volumes to their children, with no suspicion that the lessons of piety and goodness which charmed away selfishness were published, revised, and sometimes written by a philosopher whom they would scarcely venture to name. It was Godwin who suggested to Charles Lamb and his sister that the “Tales from Shakespeare” be written. Godwin’s own contributions were produced under the name of Baldwin.

The years passed on. Godwin lived more or less in constant terror of his wife, of whom Lamb writes: “Mrs. Godwin grows every day in disfavor with God and man. I will be buried with this inscription over me: ‘Here lies Charles Lamb, the woman-hater, I mean that hated one woman. For the rest, God bless ’em, and when He makes any more, make ’em prettier.’”

As he grew older Godwin moderated his views of men somewhat, so that “he ceased to be disrespectful to any one but his Maker”; and he once so far forgot himself as to say “God bless you” to a friend, but quickly added, “to use a vulgar expression.” He remained, however, always prepared to sacrifice a friend for a principle. He seemed to feel that truth had taken up its abode in him, and that any question which he had submitted to the final judgment of his own breast had been passed upon finally and forever.

This search for truth has a great fascination for a certain type of mind. It does not appear dangerous: all one has to do is thrust one’s feet in slippers and muse; but it has probably caused as much misery as the search for the pole. The pole has now been discovered and can be dismissed, but the search for truth continues. It will always continue, for the reason that its location is always changing. Every generation looks for it in a new place.

The older generation was passing away. Long before he died Godwin was referred to as though he were a forgotten classic; but there was to be a revival of interest in him, due entirely to the poet Shelley. The mere mention of Shelley’s name produced an explosion. He had been expelled from Oxford for atheism. Reading revolutionary books, as well as writing them, he had come across “Political Justice” and was anxious to meet the author.

He sought him out, eventually made the acquaintance of his daughter Mary, by this time a beautiful and interesting girl of seventeen years, and in due course eloped with her, deserting his wife Harriet. Where was Godwin’s philosophy now? we may well ask. At no time in his long life was Godwin so ridiculous as in his relations with Shelley.

Financial affairs, too, in Skinner Street were going badly. From the record of notes given and protested at maturity, one might have supposed that Godwin was in active business in a time of panic.

“Don’t ask me whether I won’t take none or whether I will, but leave the bottle on the chimleypiece and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged.” Such was the immortal Mrs. Gamp’s attitude toward gin. Godwin’s last manner in money matters was much the same: money he would take from any one and in any way when he must, but, like Mrs. Gamp, he was “dispoged” to take it indirectly.

Not until after the death of Harriet, when Shelley’s connection with Mary was promptly legalized, would Godwin consent to receive them. He then expressed his great satisfaction, and wrote to his brother in the country that his daughter had married the eldest son of a wealthy baronet.

If this world affords true happiness, it is to be found in a home where love and confidence increase with years, where the necessities of life come without severe strain, where luxuries enter only after their cost has been carefully considered. We are told that wealth is a test of character—few of us have to submit to it. Poverty is the more usual test. It is difficult to be very poor and maintain one’s self-respect. Godwin found it impossible.

Meanwhile, the sufferings of others he bore with splendid fortitude. In a very brief letter to Mary Shelley, answering hers in which she told him of the death of her child, he said, “You should recollect that it is only persons of a very ordinary sort and of a pusillanimous disposition that sink long under a calamity of this nature.” But he covered folio sheets in his complainings to her, counting on her sensitive heart and Shelley’s good-nature for sympathy and relief.

One thing he always was—industrious. He finished a wretched novel and at once began a “History of the Commonwealth.” He finished “The Lives of the Necromancers,” and promptly began a novel; but with all his writings he has not left one single phrase with which his name can be associated, or a single thought worth thinking.

It is almost superfluous to say that he had no sense of humor. With his head in the clouds and his feet in his slippers, he mused along.

