Such experiments were common topics of conversation in the Godwin household, where the philosopher William Godwin played host to scientific wizards such as Humphry Davy, who had used the voltaic pile to develop electrolysis and whose sensationally popular lectures proclaimed that science was poised to unleash powers previously unimagined, and perhaps even liberate the spark of life itself.

WSJ: Book Review: The Lady and Her Monsters

Later on, as a political hack in London, Wordsworth did ally himself with English Jacobins such as Wollstonecraft's future husband William Godwin, but his approach to politics was hardly dictated by dispassionate Godwinian rationalism.

ECONOMIST: British poets