133 



GODWIN, -WILLIAM. 



GOGOL, NIKOLAY. 



131 



in all ages on the spot where their Remains have been Interred.' 

 In 1816 he published his fourth novel, 'Mandeville,' In 1820 

 appeared his ' Treatise on Population,' in reply to Mr. Malthus, whose 

 own ' Essay on Population ' had been suggested by Godwin's views of 

 the perfectibility of man, as expounded in the ' Political Justice ' and 

 the ' Enquirer.' He afterwards devoted himself for some time to his 

 ' History of the Commonwealth of England,' the four volumes of 

 which appeared successively between the years 1824 and 1828. In 

 1830, when now seventy-four years old, he published his fifth and last 

 novel, entitled ' Cloudesley.' In 1831 he published a volume of essays 

 under the title of ' Thoughts on Man,' and in 1834 his last work, the 

 ' Lives of the Necromancer*.' 



Shortly after the accession of Lord Grey to power, Godwin was 

 appointed to a situation in one of the public offices, which, in his 

 declining years, supplied him with an assistance and a comfort that 

 he needed. He died on the 7th of April 1836, in the eighty-first year 

 of his age. 



The name of Godwin, as a writer, is chiefly known in connection 

 with the ' Treatise on Political Justice;' but his best title to fame is 

 derived from his novels. He had neither reach nor precision of thought 

 sufficient to form a good philosophical writer. But though deficient 

 in power of reflection, he possessed a singular skill in observing, 

 and in describing what he observed, which fitted him to portray 

 character. The characters of Falkland, in ' Caleb Williams,' and of 

 Mandeville, are great examples of bin skill in this respect ; and there 

 are few novels which interest so much as those of Godwin. 



MART WOLLSTOXECRAFT GODWIX, the first wife of William Godwin, 

 better known however by her maiden name of Wollstonecraft, was 

 born on the 27th of April 1759. Mary Wollstonecraft' a early years 

 were spent in the country, but whether in Norfolk or at Beverley in 

 Yorkshire, is not clear. When she had attained the age of sixteen, her 

 father, having entered into a commercial speculation, removed to 

 Hoxton, near London. Mary Wollstonecraft' s early years were not 

 passed happily. Her father appears to have been a man of no judg- 

 ment in the management of a family, and of a most ungovernable 

 temper. A young woman of exquisite sensibility, as well as of great 

 energy of character, she was thus led early to think of quitting her 

 parents and providing for herself. She went first to live as companion 

 to a lady at Bath, and afterwards, in 1783, in concert with two slaters 

 and also a friend for whom she had conceived an ardent attachment, 

 the opened a day-school at Islington, which was very shortly removed 

 to Newingtou Green. Mr. Godwin, who is well qualified to give an 

 opinion, speaks in high terms of her pre-eminent fitness for the teach- 

 ing of children ; but the call of friendship having carried her for a 

 time to Lisbon, and the school having been mismanaged in her 

 absence, (he found it necessary on her return to give up this plan of 

 subsistence. She almost immediately obtained the situation of gover- 

 ness in the family of Lord Kingsborongh. 



Mary Wollstonecraft had by this time made an attempt in author- 

 ship. She bad in 1786 written and published, in order to devote the 

 profits to a work of charity, a pamphlet entitled ' Thoughts on the 

 Education of Daughter*.' On leaving Lord Kingsborough's family in 

 1787, she went to London, and entered into negociations with Mr. 

 Johnson, the publisher, with a view to supporting herself by author- 

 ship. The next three yean of her life wore accordingly spent iu writing ; 

 and during that period she produced some small works of fiction, and 

 translations and abridgements of several valuable works, for instance, 

 Salzman'a 'KlemenU of Morality,' and Lavater's 'Physiognomy,' 

 and *veral articles in the ' Analytical Review.' The profits of her pen, 

 which were more than she needed for her own subsistence, supplied aid 

 to many members of her family. She helped to educate two younger 

 listers, put two of her brothers out iu the world, and even greatly 

 assisted her father, whose speculative habits had by this time brought 

 him into embarrassments. Thus for three years did she proceed in a 

 course of usefulness, but unattended by fame. Her answer however 

 to liurke's ' Reflections on the French Revolution,' which was the first 

 of the many answers that appeared, and her ' Vindication of the Rights 

 of Woman, which appeared in 1791, rapidly brought her into notice 

 and notoriety. 



In 1 792 Mary Wollstonecraft went to Paris, and did not return to 

 London till after an interval of three years. While in France she 

 wrote her ' Moral and Historical View of the French Revolution ; ' 

 and a visit to Norway on business in 1795 gave rise to her 'Letters 

 from Norway.' Distress of mind, caused by a bitter disappointment 

 to which an attachment formed in Paris had subjected her, led her at 

 riod of her life to make two attempts at suicide. But it is a 

 striking proof of her vigour of intellect that the ' Letters from Nor- 

 way ' were written at the time when her mental distress was at 

 its height, and in the interval between her two attempts at self- 

 dntructiun. 



It was at the beginning of 1796 that Mary Wollstonecraft became 

 acquainted with Godwin. The result of their acquaintance has been 

 stated in the preceding article to have been first, in consequence of 

 their own opinions on the subject of marriage, a cohabitation which 

 luted for about six months, and at the end of that period, in defer- 

 ence to the opinions of the world, a marriage. Mary Wollstonecraft 

 Godwin died in child-bed on the 10th of September 1797, in her 

 thirty-ninth year. 



