Mary Hays, 30 Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, to William Godwin, 25 Chalton Street, Somers Town, 13 October 1795.1
Octbr 13th 1795: No 30. Kirby Street Hatton Garden I
always see you with pleasure & am sorry when you take your leave.2 Your conversation excites the curiosity &
the activity of my mind: yet, so weak am I, that the unexpected entrance of a
friend throws me into (shall I use a female phrase?) a flutter of spirits
&, not unfrequently, involves my ideas in a temporary confusion. This, I
make no doubt, you must have observed. My mind & constitution, some years
since, received a shock, the effects of which I suspect I shall never wholly recover.3 Naturally (if you will allow of the unphilosophic expression, for I cannot at
present recollect one more appropriate?) susceptible of strong impressions, a
peculiar train of circumstances called these feelings into exercise, &
privacy & retirement fixed the fatal, connected, chain. Like a skilful physician, I can retrace
the causes, the symptoms, the progress, & thoroughly understand the nature
of my mind’s disorders, but the remedies are not within my power. My philosophy
serves but to convince me of the inveterate nature of reitera
Tell me, frankly, do these reasons appear to you satisfactory, for the step is
by no means too decided for retraction, or do you likewise think I have judged
wrong? I have been, in some measure, fortunate in the situation I have chosen,
my apartments, consisting of a parlour, chamber & little dressing room, are
commodious, & the terms reasonable. Is not this detail of particulars presuming on your friendship? I confess I feel a pleasure in this presumption, though, after what you have written on the subject, some vanity is implied in saying so. The circumstances that I have been enumerating,8 however unimportant in the eye of philosophy, have to me, who have been sheltered too much like a hot-house plant, some value; I should have added another, which may perhaps provoke a smile, that my landlady is as nice, as regular, & as methodical, as myself, & that her behaviour is observant, attentive, & obliging.
And now I am going to take with you a still greater freedom. I have said that
employment is necessary both for my spirits & to make some little addition
to my income. Dr Gregory9 has been kind to me
on this subject, but there are too many intervals in my present occupation,
& too many uncertainties in my future expectations, to satisfy my mind.
Many persons, with the best intentions, afford hopes which they really mean to
fulfil, but the performance is dilatory, it keep’s not pace with the ardor
& rapidity of the expectant’s disposition. In the little intercourse I have had with you I have,
thought I have, observed a
promptness & punctuality which particularly accords with my principles
& temper. Should it lay in your way, to assist & occupy this restless
spirit of mine, I trust you will not refuse your aid! There are two sorts of
writers, I am told, one who live to write, the other, who write to live; the
former I cannot afford to do, the latter I should despair of doing; something,
I wish for, between them both, that would amuse &, at the same time, render my situation easier. I have been
applying closely to my french to qualify myself for translating, and, for the
present, I could wish to engage in some work of this kind. I am very ignorant
of literature, as a business, & would most willingly put myself under your
direction; my wishes are modest, & my expectation moderate; but the
constant exercise of my faculties is necessary to preserve me from sinking into
that painful lassitude, that want of the radical principle of happiness (the ha I flatter myself that on many, tho’ not on all, subjects, my sentiments have a general conformity to yours: & this I conceive to be paying myself no little compliment. The topic we have lately touched upon, that of morals, is a very interesting one to me, & one respecting which I have long entertained many suspicions. But I will no longer, at present, intrude upon your time. Mary Hays. Address: W Godwin | Somers Town | 25 Chalton Street.Postmark: 14 October 1795, 8 o’clock Morn.
Post paid. 2d 1 MS MH 0008, Pforzheimer Collection, NYPL; Brooks, Correspondence 401-05; Walker, Idea of Being Free 199-203. 2 Godwin visited Hays at 30 Kirby Street on 12 October, the day before the above letter. 3 Reference is to Hays's engagement to John Eccles, which ended with his tragic death in 1780. 4 Taken from Jeremiah 13:23. 5 Catherine Macaulay [née Sawbridge] [later Graham] (1731-91) was a celebrated historian, poet, and political writer best known for her multi-volume History of England from the Accession of James I, to that of the Brunswick Line, (1763-83), an achievement that challenged the conventional opinion among the literati that history was not a proper subject for women writers. Macaulay’s praise of the Commonwealth’s republican ideals, her sympathies toward the American colonists, and her calls for parliamentary reform in her own day caused even the Rockingham Whigs to distance themselves from her radical voice. Her political position in the mid-1770s, however, was shared by many Dissenters, with many ministers publishing political sermons at that time that reflected Macaulay’s opinions. Dissenters welcomed Macaulay’s bold criticisms of the established powers, both in church and state, such as this statement from her History of England: "That the people might learn to kiss the rod of power with devotion and, becoming slaves by principle, reverence the yoke, priests were instructed to teach speculative despotism, and graft on religious affections systems of civil tyranny" ([London: E. and C. Dilly, 1769], vol. 1, p. 348). Her Letters on Education (London: C. Dilly, 1790) was also influential in terms of furthering the discussion concerning women's education, something Wollstonecraft had previously written about and Hays would do in her Appeal to the Men of Great Britain (1798). The quotation above may be from Macaulay's Letters (p. 49). See also Bridget Hill, Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 6 This paragraph is particularly rich with biographical details on Hays's life in the autumn of 1795. She had been living for the past year in the home of John and Joanna Dunkin, Hays's eldest sister, at 2 Paragon Place, along what was then known as the Surrey Road (Kent Road today), a large home built by the architect Michael Searles. The Dunkins' wealth increased dramatically between 1780 and 1790, and by 1795 John Dunkin would have been considered wealthy (hence, Hays's comment above about exchanging "a life of what is called easy indolence . . . for one more exposed & less assured"). Godwin and others visited Hays in the Dunkins's home, and apparently their conversations (and reputations, most likely) gave them and Mrs. Hays (always an orthodox Calvinist and Baptist, like the Dunkins) considerable distress. The homes in the Paragon were spacious, enough for nine Dunkin children, servants, and Mary Hays, though clearly such a large household would have provoked from the aspiring writer complaints about a lack of "privacy" or personal space. The Dunkins were preparing to move to an even more palatial home at Champion Hill, near Denmark Hill, Camberwell, where he would live close to the wealthy doctor, Jonathan Coakley Lettsom, who ministered to the dying John Eccles in 1780; Benjamin Tomkins, a member at the Baptist congregation in Maze Pond and a relation of the poet Mary Steele of Broughton; and by 1803 Sarah Norton Biggs (1768-1834), schoolteacher and niece of Thomas Mullett (he will later move to Denmark Hill), a close friend of Mary Steele and Anthony Robinson who would also become known to Hays and Crabb Robinson. 7 Ann Cole, daughter of George Cole, printer and engraver, resided at 30 Kirby Street (also called Great Kirby Street), Hatton Garden, after 1790. A William Cole, her relation, was a printer/engraver first at the Crown, Great Kirby Street, c. 1765, and later in Newgate Street. George Cole died in January 1795, aged 72. Ann Cole was listed as an engraver/printer at 22 Hatton Garden in 1802, where Mary Hays lived for a time with her. 8 ennumerating] MS 9 George Gregory (1754-1808) was an Anglican minister at the Foundling Hospital, London, and editor for a time at the Critical Review, the New Annual Register, the Biographia Britanica, and the Analytical Review (1791-99). Hays contributed several reviews and essays to the Critical Review, the Monthly Magazine, and the Analytical Review between 1795 and 1800. 10 Lines appear to be from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, I.2.219-21. |
MARY HAYS: LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CORRESPONDENCE > MARY HAYS CORRESPONDENCE > 1790-1799 > 1795 >