This Week at Hail Mary Shelley Archives [Return to This Week]
[Terror of 1794 I] [kitchen door]
[Terror of 1794 II] [anniversary quotes]
[Leigh Hunt poem] [Mother's Day]
[Emily Dickinson] [Industrial Revolution effects]
[Clash of Minds]the week of April 21, 2000
To mark the first anniversary of Hail Mary Shelley! Vera
suggested posting some statements reflecting our purpose.
Here are two.The true ground of confidence between man
and man is the knowledge we have of the motives
by which the human mind is influenced; our
perception that the motives to deceive can but
rarely occur, while the motives to veracity will
govern the stream of human actions.
William Godwin Political Justice Book III, Chapter III, of promisesIf men resemble each other in more numerous
and essential particulars than those in which they
differ, if the best purposes that can be accomplished
respecting them be to make them free, virtuous and
wise, there must be one best method of social existence
deducible from the principles of their nature. If truth
be one, there must be one code of truths on the subject
of our reciprocal duties. Nor is investigation only the
best mode of ascertaining the principles of political
justice and happiness; it is also the best mode of
introducing and establishing them. Discussion is the
path that leads to discovery and demonstration.
William Godwin Political Justice Book IV, Chapter V, of the cultivation of truth
the week of October 23, 1999 [Return to This Week]
October 20, 1794, a London newspaper, Morning Chronicle,
printed a reply to the Terror that had begun earlier that year.
William Hazlitt called the anonymous answer to the government's
second series of arrests and trials "one of the most acute and
seasonable political pamphlets that ever appeared." How much
that is valued in our world these 205 years later that was made
possible by the publication of "Cursory Strictures" is impossible
to know. Among such things that our world would otherwise certainly
lack, however, is the novel, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.
This we know because the name of the man, who later fathered Mary
Shelley, was among the hundreds that appeared on warrants that had
been prepared and signed before the first of the October trials began.
Although there were numerous victims of governmental suppression
in the years that followed, Dr. Wm. Lawrence and Thomas Paine
among them, significant progress had been made that could be
built upon. This week www.hailMaryShelley.com celebrates
the anniversary of the publication of "Cursory Strictures",
without which we, Mary Shelley, and Frankenstein would
not have existed. Here is a link to our newest addition, a
chronology of events surrounding the life of Mary Shelley
and another, a link to our Morning Chronicle advertisement.
This week marks the 205th anniversary of the beginning of
the trial of Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker, on charges of treason.
For some background on the developments that led to the trial
and its importance in the life of Mary Shelley, here is a link to
last week's This week and Morning Chronicle. Having participated
in meetings called to discuss governmental reforms, such as
extending the right to vote to a greater number of citizens,
Hardy was seen by the government as one of the many who
might ignite a revolution like the one that had taken place in
France. As mentioned elsewhere, William Godwin, who later
fathered Mary Shelley, although he had not yet been arrested,
was without doubt near the top of the list of persons the
government considered most dangerous. It is important to
note that, although William Godwin's book Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice, which had been published eight months earlier,
was read by everyone who attended the meetings that so
disturbed the government, William Godwin was not a member of
any of the societies such as the one Thomas Hardy had formed.
This is one of the aspects of Godwin's character that we
have come to admire most, although it is also likely the very
aspect that continues to cause him to be overlooked. Godwin's
unusually principled observation led him to criticize the reformist
societies as often as the government. He noted that such groups
inflamed destructive excesses. Consequently, many of the reformists
spoke quite disparagingly of Godwin. When the reply to the
Terror of 1794 was published anonymously in London's Morning
Chronicle, many thought that it had been authored by the
liberal lawyer, Miles Vaughn. One of those thought to have
authored the very effective reply, Horne Tooke, whose trial
immediately followed Hardy's acquittal, suspected that Godwin
had actually authored Cursory Strictures and pressed him with
the question a number of times, each time without receiving an
answer. His persistence eventually paid off one evening when
the two were dining together, at which time Godwin admitted
to having written it. The private and most touching expression
of gratitude that followed, Godwin noted in his diary, was
more satisfying to Godwin than any of the public acclaim he
received during his years of fame.
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