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Few women have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary Wollstonecraft, and few have been the objects of such bitter censure. She devoted herself to the relief of her suffering fellow-beings with the ardor of a Saint Vincent de Paul, and in return she was considered by them a moral scourge of God. Because she had the courage to express opinions new to her generation, and the independence to live according to her own standard of right and wrong, she was denounced as another Messalina. The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more mature warned not to follow her example, the miseries she endured being declared the just retribution of her actions. Indeed, the infamy attached to her name is almost incredible in the present age, when new theories are more patiently criticised, and when purity of motive has been accepted as the vindication of at least one well-known breach of social laws. The malignant attacks made upon her character since her death have been too great to be ignored. They had best be stated here, that the life which follows may serve as their refutation.

As a rule, the notices which were published after she was dead were harsher and more uncompromising than those written during her lifetime. There were happily one or two exceptions. The writer of her obituary notice in the “Monthly Magazine” for September, 1797, speaks of her in terms of unlimited admiration.

“This extraordinary woman,” he writes, “no less distinguished by admirable talents and a masculine tone of understanding, than by active humanity, exquisite sensibility, and endearing qualities of heart, commanding the respect and winning the affections of all who were favored with her friendship or confidence, or who were within the sphere of her influence, may justly be considered as a public loss. Quick to feel, and indignant to resist, the iron hand of despotism, whether civil or intellectual, her exertions to awaken in the minds of her oppressed sex a sense of their degradation, and to restore them to the dignity of reason and virtue, were active and incessant; by her impassioned reasoning and glowing eloquence, the fabric of voluptuous prejudice has been shaken to its foundation and totters towards its fall; while her philosophic mind, taking a wider range, perceived and lamented in the defects of civil institutions interwoven in their texture and inseparable from them the causes of those partial evils, destructive to virtue and happiness, which poison social intercourse and deform domestic life.” Her eulogist concludes by calling her the “ornament of her sex, the enlightened advocate for freedom, and the benevolent friend of humankind.”

It is more than probable, however, that this was written by a personal friend; for a year later the same magazine, in its semi-annual retrospect of British literature, expressed somewhat altered opinions. This time it says: “It is not for us to vindicate Mary Godwin from the charge of multiplied immorality which is brought against her by the candid as well as the censorious, by the sagacious as well as the superstitious observer. Her character in our estimation is far from being entitled to unqualified praise; she had many faults; she had many transcendent virtues. But she is now dead, and we shall

‘No farther seek her merits to disclose,

Or draw her frailties from the dread abode;

There they alike in trembling hope repose,

The bosom of her father and her God!’ ”

The notice in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for October, 1797, the month after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise. The following is the sentence it passed upon her: “Her manners were gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing, without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical skill in education was ever superior to her speculations upon that subject; nor is it possible to express the misfortune sustained in that respect by her children. This tribute we readily pay to her character, however adverse we may be to the system she supported in politics and morals, both by her writings and practice.”

In 1798 Godwin published his Memoir of Mary, together with her posthumous writings. He no doubt hoped by a clear statement of the principal incidents of her life to moderate the popular feeling against her. But he was the last person to have undertaken the task. Outside of the small circle of friends and sympathizers who really loved him, he was by no means popular. There were some who even seemed to think that the greatest hardship of Mary’s life was to have been his wife. Thus Roscoe, after reading the Memoir, expressed the sentiments it aroused in him in the following lines:—

“Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life,

As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;

But harder still thy fate in death we own,

Thus mourned by Godwin with a heart of stone.”

Moreover, Godwin’s views about marriage, as set forth in his “Political Justice,” were held in such abhorrence that the fact that he approved of Mary’s conduct was reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it. His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary’s reputation was concerned. Indeed, it increased rather than lessened the asperity of her detractors. It was greeted by the “European Magazine” for April, 1798, almost immediately after its publication, by one of the most scathing denunciations of Mary’s character which had yet appeared.

