‘The publication ... seemed rather to imply, on the part of the writer, a desire to obtain better reasoning on the side of commonly received opinion, than any wish to overthrow with sudden violence the grounds of men’s belief.’
The reader who knows the circumstances under, and the end for, which the pamphlet was produced, and has perused the ipsissima verba of the tract, may be left to form his own opinion of this example of the way in which the authorities of Field Place would write the poet’s history.
I would not be wanting in courtesy to Mr. Garnett of the British Museum, of whom I would say nothing worse than that he is wildly and inexplicably inaccurate in what he has written about The Necessity of Atheism. There is a curious discrepancy between Lady Shelley’s account and Mr. Garnett’s description of the famous tract. Whilst Lady Shelley regards the pamphlet as a serious attempt to strengthen the evidences of the existence of the Deity, by eliciting ‘better reasoning on the side of the commonly received’ view, Mr. Garnett declares that the essay was a mere piece of caustic playfulness. ‘After Hogg’s account of it,’ says Mr. Garnett, in his article on Shelley in Pall Mall, ‘it is sufficiently clear that this alarming performance was nothing else than a squib, prompted by the decided success of the burlesque verses the friends had published in the name of “My Aunt Margaret Nicholson.”’ A squib, in the sense suggested by Mr. Garnett, is a flash of humour, a lampoon, a slight satire, a little censorious writing. A learned gentleman, Mr. Garnett knows well enough what ‘squib’ means, when it is applied to a little book. Yet he tells the readers of Macmillan’s Magazine that Shelley’s serious argument against the belief in God was a mere product of caustic fun and humorous sprightliness. What a charge to make against Shelley! Mr. Garnett is one of Shelley’s friends, admirers, idolaters; and he declares that Shelley made a jest of the most solemn and awful of all momentous questions; was so droll a fellow that he styled himself an Atheist, and argued against the existence of the Deity in pure sportiveness. This is how Shelley is dealt with by one of his peculiar friends!
What does Mr. Garnett mean by giving Hogg as his authority for saying that The Necessity of Atheism was a squib, when Hogg is at pains to say the tract was no such thing? Hogg writes lightly and seriously by turns of the tract, as he does of other matters of the poet’s story. He speaks of the pamphlet as ‘a small pill that worked powerfully.’ To minimize the importance of the work, for which he was even more accountable than Shelley; to make the least of the serious offence, touching his own character no less hurtfully than Shelley’s reputation, Hogg calls it a ‘little pamphlet,’ ‘a general issue,’ ‘a compendious allegation in order to put the whole case in proof,’ ‘a formal mode of saying, you affirm so-and-so, then prove it,’ ‘a little syllabus,’ ‘an innocent and insignificant thesis propounded for the delectation of lovers of logomachy,’ a tract that ‘was never offered for sale.’ In this style Hogg speaks lightly of the work, that was the central incident of the painful business, about which he felt too acutely and personally to his last hour, to be able to speak of it truthfully. The whole affair was one of the few subjects on which the otherwise substantially honest biographer was untruthful. Consequently, had he called the tract a squib, in some sentence at discord with his other statements about the pamphlet, Mr. Garnett would not have been justified in fathering his own discovery on an authority, so unworthy of perfect credit on this particular subject. But Hogg nowhere calls the tract a squib. On the contrary, he guards against any such misconstruction and misinterpretation of his lighter remarks, and is at pains to say that, so far as Shelley was concerned, the pamphlet was an altogether serious performance.
‘In describing briefly the nature of Shelley’s epistolary contentions,’ Hogg says, ‘the recollection of his youth, his zeal, his activity, and particularly of many individual peculiarities, may have tempted me to speak sometimes with a certain levity, notwithstanding the solemn importance of the topics respecting which they were frequently maintained. The impression that they were conducted on his part, or considered by him, with frivolity, or any unseemly lightness, would, however, be most erroneous; his whole frame of mind was grave, earnest, and anxious, and his deportment was reverential, with an edification reaching beyond the age—an age wanting in reverence.’
