It cannot be pleaded in his excuse, as it can be pleaded in behalf of the many youngsters who subscribed the Articles with commonplace carelessness, that he had not given much consideration to the Articles and Christian evidences; that he took it for granted they were all right; that, though he may have been wrong to trust in so serious a business to vague and general impressions, he did not know the Articles comprised tenets from which he differed. It cannot be urged in palliation of his falseness that by declining to go to one of the Universities he would have thrown away his only or his best chance of rising to a position of dignity and comfort. Nor can it be suggested that, knowing his father wished him to go to the University, and to distinguish himself there, so dutiful and loving a son did not like to disappoint his sire’s paternal ambition. Shelley went to Oxford merely to please himself; and, in order to have the pleasure of living at Oxford with congenial companions, he entered the University under cover of falsehood, declaring he was a Christian when he knew he was not a Christian. He entered Oxford under cover of this falsehood, well knowing that to a man of his opinions the usual residence at Oxford would be a course of hypocrisy. Other young men (though, unless I err, not many young men) have done likewise. But it would be absurd to commend them for being especially out-spoken and truth-loving.
During the Michaelmas term of 1810, Shelley amused himself by luring persons, whom he knew only by name and reputation, into corresponding with him on religious questions, just as in former time he had drawn strangers into controversy on questions of natural science. Addressing these people under a false name and address, he caused them to imagine they were replying to the letters of a person, troubled with doubts and honestly desirous of information and guidance for the solution of the difficulties. To account for the secresy and misrepresentations, with which Shelley approached the individuals he thus lured into religious controversy, it is recorded in Hogg’s Life that, whilst at Eton, the youthful disputant about gases was threatened by an angry chemist with exposure to Dr. Keate, who would not fail to whip him into a healthier state of mind. On being thus reminded how unfavourable the discipline of his school was to equally frank and free inquiry, the schoolboy adopted a course that, without affecting the freedom of his inquiries, would guard him from some of the consequences of perilous frankness. An anonymous letter-writer at Eton to save his skin, Shelley was an anonymous letter-writer at Oxford to save his credit for religious conformity with the ‘dons.’ Instead of using only one nom-de-plume in these affairs of deceitful correspondence, Shelley employed several aliases for his more effectual concealment; and whilst using different names he misdescribed himself in various ways to the persons with whom he held intercourse through the post.
Whilst some of his correspondents were given to understand that he was a sceptical layman, others were led to imagine him a sceptic in holy orders. The prelates and other learned divines who answered his letters answered them under misconceptions, arising chiefly or altogether from his misstatements. At least on one occasion he signed with a woman’s name, that of course accorded with the tenor, tone, and handwriting of the epistle to which it was appended. The bishop, whom the poet thus lured in controversy (vide Medwin’s Life, I. p. 119), was under the impression that his correspondent was a gentlewoman. Referring to the day he passed with his cousin at Oxford in Lent term, 1811, Medwin remarks:—
‘He showed and read to me many letters he had received in controversies he had originated with learned divines; among the rest with a bishop, under the assumed name of a woman.... It is to be lamented,’ Medwin adds, ‘that all his letters written at this time should have perished, as they would throw light on the speculations of his active and inquiring mind.’
Whether they would materially enlarge our knowledge of the poet’s intellectual and moral constitution is questionable; but it cannot be doubted the recovery of the vanished epistles would afford some curious examples of the untruthfulness of which the singularly outspoken and truth-loving Shelley was capable. Instead of expressing, or hinting disapproval of his cousin’s duplicity, Mr. Medwin only regrets so few illustrations of so droll a practice should have been preserved. To Mr. Medwin the whole business of these Shelleyan fabrications appears equally innocent and diverting; and in this respect he resembles the Shelleyan enthusiasts of later time, who regard the same evidence of the truth-loving Shelley’s staggering untruthfulness, merely as so much testimony that he was an exceedingly clever and amusing young gentleman, and that the learned divines whom he tricked with untruths must have been stupid fellows and sad simpletons.