Hazlitt tells a capital story of him. Godwin was writing a “Life of Chatham,” and applied to his acquaintances to furnish him with anecdotes. Among others, a Mr. Fawcett told him of a striking passage in a speech by Lord Chatham on General Warrants, at the delivery of which he (Mr. Fawcett) had been present. “Every man’s house has been called his castle. And why is it called his castle? Is it because it is defended by a wall, because it is surrounded with a moat? No, it may be nothing more than a straw-built shed. It may be open to all the elements; the wind may enter it, the rain may enter—but the king cannot enter.”

Things were going from bad to worse. Most of his friends were dead or estranged from him. He had made a sad mess of his life and he was very old. Finally, an appeal on his behalf was made to the government, the government against which he had written and talked so much. It took pity on him. Lord Grey conferred on him the post of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer, whatever that may be, with a residence in New Palace Yard. The office was a sinecure, “the duties performed by menials.” For this exquisite phrase I am indebted to his biographer, C. Kegan Paul. It seems to suggest that a “menial” is one who does his duty. Almost immediately, however, a reformed Parliament abolished the office, and Godwin seemed again in danger; but men of all creeds were now disposed to look kindly on the old man. He was assured of his position for life, and writing to the last, in 1836 he died, at the age of eighty, and was buried by the side of Mary Wollstonecraft in St. Pancras Churchyard.

If there is to be profit as well as pleasure in the study of biography, what lesson can be learned from such a life?

HOW NOT TO DO IT.

In the ever-delightful “Angler,” speaking of the operation of baiting a hook with a live frog, Walton finally completes his general instructions with the specific advice to “use him as though you loved him.” In baiting my hook with a dead philosopher I have been unable to accomplish this. I do not love him; few did; he was a cold, hard, self-centred man who did good to none and harm to many. As a husband, father, friend, he was a complete failure. His search for truth was as unavailing as his search for “gratification and happiness.” He is all but forgotten. It is his fate to be remembered chiefly as the husband of the first suffragette.

What has become of the

Where are now his novel philosophies and theories? To ask the question is to answer it.

FOR a time after the death of any author, the world, if it has greatly admired that author, begins to feel that it has been imposed upon, becomes a little ashamed of its former enthusiasm and ends by neglecting him altogether. This would seem to have been Anthony Trollope’s case, to judge from the occasional comment of English critics, who, if they refer to him at all, do so in some such phrase as, “About this time Trollope also enjoyed a popularity which we can no longer understand.” From one brief paper purporting to be an estimate of his present status, these nuggets of criticism are extracted:—

Finally, when it is grudgingly admitted that he did some good work, the answer to the question, “Why is such work neglected?” is, “Because the world in which Trollope lived has passed away.” It would seem that absurdity could go no further.

American judgment is in general of a different tenor, although Professor Phelps, of Yale, in his recent volume, “The Advance of the English Novel,” dismisses Trollope with a single paragraph, in which is embedded the remark, “No one would dare call Trollope a genius.” Short, sharp and decisive work this; but Professor Phelps is clearing the decks for Meredith, to whom he devotes twenty or more pages. I respect the opinion of college professors as much as Charles Lamb respected the equator; nevertheless, I maintain that, if Trollope was not a genius, he was a very great writer; and I am not alone.

For the most part, people in Trollope’s stories lead lives very like our own, dependent upon how our fortunes may be cast. They have their failures and their successes, and fall in love and fall out again, very much as we do. At last we begin to know their peculiarities better than we know our own, and we think of them, not as characters in a book, but as friends and acquaintances whom we have grown up with. Some we like and some bore us exceedingly—just as in real life. His characters do not lack style,—the Duke of Omnium is a very great person indeed,—but Trollope himself has none. He has little or no brilliancy, and we like him the better for it. The brilliant person may become very fatiguing to live with—after a time.

