wondered at that so thinking a person as Godwin, remembering the rules
laid down by those he loved and respected in his childhood, should
have wandered far into the abstract labyrinths of right and wrong,
and, wishing to simplify what was right, should have travelled in his
imagination into the dim future, and have laid down a code beyond the
scope of present mortals. Well for him, perhaps, and for his code, if
this is yet so far beyond that it is not taken up and distorted out of
all resemblance to his original intention before the time for its
possible practical application comes. For Godwin himself it was also
well that, with these uncongenial early surroundings, he, when the
time came to think, was of the calm--most calm and unimpassioned
philosophic temperament, instead of the high poetic nature; not that
the two may not sometimes overlap and mingle; but with Godwin the
downfall of old ideas led to reasoning out new theories in clear
prose; and even this he would not give to be rashly and
indiscriminately read at large, but published in three-guinea volumes,
knowing well that those who could expend that sum on books are not
usually inclined to overthrow the existing order of things. In fact,
he felt it was the rich who wanted preaching to more than the poor.

Apart from sectarian doctrines, his tutor, Mr. Newton, seems to have
given Godwin the advantage of the free range of his library; and
doubtless this was excellent education for him at that time. After he
had acted as usher for over a year, from the age of fifteen, his
mother, at his father's death in 1772, wished him to enter Homerton
Academy; but the authorities would not admit him on suspicion of
Sandemanianism. He, however, gained admittance to Hoxton College. Here
he planned tragedies on Iphigenia and the death of Caesar, and also
began to study Sandeman's work from a library, to find out what he was
accused of. This probably caused, later, his horror of these ideas,