William Godwin

“ To distil the glowing conceptions, and to travesty the beautiful language of the ancients, through the medium of a language estranged to all its peculiarities and all its elegancies. The best thoughts and expressions of an author, those that distinguish one writer from another, are precisely those that are least capable of being translated. And who are the men we are to employ in this promising business? Original genius disdains the unmeaning drudgery. A mind that has one feature resembling the ancients, will scarcely stoop to be their translator. ”

“ Such then is the estimate we are compelled to form of a man who in his professions has sometimes gone as far, as the most zealous votaries of liberty. And what is the inference we shall draw from this? Shall we, for the sake of one man so specious and plausible, learn to think the language of all men equally empty and deceitful? Having once been betrayed, shall we avoid all future risk, by treating every pretender to patriotism and public spirit, as a knave and an impostor? ”

“ Homer is the simplest and most unaffected of poets. Of all the writers of elegance and taste that ever existed, his translator is the most ornamented. We acknowledge Homer by his loose and flowing robe, that does not constrain a muscle of his frame. But Pope presents himself in the close and ungraceful habit of modern times;
"Glittering with gems, and stiff with woven gold."
No, let us for once conduct ourselves with honesty and generosity. If we will not study the ancients in their own nervous and manly page, let us close their volumes for ever. ”

“ It is unnecessary for me to inform a person of so much discernment as your lordship, that education is, by its very nature, a thing of temporary duration. Your lordship's education has been long, and there have been cogent reasons why it should be so. God grant, that when left to walk the world alone, you be not betrayed into any of those unlucky blunders, from the very verge of which my provident hand has often redeemed your lordship! Do not mistake me, my lord, when I talk of the greatness of your talents. ”

“ In all expansive minds, in minds formed for an extensive stage, to embrace the welfare and the interest of nations, there is a certain incessant activity, a principle that must be employed. Debar them from their proper field, and it will most inevitably run out into excesses, which perhaps had better have been avoided. But do these excrescences, which only proceed from the richness and fertility of the soil, disqualify a man for public business? Far, very far from it. Where ever was there a man, who pushed dissipation and debauchery to a greater length, than my lord Bolingbroke? ”

“ Which of you is there, that has not at some time regretted that age, in which a smile is ever upon the countenance, and peace and serenity at the bottom of the heart? How is it you can consent to deprive these little innocents of an enjoyment, that slides so fast away? How is it you can find in your heart to pall these fleeting years with bitterness and slavery? The undesigning gaiety of youth has the strongest claim upon your humanity. There is not in the world a truer object of pity, than a child terrified at every glance, and watching, with anxious uncertainty, the caprices of a pedagogue. ”

“ Civil society is great and unlimited in its extent; the time has been, when the whole known world was in a manner united in one community: but the sphere of education has always been limited. It is for nations to produce the events, that enchant the imagination, and ennoble the page of history: infancy must always pass away in the unimportance of mirth, and the privacy of retreat. ”

“ Fox's is certainly not an ambition of emolument. Nobody dreams it. It is not an ambition, that can be gratified by the distribution of places and pensions. This is a passion, that can only dwell in the weakest and most imbecil minds. Its necessary concomitants, are official inattention and oscitancy. No. The ambition of this hero is a generous thirst of fame, and a desire of possessing the opportunity of conferring the most lasting benefits upon his country. It is an instinct, that carries a man forward into the field of fitness, and of God. ”

“ In order, my lord, to annihilate responsibility, nothing more is necessary than that every individual should be as free, and as much in the habit of advising the king upon the measures of government, as his ministers. Let every discarded, and let every would-be statesman, sow dissension in the royal councils, and pour the poison of his discontent into the royal ear. Let the cabinet ring with a thousand jarring sentiments ”

“ The scheme of governing the country without taking the house of commons along with you, is much more feasible than this. This might be done by passing an act of parliament by the authority of two estates of the realm, to declare the house of commons useless. For my part, I am far from thinking this so bold a step as by some it may be imagined. Was not Rome a free state, though it had no house of commons? Has not the British house of commons been incessantly exclaimed upon, as corrupt and nugatory? Has not a reform respecting them been called for from all quarters of the kingdom? ”

“ The character of this writer, patient yet elegant, accurate in enquiry, acute in reflexion, was peculiarly calculated to trace the flow and imperceptible decline of empire, and to throw light upon a period, darkened by the barbarism of its heroes, and the confused and narrow genius of its authors. In a word, we need not fear to class the performance with those that shall do lasting, perhaps immortal, honour, to the country by which they have been produced. ”

“ But we are unskilled to derive any real advantage from history. The critique of erudition absorbs every thing; as if it imported us much whether the relation were true, provided we could extract from it any useful induction. Men of sense ought to regard history as a tissue of fables, whose moral is perfectly adapted to the human heart."
The mere external actions of men are not worth the studying: Who would have ever thought of going through a course of history, if the science were comprised in a set of chronological tables? No: it is the hearts of men we should study. ”

“ Lord Shelburne is a man of insatiable ambition, and who pursues the ends of that ambition by ways the most complex and insidious. The creed of lord North, whatever it may be, upon general political questions, is consistent and intelligible. For my own part, I do not believe him to be ambitious. It is not possible, with his indolent and easy temper, that he should be very susceptible to so restless a passion. In the heroical sense of that word, he sits loose to fame. ”