And if it be Trollope’s fate to outlast all but the greatest of his contemporaries, it will be due to the simplicity and lack of effort with which he tells his tale. There is no straining after effect—his characters are real, live men and women, without a trace of caricature or exaggeration. His humor is delicious and his plots sufficient, although he has told us that he never takes any care with them; and aside from his character-drawing, he will be studied for the lifelike pictures of the upper-and middle-class English society of his time. Not one only, but all of his novels might be called “The Way We Live Now.” Someone has said that he is our greatest realist since Fielding; he has been compared with Jane Austen, lacking her purity of style, but dealing with a much larger world.

To read Trollope is to take a course in modern English history—social history to be sure, but just as important as political, and much more interesting. He has written a whole series of English political novels, it is true, but their interest is entirely aside from politics. It may be admitted that there are dreary places in Trollope, as there are dreary reaches on the lovely Thames, but they can be skipped, and more rapidly; and, as Dr. Johnson says, “Who but a fool reads a book through?”

Trollope takes, or appears to take, no care with his plots. The amazing thing about him is that he sometimes gives his plot away; but this seems to make no difference. In the dead centre of “Can You Forgive Her?” Trollope says that you must forgive her if his book is written aright. Lady Mason, in “Orley Farm,” confesses to her ancient lover that she is guilty of a crime; but when she comes to be tried for it, the interest in her trial is intense; so in “Phineas Redux,” where Phineas is tried for murder, the reader is assured that he is not guilty and that it will come out all right in the end; but this does not in the least detract from the interest of the story. Compare with this Wilkie Collins’s “Moonstone,” probably the best plot in English fiction. The moment that you know who stole the diamond and how it was stolen, the interest is at an end.

In “Orley Farm” one can see and hear Mr. Furnival, with his low voice and transfixing eye; one knows that the witness in his hands is as good as done for; and as for Mr. Chaffanbrass,—and did Dickens ever invent a better name?—he knew his work was cut out for him, and he did it with horrible skill. One sees plainly that the witnesses were trying to tell the truth, but that Chaffanbrass, intent on winning his case, would not let them: he was fighting, not for the truth, but for victory. The sideplay is excellent, the suppressed excitement in the court-room, the judge, the lawyers, are all good.

At last Mr. Furnival rises: “Gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “I never rose to plead a client’s cause with more confidence than I now feel in pleading that of my friend, Lady Mason.” And after three hours he closes his great speech with this touching bit: “And now I shall leave my client’s case in your hands. As to the verdict which you will give, I have no apprehension. You know as well as I do that she has not been guilty of this terrible crime. That you will so pronounce I do not for a moment doubt. But I do hope that the verdict will be accompanied by some expression on your part which may show to the world at large how great has been the wickedness displayed in the accusation.”

I have frequently heard people say that they would like to attend a trial. It is not worth while: trials are either shocking or stupid; the best way to see a trial is to read “Orley Farm.”

But nothing happens, you say. I admit that there is very little blood and no thunder; but not all of us care for blood and thunder. Trollope interests one in a gentler way; in fact, you may not know that you have been interested until you look at your watch and find it past midnight. And you can step from one book to another almost without knowing it. The characters, the situations repeat themselves over and over again; your interest is not always intense, but it never entirely flags. You are always saying to yourself, I’ll just read one more chapter.

I am told by those who know, that Trollope’s sporting scenes are faultless. Never having found a horse with a neck properly adjusted for me to cling to, I have given up riding. Seated in my easy-chair, novel in hand, in imagination I thrust my feet into riding-boots and hear the click of my spurs on the gravel, as I walk to my mount; for some one has “put me up”; forgetful of my increasing girth, I rather fancy myself in my hunting clothes. Astride my borrowed mount, following a pack of hounds, I am off in the direction of Trumpeton Wood.

