ABSTRACT
As the title suggests, The Spirit of the Age is more than a collection of journalistic portraits: through its delineation of the careers of leading writers and orators, it also provides an analysis of the age itself. The viewpoint of the collection is largely retrospective, looking back to the era of the French Revolution and assessing the missed opportunities for social and political change. To give extracts from Hazlitt’s nuanced and carefully-judged portrait of Godwin is to risk destroying its balance and lessening the impact of its figurative language. This chapter presents a passage that presents a dramatised portrait of Godwin from the point of view of a close friend who did not agree with his philosophical theory, but who shared his tenacious belief in the early principles of the French Revolution and his opposition to political corruption in all its forms.
