Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman | Page 3

which her untimely death has fatally
terminated.
The rustic situation in which Mary spent her infancy, no doubt
contributed to confirm the stamina of her constitution. She sported in
the open air, and amidst the picturesque and refreshing scenes of nature,
for which she always retained the most exquisite relish. Dolls and the
other amusements usually appropriated to female children, she held in
contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the active and
hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to those of her own
sex.
About the time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father
removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a
farm near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the
Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas 1765, he once more changed his
residence, and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking

in Essex, eight miles from London. In this situation some of their
nearest neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively
member of parliament for several boroughs, and his brother, Mr. Joseph
Gascoyne. Bamber Gascoyne resided but little on this spot; but his
brother was almost a constant inhabitant, and his family in habits of the
most frequent intercourse with the family of Mary. Here Mr.
Wollstonecraft remained for three years. In September 1796, I
accompanied my wife in a visit to this spot. No person reviewed with
greater sensibility, the scenes of her childhood. We found the house
uninhabited, and the garden in a wild and ruinous state. She renewed
her acquaintance with the market-place, the streets, and the wharf, the
latter of which we found crowded with barges, and full of activity.
In Michaelmas 1768, Mr. Wollstonecraft again removed to a farm near
Beverley in Yorkshire. Here the family remained for six years, and
consequently, Mary did not quit this residence, till she had attained the
age of fifteen years and five months. The principal part of her
school-education passed during this period; but it was not to any
advantage of infant literature, that she was indebted for her subsequent
eminence; her education in this respect was merely such, as was
afforded by the day-schools of the place, in which she resided. To her
recollections Beverley appeared a very handsome town, surrounded by
genteel families, and with a brilliant assembly. She was surprized,
when she visited it in 1795, upon her voyage to Norway, to find the
reality so very much below the picture in her imagination.
Hitherto Mr. Wollstonecraft had been a farmer; but the restlessness of
his disposition would not suffer him to content himself with the
occupation in which for some years he had been engaged, and the
temptation of a commercial speculation of some sort being held out to
him, he removed to a house in Queen's-Row, in Hoxton near London,
for the purpose of its execution. Here he remained for a year and a half;
but, being frustrated in his expectations of profit, he, after that term,
gave up the project in which he was engaged, and returned to his
former pursuits. During this residence at Hoxton, the writer of these
memoirs inhabited, as a student, at the dissenting college in that place.
It is perhaps a question of curious speculation to enquire, what would
have been the amount of the difference in the pursuits and enjoyments
of each party, if they had met, and considered each other with the same

distinguishing regard in 1776, as they were afterwards impressed with
in the year 1796. The writer had then completed the twentieth, and
Mary the seventeenth year of her age. Which would have been
predominant; the disadvantages of obscurity, and the pressure of a
family; or the gratifications and improvement that might have flowed
from their intercourse?
One of the acquaintances Mary formed at this time was with a Mr.
Clare, who inhabited the next house to that which was tenanted by her
father, and to whom she was probably in some degree indebted for the
early cultivation of her mind. Mr. Clare was a clergyman, and appears
to have been a humourist of a very singular cast. In his person he was
deformed and delicate; and his figure, I am told, bore a resemblance to
that of the celebrated Pope. He had a fondness for poetry, and was not
destitute of taste. His manners were expressive of a tenderness and
benevolence, the demonstrations of which appeared to have been
somewhat too artificially cultivated. His habits were those of a perfect
recluse. He seldom went out of his drawing-room, and he showed to a
friend of Mary a pair of shoes, which had served him, he said, for
fourteen years. Mary frequently spent days and weeks together, at the
house of Mr. Clare.

CHAP. II