WILLIAM GODWIN'S NOVELS
Hazlitt has recorded a conversation in which he and his friends discussed an interesting problem: If you were able to summon from the dead any of the great men of old, whom would you select for an interview? The choice is bewilderingly wide, and supposing that a medium limited our selection to Hazlitt's own circle, we might still be a little puzzled. Some would perhaps like to know whether a monologue of Coleridge was really as amazing as his admirers report; others might prefer to listen to the spontaneous and unsophisticated outflow of humour from which Lamb distilled the Essays of Elia; and possibly one or two might like to try the flavour of Hazlitt's own incisive and egotistic sallies. One thing, I fancy, is quite clear. Nobody would ask for an hour of William Godwin. His most obvious qualities, a remorseless 'ergotism,' squeezing the last drops out of an argument; a frigid dogmatism, not
