‘The old acquaintances,’ Mr. Kegan Paul says in his general account of Godwin’s life in 1802-3, the first year of his married life with his second wife, ‘did not like Mrs. Godwin, and she did not like them; she was a harsh stepmother, whom his children feared.’ There are, of course, two sides to the story of Mrs. Godwin’s dislike of her husband’s old friends. The dislike has in some cases been exaggerated; and her dislike of some of the people was reasonable and even creditable to her. Possibly her children feared her; for the way, in which children were generally governed in English homes eighty years since, caused them often to fear parents who abounded in parental affection. But there is no evidence that she was a ‘harsh stepmother,’ in any fair sense of the term, apart from Mrs. Shelley’s vindictive words against her. Such scanty evidence as Mr. Kegan Paul gives us from the Field Place papers, goes in the other direction. On this point Mr. Kegan Paul makes strong assertions without supporting them with facts, which he certainly would have done, had the facts been to hand. He says (speaking of 1802-3):-- ‘She’ (_i.e._ the second Mrs. Godwin) ‘had strong views, in which many would agree, that each child should be educated to some definite duties, and with a view of filling some useful place in life; but this arrangement soon had at least a show of partiality. It was found that Jane Clairmont’s mission in life, according to her mother’s view, was to have all the education, and even accomplishments, which their slender means would admit, and more than they would admit; while household drudgery was from an early age discovered to be the life-work of Fanny and Mary Godwin.’