ABSTRACT
The Monthly Mirror; reflecting Men and Manners, with Strictures on their Epitome, the Stage (founded in 1795) habitually prefaced its monthly Review of Literature with a Latin motto: ‘FLECTERE, NON ODIUM COGIT, NO GRATIA SUADET’ (‘To reflect, to think no hatred, to sue for no gratitude’). Essentially, this was a statement of political neutrality, something on which the magazine prided itself. The need for such an assertion of impartiality will be evident to anyone who takes even a brief glance at other periodical publications of the late 1790s such as the violently partisan Anti-Jacobin Review. The harshest criticism is reserved not for Wollstonecraft herself but for Godwin, whose account is said to lack Variety of anecdote’. The same generous impartiality is afforded to Wollstonecraft’s letters to Imlay, published by Godwin in volumes 3 and 4 of Posthumous Works.
