ABSTRACT
Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those beings who appear once in a generation perhaps to gild humanity with a ray which no difference of opinion nor chance of circumstance can cloud. She was one whom all loved who had ever seen. Many years are passed since that beating heart has been laid in the cold, still grave — but no one who has ever seen her speaks of her without enthusiastic veneration. At the beginning of 1797, Mr. Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft. The precise date is not known. This secrecy partly arose from a slight shrinking on Mr. Godwin’s part to avow that he had acted in contradiction to his theories. Mr. Godwin spent a portion of every day in society, and was much beloved; his more intimate friends feared that, he said, they should suffer from the change. Two ladies, he said, shed tears when he announced his marriage: Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley.