To persons of sufficient culture and sensibility, as well as of sufficient sobriety, to delight in Shelley’s poetry, without at the same time thinking he might have been the Saviour of the World, it is not obvious why Shelley should be held guiltless of untruth when he wrote to a Bishop of the Church of England that he was a lady, and as a lady threw himself upon the same Bishop’s charitable consideration. Of course Shelley had a powerful imagination. That is a fact which the Shelleyan enthusiasts take care we should not forget. But it is inconceivable (surely it is inconceivable even to the Shelleyan enthusiasts) that, whilst writing to the Right Reverend Father in God, the undergraduate of University College, Oxford, believed that he really was a young lady, and that as a young lady he might claim a large measure of the Bishop’s charitable aid and sympathy. To sober and fairly intelligent persons it appears, that, whether it is composed to win confidence which shall be fruitful of a few half-crowns, or to win such confidence as shall dispose its receiver to expend time and labour for the sender’s advantage, a letter of false pretences is an act of imposture, of which rogues are likely, and no quite honest gentleman is at all likely, to be guilty. For myself,—in the course of every year I receive several letters from strangers asking me to give them money; and as many letters from strangers of education and apparent honesty asking me to give them time and labour and judgment, for their assistance in their literary enterprises. I answer some of the former letters after inquiry, and I answer all the latter letters without suspicious inquiry, from a mere wholesome habit of believing what people say. But should it come to my knowledge that a writer of any of those latter letters had lured me by false representations into troubling myself about his affairs, I should naturally think the letter-writer an impostor, and think myself the victim of imposture.
The letters that passed between Hogg and Shelley during the Christmas vacation (1810-11) afford evidence that throughout the holidays the future poet found diversion in incidents arising out of his deceitful and delusive correspondence with persons, to whom he was not known personally. Respecting one of his correspondents—the ‘W.’ whom Mr. MacCarthy mistook for William Godwin—Shelley wrote on 20th December, 1810:—‘I wrote to him when in London, by way of a gentle alterative. He promised to write to me when he had time, seemed surprised at what I said, yet directed to me as the Reverend: his amazement must be extreme.’
No one knew better than this interesting young gentleman, what good cause W. had for amazement with his reverend correspondent. After the Christmas vacation, Shelley returned to University College with a strong disposition to enlarge his correspondence with strangers, and to extend the field of his operations for disturbing people in their religious opinions. Having left Oxford in December, believing in the existence of God, he returned to Oxford in January with the conviction that there was no God. In Michaelmas term (1810) he had regarded Christianity as a rather narrowing and otherwise baneful delusion, from which people should be weaned. In Lent term (1811) he regarded all religions as unutterably hateful, as alike injurious to human nature and destructive to human happiness. Anger at the religious steadfastness and intolerance, which determined Miss Harriett Grove to dismiss him from her acquaintance, had determined him to kill every religion, so that no religion should be left for people to be intolerant about. Having left Oxford, in December, with an opinion that all religions were equally ridiculous, he returned to Oxford, in January, with the opinion that all religions were equally detestable,—with the resolve to slay religious intolerance, to stab her secretly, by secretly stabbing and slaying the religious faith that, besides being the generator, was the vital force, of religious intolerance. To slay intolerance, the arch-enemy and arch-destroyer of the sweetest human affections and the most sacred social ties, he would slay creed,—stabbing her secretly, whilst wearing the disguise of a Christian. In December (1810) it satisfied him to deride Christianity; at the end of January (1811) he was determined to kill the belief in God. Any reader who thinks I have overstated the purpose of this undergraduate (whose feeble pen had produced nothing stronger than St. Irvyne), will cease to think so, after perusing attentively and judicially the letters which he wrote to Hogg, during the Christmas holidays.
In the execution of this determination to slay the belief in God (by stabbing it secretly), this singularly outspoken and truthful Shelley, whilst still pretending to be a Christian by remaining at Oxford and attending the religious services of his college chapel, wrote (with Hogg’s help) anonymously, and circulated secretly with anonymous or false letters, the following tract (which readers of this work should peruse deliberately) on
The Necessity of Atheism.