WILLIAM GODWIN, one of the most celebrated English radicals of the French Revolutionary period, was born at Wisbeach, England, March 3d, 1756. He began life as a “Dissenting” minister, preaching from 1778 to 1783, but his study of French philosophy led him to give up the pulpit for literature. He became celebrated as a political writer on the side of the Republicans of France. His “Inquiry concerning Political Justice” appeared in 1793 when English excitement over the French Revolution was at its height. The year following he wrote “Caleb Williams,” a powerful novel which compelled the respectability of England to recognize his genius. This was followed by “St. Leon” and “Mandeville,” neither of which rank with it in popularity. He wrote also a “History of the Commonwealth” and histories of Rome, Greece, and England. In 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft, who resembled him in her genius and in her radicalism. Their first child was the second wife of the poet Shelley. Godwin died April 7th, 1836. In his political works Godwin is the direct antithesis of Fourier. He is probably more responsible than any one else for what, as it developed in Russia, took the name of “Nihilism.”