Fox-hunting, so fatiguing and disappointing in reality, becomes a delight in the pages of Trollope. The fox “breaks” at last, the usual accident happens, someone misjudges a brook or a fence and is thrown. If the accident is serious, they have a big man down from London. I know just who he will be before he arrives; and when the services of a solicitor or man of business are required, he turns out to be an old friend.

Although I have never knowingly killed a grouse or a partridge, being utterly unfamiliar with the use of shooting irons of any kind, Trollope makes me long for the first of August, that I may tell my man to pack my box and take places in the night mail for Scotland.

But, above all, the clergy! Was there ever a more wonderful gallery of portraits? Balzac, you will say. I don’t know—perhaps; but beginning with the delightful old Warden, his rich, pompous, but very human son-in-law, Archdeacon Grantley, Bishop Proudie and his shrewish lady, and that Uriah Heep of clergymen, Mr. Slope—it is a wonderful assemblage of living men and women leading everyday lives without romance, almost without incident.

Trollope was the painter, perhaps I should say the photographer, par excellence of his time. He set up his camera and took his pictures from every point of view. Possibly he was not a very great artist, but he was a wonderfully skillful workman. As he says of himself, he was at his writing-table at half-past five in the morning; he required of himself 250 words every quarter of an hour; his motto was nulla dies sine linea—no wet towel around his brow. He went “doggedly” at it, as Dr. Johnson says, and wrote an enormous number of books for a total of over seventy thousand pounds. He looked upon the result as comfortable, but not splendid.

His pictures of the clergy, of whom he says that, when he began to write, he really knew very little, delighted some and offended others. An English critic, Hain Friswell, a supreme prig, says they are a disgrace, almost a libel; but the world knows better. On the whole his clergy are a very human lot, with faults and weaknesses just like our own. To my mind Mrs. Proudie, the bishop’s lady, is a character worthy of Dickens at his very best. There is not a trace of caricature or exaggeration about her, and the description of her reception is one of the most amusing chapters ever written. In another vein, and very delicate, is the treatment of Mrs. Proudie’s death. The old Bishop feels a certain amount of grief: his mainstay, his lifelong partner has been taken from him; but he remembers that life with her was not always easy; one feels that he will be consoled.

“The biographical part of literature is what I love most.” After his death in 1882, his son published an autobiography which Trollope had written some years before. Swinburne calls it “exquisitely comical and conscientiously coxcombical.” Whatever this may mean, it is generally thought to have harmed his reputation somewhat. In it he speaks at length of his novels: tells us how and when and where he wrote them; expressing his opinion as dispassionately as if he were discussing the work of an author he had never seen. Painstaking and conscientious he may have been, but in his autobiography he shows no sign of it—on the contrary, he stresses quantity rather than quality.

There is frequently some discussion as to the sequence in which Trollope’s books should be read. Especially is this true of what his American publishers, Dodd, Mead & Co., call the “Barsetshire” series and the “Parliamentary” series. The novels forming what they term the “Manor House” series have no particular connection with each other. They recommend the following order:—

Good stories all of them; and the enthusiastic Trollopian may wish also to read “The Three Clerks,” in which Chaffanbrass is introduced for the first time; “The Bertrams,” of which Trollope says, “I do not remember ever to have heard even a friend speak well of it”; “Castle Richmond,” which is hard going: “Miss MacKenzie,” in which there is a description of a dinner-party à la Russe, not unworthy of the author of Mrs. Proudie’s reception in “Barchester Towers.”

The list is by no means complete, but by this time we may have enough and not wish to make Lotta Schmidt’s acquaintance, or give a hoot “Why Frau Frohman Raised Her Prices.” I once knew but have forgotten.

Listen to the conclusion of his Autobiography:—

To trust for happiness chiefly to work and books,—to taste the sweet and leave the bitter untasted,—some may call such a scheme of life commonplace; but the most eventful lives are not the happiest—probably few authors have led happier lives than Anthony Trollope.

