Let us see from evidences, known to Mr. Garnett, when he wrote his _Shelley in Pall Mall_, what were some of Shelley's views respecting God, in the Christmas holidays of 1810-11. On 26th December, 1810, he writes to Hogg from Field Place:--
'Thanks, _truly_ thanks, for opening your heart to me, for telling me your feelings to me. Dare I do the same to you? I dare not to myself, how can I to another, perfect as he may be. I dare not even to God, whose mercy is great.'
On 3rd January, 1811, the future poet writes to the same correspondent:
'The word "God," a vague word, has been, and will continue to be, the source of numberless errors, until it is erased from the nomenclature of philosophy. Does it not imply "the soul of the universe, the intelligent and necessarily beneficent, actuating principle." This it is impossible not to believe in. I may not be able to adduce proofs; but, I think, that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are, in themselves, arguments more conclusive than [any] which can be advanced [....] that some vast intellect animates infinity. If we disbelieve this, the strongest argument in support of the existence of a future state instantly becomes annihilated.'
Nine days later (12th January, 1811), the future poet writes from Field Place:--
'I here take God (_and a God exists_) to witness, that I wish torments, which beggar the futile description of a fancied hell, would fall upon me; provided I could attain thereby that happiness for what I love, which, I fear, can never be!... I wish, ardently wish, to be profoundly convinced of the existence of a Deity, that so superior a spirit might derive some degree of happiness from my feeble exertions; for love is heaven, and heaven is love.... I think I can prove the existence of a Deity--a First Cause.'
After declaring thus emphatically his belief in the existence of a Deity, Shelley goes on to argue in defence of his conviction.
Thus Shelley is found declaring his belief in the existence of God so late as 12th January, 1811, when the work declined by Stockdale (the work said by Mr. Garnett to have been either _The Necessity of Atheism_, 'or something of a very similar description'), must have already been in the publisher's hands. The post did not travel seventy years since so quickly as it travels in these railway times; the work, whatever it was, could not have been written in a day; brief though it is, _The Necessity of Atheism_ could not have been designed and put on paper in a single morning; yet, on 14th January, 1811, Shelley could write indignantly to Hogg:--