Be it remembered that, in the later weeks of Shelley’s second term of residence, the printed tract was a main feature and chief instrument of the ‘epistolary contentions’ to which the biographer refers? How then came Mr. Garnett to give Hogg as his authority for saying this ‘grave, earnest, and anxious Shelley’ diverted himself at Oxford with writing a squib on the most awful of all sacred subjects? How are we to account for so staggering a misrepresentation of the evidence of Hogg’s book? In his article on Shelley in Pall Mall, Mr. Garnett speaks no less strongly than precisely of the evidential force of certain Shelleyan documents, not under the view of the public. What value should we assign to evidence, respecting documents we cannot examine, from a gentleman who can misrepresent in so extraordinary a manner the evidence of a printed book open to the whole world’s scrutiny?
When The Necessity of Atheism had been printed by Messrs. E. and W. Phillips, of Worthing, it was Shelley’s practice to send a copy of the performance to any notable divine or other personage whom he wished to draw into a controversial correspondence, together with a brief note (under a false signature and address), saying—
‘That he had met with that little tract, which appeared, unhappily, to be quite unanswerable. Unless,’ Hogg continues, ‘the fish was too sluggish to take the bait, an answer of refutation was forwarded to an appointed address in London, and then in a vigorous reply he would fall upon the unwary disputant, and break his bones. The strenuous attack sometimes provoked a rejoinder more carefully prepared, and an animated and protracted debate ensued: the party cited, having put in his answer, was fairly in court, and he might get out of it as he could.’
It was thus that ‘the innocent and insignificant thesis propounded for the delectation of lovers of logomachy’ (Hogg’s description of the tract) was floated into circulation, by force of lie upon lie. Instead of being ‘propounded for the delectation of lovers of logomachy,’ it is stated by Hogg himself that the tract was composed and put in type because Shelley, finding strangers slow to notice a written challenge to argument, conceived they would be attracted by a printed syllabus. True, so far as it goes, this statement gives only part of the truth. Seeing that a printed scheme for disputation would be more attractive, Shelley saw also that he could not spare the time to produce a manuscript syllabus (written by his own hand) for each of the many persons whose bones he was set on breaking.
The day on which the undergraduate of University College received his first lot of printed copies from the Worthing printers is unknown; but it cannot have preceded by many days the appearance in the Oxford Herald (9th February, 1811,) of this advertisement:—‘Speedily will be published, to be had of the Booksellers of London and Oxford, The Necessity of Atheism. “Quod clarâ et perspicuâ demonstratione careat pro vero habere, mens omnino nequit humana.”—Bacon de Augment. Scient.’ Probably the appearance of this advertisement in the Oxford newspaper followed closely upon the arrival at Shelley’s rooms in University College of the first lot of printed copies from Worthing. Anyhow, the authorities of the University were advertised, so early as the 9th of February, that a work, to demonstrate the necessity of atheism, would be speedily offered for sale within their jurisdiction. Inserted in a newspaper, read by many members of the University, this advertisement came quickly under the eyes of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors of the University, the Heads of Houses, and all other persons especially concerned in the maintenance of academic discipline at the seat of learning. There was gossip in the common-rooms. Sitting over their port, Doctors of Divinity and Masters of Arts exchanged sentiments respecting the audacious announcement. The proctors took counsel with their pro-proctors, and the acutest and most discreet of ‘the bull-dogs’ was ordered to keep a sharp look-out for the first copy of the atrocious publication that should be offered for sale in any bookseller’s window. Of course it was the opinion of the authorities that Mr. Munday, the proprietor of the Oxford Herald, knew the atheist’s real name; at least could say what induced him to put such a staggering advertisement in his paper. It cannot be questioned that Mr. Munday’s shop, the office of the Oxford Herald, was watched day and night by persons who were instructed to take note of all individuals visiting the printer’s premises. Doubtless, also, the people at the Post Office were affected by the measures, taken by the academic authorities for the discovery of the person or persons, who should venture to sell atheistical literature in the City of the Church. The Vice-Chancellor and Proctors have good and sufficient means of observing what is done at Oxford in this present year of grace, and had even better means of observation seventy years since.