It is urged by Mr. Kegan Paul, that Godwin’s second marriage was not a remarkably happy one; that Godwin would have lived on the whole more serenely, from middle to old age, had he not wedded the widow Clairmont; that they had two or three lively quarrels, and divers keen disputes; that some of his old friends disliked her so much that they visited her husband less frequently; that she was a ‘managing,’ domineering woman, with a far from happy temper. All this must be admitted, though every count of the indictment is pressed against the lady with extravagant exaggeration. When all has been urged that can be fairly urged to the discredit of her temper, the second Mrs. Godwin was a less irascible and overbearing woman than Mary Wollstonecraft. There are grounds for a strong opinion that had Godwin been Mary Wollstonecraft’s domestic mate for thirty years, instead of some ten or eleven months, he would have suffered far more from her temper, than he suffered from his second wife’s temper during more than thirty years. If in one of their squabbles arising from paltry questions, Godwin and his second wife talked about separating from one another when they had been married only a year and ten months, let it be remembered in what terms he was moved to write to Mary Wollstonecraft, when he had been (legally) married to her only three weeks. If the man of letters and his second wife had another lively difference in August, 1811, when they had been married nine years and seven months, the quarrel ended under circumstances, affording evidence of much good feeling on Mrs. Godwin’s part, and also of the strong mutual affection of the husband and wife. The documents of Mr. Kegan Paul’s book (documents he cannot be supposed to have read) yield conclusive testimony that, whilst falling out with her, and scolding her roundly once in a while, Godwin had a high regard for his second wife’s energy, a corresponding respect for her good sense and discretion in affairs of business, a genuine admiration for several of her qualities, a curious pride in the gentility of her birth, and a steady affection for her,--in truth, all the sentimental fondness so cold a man could feel for any woman. There is a homely saying in Wiltshire that ‘married people are made to bicker and breed.’ Godwin and his wife bickered barely up to the standard of Wiltshire morals; and their recorded bickerings are never without indications of a homely (albeit quite unromantic) liking for one another. Of their petty tiffs and short-lived quarrels, biography would never have said a word, had not the Shelleyan enthusiasts thought it needful to hunt up materials for palliating Mary Godwin’s conduct, in running away from her father’s house with another woman’s husband.