After Faulkener failed to achieve the degree of success that he had hoped for, Godwin ended his attempts to write dramatic tragedy after seventeen years of toil. Godwin's later novels continued to draw on dramatic sources: Mandeville, he admitted, ‘was further improved from some hints in De Montfort, a tragedy, by Joanna Baillie’ and Deloraine, as editor Maurice Hindle points out, has ‘more than a passing resemblance’ to Othello, surely the dramatic source he mined deepest. But Godwin had finally admitted that his dramatic genius was not commensurate with the tastes of contemporary audiences and his interest in employing theatre for philosophical purposes evaporated, although he retained a vigorous interest in theatrical life.

His bald head, as Leopold Martin remarked, continued to gleam in the pit as his theatre attendance showed no sign of waning and was particularly prolific in the early to mid-1820s. He wrote detailed and passionate letters to some of the leading actors of the day, offering reflection and advice on their performances. In November 1812, when William Betty returned to the London stage after a six year absence, Godwin's measured letter shows that he held no grudge about Betty's refusal to play the part of Faulkener. We also get a sense of his sustained study of tragedy and its performers across the Romantic period: