Virtually all the current discussions of William Godwin devote the bulk of their attention to the elucidation of the anarchic social philosophy of his Political Justice (1793), and, as a rule, they give serious consideration to his first subsequent novel, Caleb Williams (1794). They deal perfunctorily and apologetically with St. Leon (1799), and generally refuse to extend their discussion beyond it so as to include Fleetwood (1805), Mandeville (1815), Cloudesley (1830), and Deloraine (1833). There is, indeed, much to be said for this lapsing of the spirit of inquiry, as any reader of the uninspired minor fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century knows. But the neglect of Godwin's novels and, more particularly, the failure to examine their relationship to Political Justice result, I think, in a misconception of their tendencies and the diverse nature of their appeal to his generation. Preoccupation with Political Justice, and, in a less degree, with Caleb Williams, has thrown into bold relief the frigid rationalistic elements in Godwin's thought. This is, of course, the place where the emphasis belongs in a discussion of Godwinism, but at the same time this point of view overlooks some important qualities of his later work. The fact is that a reader coming to Godwin's novels would, unless he were very observant and analytic, have difficulty in distinguishing between Godwin's fiction and the sentimental literature with which he was already familiar. He would find that whatever might be his theory, in practice, at any rate, Godwin reveals a constant inclination for the rhapsodic and lachrymose situations of contemporary literature. Certainly the reader would discover little emotional restraint in Deloraine's description of Emilia as “a being just descended from celestial spheres, new lighted on the earth” or in the account of Julian, who, haunting Cloudesley's grave, “threw himself on his knees on the earth, kissed the turf that covered the dead body of his protector.” These are the usual excesses of Rousseauistic children, a Saint Preux, a Werther, or a René, but they create an unexpected impression in the work of a recognized rationalist. In this paper the object is to take full account of Godwin's sentimental tendencies and to attempt to show their relationship to his rationalism. If we can explain this paradoxical union of reason and feeling, we shall, perhaps, understand even better than before why he had such a profound influence upon his contemporaries.