Dedicated to Charles Lamb, and with an oblique reference to Coleridge in the author's preface according to which the novel was written to counter Godwin's attack on monogamy and cohabitation. The eponymous hero remains so enraptured by his former childhood sweetheart, Lady Gertrude Sinclair, that the discovery of her attachment to a quaker who espouses the Godwinian philosophy drives him close to insanity. The resolution of the plot is disappointing, the perfidious quaker falls in a duel, after giving birth to an illegitimate child Lady Sinclair dies and leaves the hero free to form a more rational attachment, yet the novel is of interest for being a partial reflection of Coleridge's own views and experiences. Edmund's faith in Christian as opposed to abstract benevolence has been restored by Charles Maurice who, in letter XXIII, argues that "we must be sentient before we can be rational beings ... Human perfection is a slow process. It must go through the patient discipline of dometic duty, and the unapplauded toils of retired life." While Maurice has no faith in "equality of rights" to redress social wrongs, he is opposed to the "present unequal division" of society, affirming (Letter XXXII) that he "would adopt a principle of political non resistance" and "by conforming to a system of complete passiveness, wind myself into the bosoms of my neighbours; attack the root of the evil, the selfishness of human nature." Other passages of importance ar the indictment of city life (letter XVII), Maurice's account of "rambling across the sublime, and picturesque scenes" in the Lake district (letter LXXI), and the brief episode, near the end of volume I, when out of desperation the hero enlists -- in fact, an experience of Coleridge's, the "intimate friend" of the preface.