GODWIN, GEORGE. 



GODWIN', WILLIAM. 



Hereford, to which he was translated in 1617. The Utin 'Catalogue' 

 WM reprinted, with a continuation to the time of publication, by Dr. 

 William RicbanUon, folio, Cambridge, 1743. 



In 1616 BUhop Godwin published a folio volume, entitled 'Rerum 

 Anglicanitn Henrico VIII., Edwardo VI., ct Maria Regnnntibus 

 Ann*)**,' which hii ton Morgan Godwin translated and published in 

 English, foL, 16Sa Other edition* of the Latin were, 4to, London, 

 1688, and 12mo, Hag., 1653. In 1630 he published a small treitUe 

 entitled 'A Computation of the Talue of the Roman Sesterce and Attio 

 Talent.' This was the latest of his productions. He died in the 

 month of April 1633. 



KxclusiTe of the above-mentioned worka, he wrote two pieces of a 

 different kind, ona of which, in Latin, partook of a scientific character, 

 entitled ' Xunoius Inanimatus in Utopia,' 8ro, 1629, the design of 

 which was to communicate various methods of convoying intelligence 

 secretly, speedily, and safely. It is supposed to have given rise to 

 Bishop Wilkins's 'Mercury, or Secret and Swift Messenger.' The 

 other was a posthumous work of imagination, written while he was a 

 student of Christchurch, celebrated in its day, and even not yet 

 forgotten, entitled ' The Man in the Moon, or a Discourse of a Voyage 

 thither by Domingo Gonsales,' 8vo, 1633. To a later edition of this 

 work, in 1657, a translation of the ' Xuneius Inanimatus' was appended 

 by Dr. Thomas Smith, of Magdalen College, Oxford. 



GODWIN, GEORGE, architect, editor of the 'Builder,' and 

 author of numerous 'papers in that journal and other works on archi- 

 tecture and collateral subjects, was born on the 23th of January 1815, 

 at Brompton, Middlesex. His father, Mr. George Godwin, sen., still 

 resident at Brompton, has practised during many years aa an architect 

 and surveyor in the growing suburbs, of Western London, where 

 Godwin, jun., had the opportunity of practical experience from the 

 early age of thirteen, when he entered his father's office. To the 

 advantages which he derived from industry and self-reliance, he added 

 a love of general literary and scientific pursuits. At twenty years of 

 age he was joint editor of the ' Literary Union,' a miscellany of tales 

 and essays. His first literary work connected with architecture was 

 an essay on Concrete, prepared in 1835, in answer to an advertisement 

 from the Institute of British Architects, and for it he received in 1836 

 their first medal. The essay, afterwards printed in the 'Transactions' 

 of the Institute, has remained a standard authority, and has been 

 translated into the French and Italian languages. In 1836 and 1837 

 he was concerned in the getting up of the Art Union of London, to 

 which from the year 1839 he has acted as chief honorary secretary. 

 In 1887 he wrote 'An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of Rail- 

 ways.' In 1838 he commenced 'The Churches of London,' a history 

 and description of the ecclesiastical edifices of the metropolis, in 

 2 vols. Svo, with plates from drawings by Mackenzie and Billings. 

 The name of Mr. Britton was appended to the work along with that 

 of Mr. Godwin. From this time Mr. Godwin was a frequent con- 

 tributor of papers to the meetings of the Institute of British 

 Architects and other societies. In 1839 he was elected a fellow of 

 the Society of Antiquaries, and in the following year a fellow of the 

 Royal Society. In 1840 also, the Socidtd libre des Beaux Arts of Paris 

 awarded him a medal for his published works. At the commence- 

 ment of the publication (in 1839) of the 'Art Union Magazine' (now 

 the ' Art Journal '), Mr. Godwin was a constant contributor to it ; and 

 he also wrote many papers in the early volumes of the 'Civil Engineer 

 and Architect's Journal' His contributions to journals, or to the 

 societies, included notices of the buildings of Belgium, Normandy, 

 Poitiers, and Angouleme ; and his essay on ' Masons' Marks in the 

 Middle Ages ' was printed by the Society of Antiquaries in the 

 ' Archffiologia.' He also wrote a farce called ' The Last Day,' first 

 played at the Olympic Theatre on October 29th, 1810. In 1844 he 

 published a collection of tales under the title ' Facts and Fancies,' and 

 subsequently he contributed a memoir of Bunyan to the edition of the 

 'Pilgrim's Progress' which he edited in conjunction with Mr. Lewis 

 Pocock, his colleague in the secretaryship of the London Art Union. 

 This society owes much of its influence to Mr. Godwin's exertions. 

 The annual reports during seventeen years have been prepared by 

 him, and during the years 1845 to 1848, when the existence of the 

 society was threatened, Mr. Godwin's correspondence with the govern- 

 ment procured the sanction of an act of parliament and a charter. 



Mr. Godwin became editor of ' The Builder ' upon the completion of 

 the second volume in 1844. With that journal his literary services 

 to the advancement of architecture, to general art and science, and 

 social and sanitary improvement, thenceforward may be said to be 

 identified. From amongst the mass of valuable contributions furnished 

 by Mr. Godwin's unaided pen, some have been republished in a 

 separate form. A good popular account of the styles of archi- 

 tecture, originally written as a series of letters to a lady, appeared in 

 1858 ; and in 1854, under the title of ' London Shadows,' Mr. Godwin 

 issued part of the result of an ' Inquiry,' which he had made in 1853, 

 into ' the Condition of the Homes of the Poor," similar to what may 

 have been undertaken by others, but treating of facts which bad hardly 

 been set forth with the name cogency and truth. 



