MART WOLLSTOXECRAFT GODWIN, the first wife of William Godwin, better known however by her maiden name of Wolletonecraft, was born on the 27th of April 1759. Mary Wollstoneemfee 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 Wollstonecrafee 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, nod afterwards, in 1783, in concert with two sisters and also a friend for whom she had conceived an ardent attachment, she opened a day-school at Islington, which was very shortly removed to Newington Green. Mr. Godwin, who is well qualified to give an opinion, speaks in high terms of her pre-eminent fitness for the teach iog of children; but the call of friendship having carried her for a time to Lisbon, and the school having been mismanaged in her absenoe, she 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 Wollatonecraft had by this time made an attempt in author ship. She had in 1780 written and published, in order to devote the profita to a work of charity, a pamphlet entitled 'Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.' 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 years of her lifo wore accordingly spent in writing; and during that period she produced some small works of fiction, and translations and abridgements of several valuable works, for instance, Salzman's 'Elements of Morality,' and Lavatees 'Physiognomy,' and several 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 edncate two younger sisters, put two of her brothers out in 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 Burke'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 1792 Mary Wollstoneeraft went to Paris, and did not return to London till after an interval of three years. While in France abe 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, canned by • bitter disappoiotment to which an attachment formed in Paris had subjected her, led her at this period 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 destruction.
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 lasted for about six months, and at the end of that period, in defer ence to the opinions of the world, a marriage. Mary Wollatonecraft Godwin died in child-bed on the 10th of September 1797, in her thirty-ninth year.