“ Under the restrictions I have laid down, history is of all sciences the most simple. It has been ever considered by philosophers, as the porch of knowledge. It has ever been treated by men of literature, as the relaxation of their feverer pursuits. It leads directly to the most important of all attainments, the knowledge of the heart. It introduces us, without expence, and without danger, to an acquaintance with manners and society. By the most natural advances it points us forward to all the depths of science. ”

“ But, my lord, it has ever been my opinion, that let nature do as much as she will, it is in the power of education to do still more. The many statesmanlike qualities that you brought into the world with you, sufficiently prove, that no man was ever more deeply indebted to the bounty of nature than your lordship. And yet of all those qualities she has bestowed upon you, there is not one that I hold in half so much esteem, as that docility, which has ever induced you to receive my instructions with implicit veneration. ”

“ It is not ours, my lord, to live in air-built castles, and to deal in imaginary hypotheses. On the contrary, we are continually talking of the weakness and the frailty of humanity. Does any man impeach one of our body of bribery and corruption? We confess that these practices may seem to run counter with the fine-spun systems of morality; but this is our constant apology, human affairs can be no otherwise managed. Does any man suggest the most beautiful scheme of oeconomy, or present us with the most perfect model of liberty? ”

“ Heroical as I trust my undertaking proves me, I fear no man's censure, and court no man's applause. But I look up to you as a respectable body of men, who have long united your efforts to reduce the disproportioned members of an ancient republic to an happy equality, to give wings to the little emmet of Grub-street, and to hew away the excrescences of lawless genius with a hatchet. In this character I honour you. That you have assumed it uncompelled and self-elected, that you have exercised it undazzled by the ignis fatuus of genius, is your unfading glory. ”

“ Let history be stripped as much as you will of every extraneous circumstance, let it be narrowed to the utmost simplicity, there is still one science previously necessary. It is that of morals. If you see nothing in human conduct, but purely the exterior and physical movements, what is it that history teaches? Absolutely nothing; and the science devoid of interest, becomes incapable of affording either pleasure or instruction. We may add, that the more perfectly it is made a science of character and biography, the more indispensible is ethical examination. ”

“ His eloquence was splendid, animated, and engaging. Of all the statesmen then existing in Europe, he was perhaps the individual, who best understood the interests and the politics of all her courts. But your lordship may probably find it somewhat more intelligible, if I take the other side of the picture, and tell you what he was not. He was not a man of fawning and servility. He did not rest his ambitious pretensions upon any habitual adroitness, upon the arts of wheedling, and the tones of insinuation. He rested them upon the most solid talents, and the most brilliant accomplishments. ”

“ The aera of foresight is the aera of imagination, and imagination is the grand instrument of virtue. The mind is the seat of pleasure and pain. It is not by what we see, but by what we infer and suppose, that we are taught, that any being is the object of commiseration. It is by the constant return of the mind to the unfortunate object, that we are strongly impressed with sympathy. Hence it is that the too frequent recurrence of objects of distress, at the same time that it blunts the imagination, renders the heart callous and obdurate. ”

“ But our moral dispositions and character depend very much, perhaps entirely, upon education.—Children indeed are weak and imbecil; but it is the imbecility of spring, and not that of autumn; the imbecility that verges towards power, and not that is already exhausted with performance. To behold heroism in its infancy, and immortality in the bud, must be a most attractive object. To mould those pliant dispositions, upon which the happiness of multitudes may one day depend, must be infinitely important. ”

“ A man of genius may possibly be thoughtless, dissipated and unstudied; but he cannot avoid being constant, generous, and sincere. The union of first rate abilities with malignity, avarice, and envy, seems to me very nearly as incredible a phenomenon, as a mermaid, a unicorn, or a phoenix.
I cannot overcome the propensity I feel to add Mr. Burke to this illustrious catalogue, though the name of this gentleman leads me out of the circle of the cabinet. Mr. Burke raised himself from an obscure situation, by the greatness of his abilities, and his unrivalled genius. ”

“ A saturnine critic might be apt to suspect that they were also hasty, were not the loftiness of their conceptions, the majesty of their style, the richness of their imagination, and above all, the energy both of their thoughts and language so conspicuous, that we may defy any man of taste to rise from the perusal, and say, that all the study and consideration in the world could possibly have made them better. ”

“ Do petitions come up from every quarter of the kingdom, as they did, to no purpose, a few years ago, for its dissolution? But it is the prerogative of the king to dissolve his parliament. And because it is his prerogative, because he has a power of this kind reserved for singular emergencies, does it follow, that this power is to be exercised at caprice, and without weighty and comprehensive reasons? It may happen, that the parliament is in the midst of its session, that the very existence of revenue may be unprovided for, and the urgent claims of humanity unfulfilled. ”

“ That government however is a theme so much superior to education, is not perhaps so evident, as we may at first imagine.
It is indeed wider in its extent, but it is infinitely less absolute in its power. The state of society is incontestibly artificial; the power of one man over another must be always derived from convention, or from conquest; by nature we are equal. The necessary consequence is, that government must always depend upon the opinion of the governed. Let the most oppressed people under heaven once change their mode of thinking, and they are free. ”