ABSTRACT
This chapter is about Robert Bisset's review of Memoirs. There are (the author says) not many individuals with whose character the public welfare and improvement are more intimately connected, than the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Mr. Godwin considers Mary Wollstonecraft as a model for imitation, and her life as peculiarly useful on account of the precept and example it affords. Mary Wollstonecroft was the eldest daughter of Edward John Wollstonecroft, who lived on Epping Forest. After she arrived at the age of womanhood, Mary formed an intimate friendship with a Miss Blood, who had received a tolerable education, and had made some proficiency in the usual studies and accomplishments of ladies. Deserted by her gallant, she resolved to drown herself, and actually plunged into the Thames from Putney Bridge. But, being restored to life, she transferred her love from an absent to a present man from the adventurer Imlay, to the philosopher Godwin..
