The reputation of WILLIAM GODWIN as a social philosopher, and the merits of his famous novel, -Caleb Williams,- have been for more than a century the subject of extreme divergencies of judgment among critics. -The first systematic anarchist,- as he is called by Professor Saintsbury, aroused bitter contention with his writings during his own lifetime, and his opponents have remained so prejudiced that even the staid bibliographer Allibone, in his -Dictionary of English Literature,- a place where one would think the most flagitious author safe from animosity, speaks of Godwin's private life in terms that are little less than scurrilous.