GOES, HUGO VANDER, a celebrated old Flemish painter and 

 pupil of John Van Eyck. He was a native of Bruges according to 

 Van Mander, but of Antwerp according to Vasari, who calls him Hugo 

 d'Anversa. He spent some time in Italy, and after his return to the 

 Netherlands appears to have settled in Ghent. He conducted the 

 festival which was held at Ghent at the inauguration of Charles the 

 Bold as Count of Flanders, on July 27, 1467. In 1473 he painted the 

 decorations for the pope's jubilee ; and he was, according to the town 

 archives, frequently employed by the authorities of Ghent down to 

 the year 1480. The cause of his residing iu Ghent is conjectured to 

 be a supposed marriage with a beautiful maid of that place, the 

 daughter of a sitizen of the name of Jacob Weytens, in an apartment 

 of whose house Vander Goes painted in oil a celebrated picture of 

 'David and Abigail,' in which he introduced the portrait of the 

 daughter with whom he was in love, beautifully painted : it has been 

 celebrated in verse by Lucas de Heere, but has since perished. Vander 

 Goes seems to have survived his supposed wife, for, probably about 



:80, he entered the Augustine convent of Roodendale in the wood 

 of Soignies near Brussels, in which he became a canon ; and there he 

 was buried. 



There are many extant works attributed by various writers to 

 Vander Goes, but few with certainty : the Museum of Berlin has 

 eight; there are four at Munich, and several at Vienna, and in tho 

 Netherlands. Passavant thinks that the two large pictures of 'James IV. 

 of Scotland and his Queen,' with the 'Saints Andrew and George,' at 

 Hampton Court (Noa. 509-510), are by Vander Goes, becausa they are 

 similar to the pictures at Berlin ; but they are much more likely to 

 have been painted by Mabuse, to whom they are attributed, and who 

 was in this country in the reign of Heury VII., James's father-in-law : 

 James also was not married until 1503, when Vauder Goes had 

 probably been dead some time. 



One of Vander Goes' masterpieces is the ' Crucifixion between tho 

 two Thieves,' in the church of St. James at Bruges, which, to pre- 

 serve it durine; the iconoclastic raze iu the 16th century (1666), was 

 coated with black and inscribed with the ten commandments : it waa 

 afterwards cleaned, and still remains. 



Vander Goes excelled in painting women, but he appears to have 

 been unequal in his execution. His best works are conspicuous for 

 the beauties of the Van Eyck and old Flemish school colour and 

 careful execution, with its prim postures and meagre forms. 



(Van Mander, Lrcen der Schildcn, &c.; De Bast, Metsager det 

 Sciencetet det Ark, Gand, 1824; KunstUatt, 1826; Passavant, Kitnt- 

 treite, <tc. ; Rathgeber, Annalen der Niederldndmhen Malcrei. Ac.) 



GOETHE. [GOTHE.] 



GOGOL, NIKOLAY, a Russian author of great celebrity, whose 

 career throws a light on several points of the moral and political state 

 of his country. He was born apparently about 1810, hi Malorussia, 

 or Little Russia, the inhabitants of which are distinguished from those 

 of Great Russia by vivacity of character and a comparatively strong 

 feeling of self-respect and independence. They have a language or 

 dialect of their own, about as distinct from that of Russia as the 

 Lowland Scotch from the English, but of which no use is made in 

 serious composition. Gogol was educated at Neghin, at the Bezbo- 

 rodko Lyceum, a provincial high school founded and endowed by one 

 of the Bezborodko family, and one of the few institutions of the kind 

 in Rusxia which are not directly supported by the public money. Ou 

 completing his education he repaired to St. Petersburg in search of 

 employment under government, and it is said that his claims were 

 rejected by one of the government offices on the ground that he was 

 insufficiently acquainted with the Russian language. Soon after he 

 published his first work, a collection of short novels and sketches, 

 entitled 'Evenings at a Farmhouse' (' Vechera na Khutorie'). The 

 book became immediately popular, and the charm of the style was 

 compared by Russian critics to that of Washington Irving. It con- 

 sists of a series of delineations of country life in Malorussia, which 

 are said to be remarkable for their fidelity. It was soon followed by 

 ' Mirgorod,' a supplementary collection of the same character, which 

 met with equal favour. One of the author's habits deserves remark : 

 Gogol, like Dickens, was noted for the excellence with which he read 

 aloud bis own productions, and it is said that in composing a dialogue 

 it was his practice to recite all the different speeches in character 

 before committing them to paper, by means of which he ascertained 

 more satisfactorily if they were in complete consonance with what the 

 character and situation required. He sAW tried his powers in the 

 drama, and bis comedy of ' The Reviser ' met with the most brilliant 

 success. A reviser in Russia is the title of a high government officer 

 despatched to a province to ascertain and report on the character of 

 its administration. The plot and the moral of the play is, that au 

 impostor who makes his appearance at a provincial capital, assuming 

 this title, discovers such universal peculation and misconduct among 

 all the government officials, that when he is at last discovered they 

 are glad to let him off scot free and hush up the whole affair. The 

 Emperor Nicholas, who saw the play acted more than once, gave it his 

 marked applause. It was however chiefly popular among the Russian 

 liberal party, who affixed to it a deeper significance than to a foreigner 

 appears altogether just, and considered it an open and serious attack 

 on the institutions of Russia in general. That it was not looked upon 

 in this light by the government seems sufficiently proved by the 



