[1] It was engraved and published in the “Monthly Mirror,” with Mary’s name attached to it, during her lifetime. When Mr. Kegan Paul published the “Letters to Imlay,” in 1879, there seemed no doubt of its authenticity. But since then it has been proved to be the portrait of the wife of an artist who lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
“There is a monument placed over her remains, being a square pillar.” (The inscription here follows.) “A willow was planted on each side of the pillar, but, like the character of Mary, they do not flourish. Her unfortunate daughters were reared by their infamous father for prostitution,—one is sold to the wicked poet Shelley, and the other to attend upon her. The former became Mrs. Shelley.” The prejudice of the writer of these lines against the subject of them, together with his readiness to accept all the ill spoken of her, is at once shown in his reference to Claire, who was the daughter of the second Mrs. Godwin by her first husband, and hence no relation whatever to Mrs. Shelley. This mistake proves that he relied overmuch upon current gossip.
During all these years Mary was not entirely without friends, but their number was small. In 1803 an anonymous admirer published a defence of her character and conduct, “founded on principles of nature and reason as applied to the peculiar circumstances of her case,” in a series of nine letters to a lady. But his defence is less satisfactory to his readers than it is to be presumed it was to himself. In it he carefully repeats those details of Godwin’s Memoir which were most severely criticised, and to some of them gives a new and scarcely more favorable construction. He candidly admits that he does not pretend to vindicate the whole of her conduct. He merely wishes to apologize for it by demonstrating the motives from which she acted. But to accomplish this he evolves his arguments chiefly from his inner consciousness. Had he appealed more directly to her writings, and thought less of showing his own ingenuity in reasoning, he would have written to better purpose.
Southey was always enthusiastic in his admiration. His letters are full of her praises. “We are going to dine on Wednesday next with Mary Wollstonecraft, of all the literary characters the one I most admire,” he wrote to Thomas Southey, on April 28, 1797. And a year or two after her death, he declared in a letter to Miss Barker, “I never praised living being yet, except Mary Wollstonecraft.” He made at least one public profession of his esteem in these lines, prefixed to his “Triumph of Woman:”—
“The lily cheek, the ‘purple light of love,’
The liquid lustre of the melting eye,
Mary! of these the Poet sung, for these
Did Woman triumph ... turn not thou away
Contemptuous from the theme. No Maid of Arc
Had, in those ages, for her country’s cause
Wielded the sword of freedom; no Roland
Had borne the palm of female fortitude;
No Condé with self-sacrificing zeal
Had glorified again the Avenger’s name,
As erst when Cæsar perished; haply too
Some strains may hence be drawn, befitting me
To offer, nor unworthy thy regard.”
Shelley too offered her the tribute of his praise in verse. In the dedication of the “Revolt of Islam,” addressed to his wife, he thus alludes to the latter’s famous mother:—
“They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents, thou aspiring child.
I wonder not; for one then left the earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory.”
But the mere admiration of Southey and Shelley had little weight against popular prejudice. Year by year Mary’s books, like so many other literary productions, were less frequently read, and the prediction that in another generation her name would be unknown bade fair to be fulfilled. But the latest of her admirers, Mr. Kegan Paul, has, by his zealous efforts in her behalf, succeeded in vindicating her character and reviving interest in her writings. By his careful history of her life, and noble words in her defence, he has re-established her reputation. As he says himself, “Only eighty years after her death has any serious attempt been made to set her right in the eyes of those who will choose to see her as she was.” His attempt has been successful. No one after reading her sad story as he tells it in his Life of Godwin, can doubt her moral uprightness. His statement of her case attracted the attention it deserved. Two years after it appeared, Miss Mathilde Blind published, in the “New Quarterly Review,” a paper containing a briefer sketch of the incidents he recorded, and expressing an honest recognition of this great but much-maligned woman.
Thus, at this late day, the attacks of her enemies are being defeated. The critic who declared the condition of the trees planted near her grave to be symbolical of her fate, were he living now, would be forced to change the conclusions he drew from his comparison. In that part of Saint Pancras Churchyard which lies between the two railroad bridges, and which has not been included in the restored garden, but remains a dreary waste, fenced about with broken gravestones, the one fresh green spot is the corner occupied by the monument[1] erected to the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, and separated from the open space by an iron railing. There is no sign of withering willows in this enclosure. Its trees are of goodly growth and fair promise. And, like them, her character now flourishes, for justice is at last being done to her.
[1] Her body has been removed to Bournemouth.