ABSTRACT
William Godwin was born at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, 3d March, 1756. His grandfather had been a dissenting minister in London.a His father was also a clergyman.b In the year 1760 the father removed with his family to a village about sixteen miles north of Norwich, where he presided over a congregation.c William was one of many children, neither the eldest nor the youngest among them.d Very early, even in childhood, he developed that love of acquirement and knowledge which stamped his future career. In the year 1767 he was placed with a private tutor at Norwich, for the purposes of classical education.e Mr. Godwin has very recently published a work (“Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions, and Discoveries,”) which contains various interesting particulars respecting himself.f From this we learn that he had in youth “a prominent vein of docility.”g He adds, “Whatever / it was proposed to teach me, that was in any degree accordant with my constitution and capacity, I was willing to learn.”h He continues: “I was ambitious to be a leader, and to be regarded by others with feelings of complacency.”i From these circumstances it is evident that Mr. Godwin was not one of those youths, who, strenuously active and eager in the pursuit of some peculiar knowledge of their own selection, rebel against authority, and are tortured by the regular application required to the common-place routine of education. Reason and a love of 246investigation were the characteristics of Godwin, even in boyhood, added to what he himself describes as “a sort of constitutional equanimity and imperturbableness of temper.”a