One final word I am forced to say. Since this awful war broke out, I read him in a spirit of sadness. The England that he knew and loved and described with such pride is gone forever. It will, to the coming generation, seem almost as remote as the England of Elizabeth. The Church will go, the State will change, and the common people will come into their own. The old order of things among the privileged class, much pay for little work, will be reversed. It will be useless to look for entailed estates and a leisure class—for all that made England a delightful retreat to us. If England is to continue great and powerful, as I earnestly hope and believe she is, England must be a better place for the poor and not so enervating for the rich, or both rich and poor are valiantly fighting her battles in vain.

THE King of England is not a frequent visitor to the City of London, meaning by “the City” that square mile or so of old London whose political destinies are in the keeping of the Lord Mayor, of which the Bank of England is almost the exact centre, St. Paul’s the highest ground, and Temple Bar the western boundary.

It might be said that the King is the only man in England who has no business in the City. His duties are in the West End—in Westminster; but to the City he goes on state occasions; and it so happened that several years ago I chanced to be in London on one of them.

Inquiring at the office of my hotel in Pall Mall, I learned that the Royal procession would pass the doors in something over an hour, and that the windows of a certain drawing-room were at my disposal. It would have been more comfortable to view the Royal party from a drawing-room of the Carlton; but what I wanted to see would take place at Temple Bar; so, my breakfast dispatched, I sallied forth to take up my position in the crowded street.

It was in February—a dark, gloomy, typical London morning. The bunting and decorations, everywhere apparent, had suffered sadly from the previous night’s rain and were flapping dismally in the cold, raw air; and the streets, though crowded, wore a look of hopeless dejection.

The Lord Mayor, carrying his jeweled sword in his hand, bowed low before his sovereign, who remained seated in the open carriage. Words, I presume, were spoken. I saw the Lord Mayor extend his greetings and tender his sword to the King, who, saluting, placed his hand upon its hilt and seemed to congratulate the City upon its being in such safe keeping. The crowd cheered—not very heartily; but history was in the making, and the true Londoner, although he might not like to confess it, still takes a lively interest in these scenes which link him to the past.

The Lord Mayor and his suite, having resumed their places, were driven rapidly down Fleet Street toward St. Paul’s, the Royal party following them. The whole ceremony at Temple Bar, the shadow of former ceremonies hardly more real, had not occupied much over five minutes. The crowd dispersed, Fleet Street and the Strand immediately resumed their wonted appearance except for the bunting and decorations, and I was left to discuss with myself the question, what does this King business really mean?

Many years ago Andrew Carnegie wrote a book, “Triumphant Democracy,” in which, as I vaguely remember, he likened our form of government to a pyramid standing on its base, while a pyramid representing England was standing on its apex. There is no doubt whatever that a pyramid looks more comfortable on its base than on its apex; but let us drop these facile illustrations of strength and weakness and ask ourselves, “In what way are we better off, politically, than the English?”

“We think of our Prime Minister as the wisest man in England for the time being,” says Bagehot. The English scheme of government permits, indeed, necessitates, her greatest men entering politics, as we call it. Is it so with us?

Our plan, however excellent it may be in theory, in practice results in our having constantly to submit ourselves—those of us who must be governed—to capital operations at the hands of amateurs who are selected for the job by drawing straws. That we escape with our lives is due rather to our youth and hardy constitution than to the skill of the operators.

And so it goes. The knight may become a baronet, the baronet a baron, the baron a duke—this last not often now, only for very great service rendered the Empire; and with each advance in rank comes increases of responsibility—in theory, at least. Have our political theories worked out so well that we are justified in making fun of theirs as we sometimes do? I think not. After our country has stood as well as England has the shocks which seven or ten centuries may bring it, we may have the right to say, “We order these things better at home.”

While musing thus, the Strand and Temple Bar of a century and a half ago rise up before me, and I notice coming along the footway a tall, burly old man, walking with a rolling gait, dressed in a brown coat with metal buttons, knee-breeches, and worsted stockings, with large silver buckles on his clumsy shoes. He seems like a wise old fellow, so I approach him and tell him who I am and of my perplexities.

