William Hazlitt published The Plain Speaker in 1826. The volume included a disparaging account of Godwin's conversational skills which provoked Godwin to sit down and list evidence to the contrary (for example, 'How did I win the hearts of the cleverest women I knew? By the effect of my talk'). A sample of the notes are published in Duncan Wu's William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man , p. 384 from manuscripts held in the Houghton Library, Harvard.