“The lady,” the article begins, “whose memoirs are now before us, appears to have possessed good abilities, and originally a good disposition, but, with an overweening conceit of herself, much obstinacy and self-will, and a disposition to run counter to established practices and opinions. Her conduct in the early part of her life was blameless, if not exemplary; but the latter part of it was blemished with actions which must consign her name to posterity (in spite of all palliatives) as one whose example, if followed, would be attended with the most pernicious consequences to society: a female who could brave the opinion of the world in the most delicate point; a philosophical wanton, breaking down the bars designed to restrain licentiousness; and a mother, deserting a helpless offspring disgracefully brought into the world by herself, by an intended act of suicide.” Here follows a short sketch of the incidents recorded by Godwin, and then the article concludes: “Such was the catastrophe of a female philosopher of the new order, such the events of her life, and such the apology for her conduct. It will be read with disgust by every female who has any pretensions to delicacy; with detestation by every one attached to the interests of religion and morality; and with indignation by any one who might feel any regard for the unhappy woman, whose frailties should have been buried in oblivion. Licentious as the times are, we trust it will obtain no imitators of the heroine in this country. It may act, however, as a warning to those who fancy themselves at liberty to dispense with the laws of propriety and decency, and who suppose the possession of perverted talents will atone for the well government of society and the happiness of mankind.”

This opinion of the “European Magazine” was the one most generally adopted. It was re-echoed almost invariably when Mary Wollstonecraft’s name was mentioned in print. A Mrs. West, who, in 1801, published a series of “Letters to a Young Man,” full of goodly discourse and moral exhortation, found occasion to warn him against Mary’s works, which she did with as much energy as if the latter had been the Scarlet Woman of Babylon in the flesh. “This unfortunate woman,” she says in conclusion, “has terribly terminated her guilty career; terribly, I say, because the account of her last moments, though intentionally panegyrical, proves that she died as she lived; and her posthumous writings show that her soul was in the most unfit state to meet her pure and holy judge.”

A writer in the “Beauties of England and Wales,” though animated by the same spirit, saw no reason to caution his readers against Mary’s pernicious influence, because of his certainty that in another generation she would be forgotten. “Few writers have attained a larger share of temporary celebrity,” he admits. “This was the triumph of wit and eloquence of style. To the age next succeeding it is probable that her name will be nearly unknown; for the calamities of her life so miserably prove the impropriety of her doctrines that it becomes a point of charity to close the volume treating of the Rights of Women with mingled wonder and pity.”

But probably the article which was most influential in perpetuating the ill-repute in which she stood with her contemporaries, is the sketch of her life given in Chalmers’s “Biographical Dictionary.” The papers and many books of the day soon passed out of sight, but the Dictionary was long used as a standard work of reference. In this particular article every action of Mary’s life is construed unfavorably, and her character shamefully vilified. Judging from Godwin’s Memoir, it decides that Mary “appears to have been a woman of strong intellect, which might have elevated her to the highest ranks of English female writers, had not her genius run wild for want of cultivation. Her passions were consequently ungovernable, and she accustomed herself to yield to them without scruple, treating female honor and delicacy as vulgar prejudices. She was therefore a voluptuary and sensualist, without that refinement for which she seemed to contend on other subjects. Her history, indeed, forms entirely a warning, and in no part an example. Singular she was, it must be allowed, for it is not easily to be conceived that such another heroine will ever appear, unless in a novel, where a latitude is given to that extravagance of character which she attempted to bring into real life.” Beloe, in the “Sexagenarian,” borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the “Biographical Dictionary,” which was furthermore accepted by almost every history of English literature and encyclopædia as the correct estimate of Mary’s character and teachings. It is, therefore, no wonder that the immorality of her doctrines and unwomanliness of her conduct came to be believed in implicitly by the too credulous public.

That she fully deserved this disapprobation and contempt seemed to many confirmed by the fact that her daughter, Mary Godwin, consented to live with Shelley before their union could be legalized. The independence of mother and daughter excited private as well as public animosity. There is in the British Museum a book containing a collection of drawings, newspaper slips, and written notes, illustrative of the history and topography of the parish of Saint Pancras. As Mary Wollstonecraft was buried in the graveyard of Saint Pancras Church, mention is made of her. A copy of the painting1 by Opie, which was supposed until very recently to be her portrait, is pasted on one of the pages of this book, and opposite to it is the following note, written on a slip of paper, and dated 1821: “Mary Wollstonecraft, a disgrace to modesty, an eminent instance of a perverted strong mind, the defender of the ‘Rights of Women,’ but an ill example to them, soon terminated her life of error, and her remains were laid in the cemetery of Saint Pancras, amidst the believers of the papal creed.

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 monument1 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.