It was only after he had disappeared that I realized that I had been speaking to Dr. Johnson.

Just when the original posts, bars, and chains gave way to a building known as Temple Bar, we have no means of knowing. Honest John Stow, whose effigy in terra cotta still looks down on us from the wall of the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, published his famous “Survay of [Elizabethan] London” in 1598. In it he makes scant mention of Temple Bar; and this is the more remarkable because he describes so accurately many of the important buildings, and gives the exact location of every court and lane, every pump and well, in the London of his day.

Referring to the “new Temple by the Barre,” Stow tells us that “over against it in the high streets stand a payre of stockes”; and adds that the whole street “from the Barre to the Savoy was commanded to be paved in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of King Henry the Sixt” (this sturdy lad, it will be remembered, began to “reign” when he was only nine months old), with “tole to be taken towards the charges thereof.” This practice of taking “tole” from all non-freemen at Temple Bar continued until after the middle of the nineteenth century, and fine confusion it must have caused. The charge of two pence each time a cart passed the City boundary finally aroused such an outcry against the “City turnpike” that it was done away with. Whoever received this revenue must have heartily bewailed the passing of the good old days; for a few years before the custom was abandoned, the toll collected amounted to over seven thousand pounds per annum.

The City proper terminated at Lud Gate, about halfway up Ludgate Hill; but the jurisdiction of the City extended to Temple Bar, and those residing between the two gates were said to be within the liberties of the City and enjoyed its rights and privileges, among them that of passing through Temple Bar without paying toll. Although Lud Gate was the most important gate of the old city, originally forming a part of the old London wall, from time immemorial Temple Bar has been the great historic entrance to the City. At Temple Bar it was usual, upon an accession to the throne, the proclamation of a peace, or the overthrow of an enemy, for a state entry to be made into the City. The sovereign, attended by his trumpeters, would proceed to the closed gate and demand entrance. From the City side would come the inquiry, “Who comes here?” and the herald having made reply, the Royal party would be admitted and conducted to the lord mayor.

Queen Anne enters the City in a coach drawn by eight horses, “none with her but the Duchess of Marlborough, in a very plain garment, the Queen full of jewels,” to give thanks for the victories of the duke abroad; and so the stately historic procession winds through the centuries, always pausing at Temple Bar, right down to our own time.

Temple Bar had escaped the flames, but the rebuilding of London occasioned by the fire gave Christopher Wren his great opportunity. A new St. Paul’s with its “mighty mothering dome,” a lasting monument to his genius, was erected, and churches innumerable, the towers and spires of which still point the way to heaven—instructions which, we may suspect, are neglected when we see how deserted they are; but they serve, at least, to add charm and interest to a ramble through the City.

Great confusion resulted from the fire, but London was quick to see that order must be restored, and it is much to be regretted that Wren’s scheme for replanning the entire burned district was not carried out. Fleet Street was less than twenty-four feet wide at Temple Bar—not from curb to curb, for there was none, but from house to house. This was the time to rebuild London; although something was done, much was neglected, and Wren was finally commissioned to build a new gate of almost the exact dimensions of the old one.

The curious may wish to know that the mason was Joshua Marshall, whose father had been master-mason to Charles I; that the sculptor of the statues was John Bushnell, who died insane; and that the cost of the whole, including the statues at four hundred and eighty pounds, was but thirteen hundred and ninety-seven pounds, ten shillings.

The fog and soot and smoke of London soon give the newest building an appearance of age, and mercifully bring it into harmony with its surroundings. Almost before the new gate was completed, it had that appearance; and before it had a chance to grow really old, there arose a demand for its removal altogether. Petitions praying for its destruction were circulated and signed. Verse, if not poetry, urging its retention was written and printed.