Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/185

Rh England, and whose "creed was so puritanical that he considered the fondling of a cat a profanation of the Lord's day." Mrs. Godwin in her earlier years was gay, too much so for the wife of a minister, some people thought, but after her husband's death she joined a Methodistical sect, and her piety in the end grew into fanaticism. A Miss Godwin, a cousin, who lived with the family, had perhaps the greatest influence over William Godwin when he was a mere child. She was not without literary culture, and through her he learnt something of books. But her religious principles were severely Calvinistic, and these she impressed upon him at the same time.

His first school-mistress was an old woman, who was concerned chiefly with his soul, and who gave him, before he had completed his eighth year, an intimate knowledge of the Bible. The inevitable consequence of this training was that religion became his first thought. Thanks to his cousin, however, and to his natural cleverness and ambition, he was saved from bigotry by his interest in wider subjects, though they were for many years secondary considerations. From an early age he had, as he says of himself, developed an insatiable curiosity and love of distinction. One of his later tutors was Mr. Samuel Newton, an Independent minister and a follower of Sandeman, "a celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine out of a hundred of mankind, has contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin." Godwin remained some years with him, and was so far influenced by his doctrines, that when, later, he sought admission into Homerton Academy, a Dissenting institution, he was refused,