Besides these literary works, Mr. Godwin has designed and erected 

 St. Mary's church, West Brompton ; the Infant schools at Redcliff, 

 Bristol, and some farm buildings of an improved construction ; has 

 directed the restorations of the tower of the old church at Fulhani, 



and of St. Mary's church, Ware; and has had under his care, since 

 the year 1846, the works at the magnificent church of St. Mary, Red- 

 cliff, where the north porch, restored in 1855, is one of the most 

 important of the portions of the building now finished. In 1847 the 

 second premium was awarded to Mr. Godwin and Mr. Harris, in the 

 competition for the buildings of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. 



Mr. Godwin hat given the aid of his architectural knowledge in the 

 production of some of the plays of Shakspere at the Princess's theatre, 

 and has delivered many popular lectures on architecture, in London 

 and some of the towns of Scotland. He holds the office of surveyor, 

 under the Metropolitan Buildings Act, to the district of South Isling- 

 ton, to which he was elected in 1853. He was one of the jurors nt the 

 Exhibition of 1851, for the class of Mineral Substances used in Build- 

 ings, and is n Fellow of the Institute of British Architects, and of 

 several foreign societies. 



GODWIN, WILLIAM, was born on the 3rd of March 1756, at Wis- 

 beach in Cambridgeshire, where his father had then the charge of a 

 dissenting congregation. He was placed when eleven years old with a 

 private tutor at Norwich : and when seventeen was sent to the Inde- 

 pendent Theological College at Hoxton, with a view to being educated 

 for the ministry. In 1778 he became minister to a congregation in 

 the neighbourhood of London, and continued to officiate in that capa- 

 city for five years. At the end of this period he removed to the 

 metropolis, and henceforth sought subsistence by authorship. 



The first work which Godwin published with his name was the well- 

 known treatise on ' Political Justice.' It appeared in the beginning of 

 1793, but sixteen months, as he states in his preface, after its com- 

 position was commenced. It appeared at a time when a panic hod 

 seized men's minds, and when the government, scared by the progress 

 of events in France, were carrying on prosecutions against such as, by 

 speech or writing, showed, or were thought to show, a disposition to 

 sympathise with the French revolutionary principles. The freshness 

 of tone pervading the treatise on ' Political Justice,' and the novelty 

 and extravagance of many of its views, rendered it likely, under these 

 circumstances, that the author would be exposed to danger, at least so 

 Godwin thought, and he expressed his belief and his resolution to 

 brave the consequences, in a characteristic passage of remarkable 

 dignity. The ' Political Justice ' entailed no prosecution upon its 

 author, but it brought much obloquy. Obloquy, displeasing in itself, 

 is however a sure path to notoriety, which, whatever may be its 

 origin or character, is pleasing. The 'Political Justice' imported 

 to Godwin a great notoriety ; and he now rose, as he himself ex- 

 presses it, " like a star upon his contemporaries." (' Thoughts on 

 Man,' p. 338.) In the year following its publication, he published 

 his novel of ' Caleb Williams,' the ultimate object of which was an 

 illustration of some of the views contained in the ' Political Justice," 

 and a realisation in the person of Caleb of many complaints contained 

 in the ' Political Justice ' of the prevailing state of society, designed 

 to work upon minds for which the disquisitional character of the latter 

 treatise was unsuited. The success of Godwin as a novelist, added to 

 his previous notoriety as a political writer, raised his fame to its height. 



Towards the close of 1794 some of Godwin's chief friends, Holcroft, 

 Home Tooke, Thelwall, Hardy, and others, were arrested, and brought 

 to trial on charges of high treason. Godwin had himself studiously 

 kept aloof from those societies, which were then the chief object of 

 fear to the government, and us being members of which his friends 

 were arraigned ; for however great, nay extravagant, might be the 

 changes which be contemplated, he had always advocated a quiet and 

 gradual mode of attaining them, and avowed himself, whether in 

 writing or conversation, the enemy of revolution. But to bis friends 

 in danger he now tendered a valuable assistance. His ' Cursory 

 Strictures' on the charge delivered by Judge Eyre to the jury, 

 which were published instantly in the ' Morning Chronicle,' were 

 thought at the time to have contributed greatly to the acquittal of 

 the accused. 



In 1797 he published the 'Enquirer,' a collection of essays on 

 moral and literary subjects. It was in April of this year that he 

 married Mary Wollstonecraft, having, hi pursuance of the opinions 

 which he then entertained, and in which she concurred, against the 

 institution of marriage, previously cohabited with her for a period of 

 six months. His wife died in childbed in September of the same year, 

 leaving Godwin a daughter, who subsequently married the poet 

 Shelley, and who gave ample proofs that she inherited much of the 

 powers of her parents. In 1793 Godwin edited the posthumous works 

 of his wife, and also published a small memoir of her, which is eminently 

 marked by feeling, simplicity, and truth. 



The novel of ' St. Leon' was published in 1799. In the course of 

 the next year Godwin paid a visit to Ireland, residing, while in that 

 country, principally with Curran. In 1801 he married a second time. 

 His ' Life of Chaucer,' a work of little research and of no value, 

 appeared in 1803, and was followed the next year by a third novel, 

 bearing the name of ' Fleetwood, or the New Man of Feeling.' 



It was about this period of life that Godwin entered into business 

 as a bookseller, and leaving the nobler and more pleasant paths of 

 literature, employed himself for some time in the composition of 

 school-books, which were published under the assumed name of Bald- 

 win. 1 le came forward however in 1803 with his ' Essay on Sepulchres, 

 or a Proposal for Erecting some Memorial of the Illustrious Dead 



