[Mr. Hogg, at pp. 484-6, Vol. II, of his Life of Shelley, gives an account of A Refutation of Deism, which he thinks was published at the beginning of the year 1814. It is another offshoot from Queen Mab repeating, and reconstructing in a different form, much from the Notes to that work, which notes, however, it leaves far behind in point of literary merit. In February, 1843, a small extract from this work was printed in The Model Republic, as from "an unpublished work" of Shelley; and in May of the same year this curious little radical monthly gave its readers a large excerpt, the passage from "Design must be proved" to " principles of reason" occupying pp. 63 to 78 of the present volume, but with the omission of the Greek note at p. 70. Thus Hogg had been forestalled in his revelation of Shelley's authorship of the book. No copy was recovered to the public till 1874: on the 19th of June in that year a copy was bought by the Trustees of the British Museum. It is a very boldly printed 8vo., consisting of title-page as reproduced opposite, pages III to V of Preface in double pica type, a leaf with list of errata, and 101 pages of text, with head-lines, Eusebes and Theosophus, throughout. Mr. Hogg describes it as very incorrectly printed"; but beyond the seventeen verbal errors corrected in the list, and probably arising from indistinct writing, I have only found eight that are clearly printer's errors: there are of course inaccuracies of Shelley's beside these, and certain inconsistencies which may or may not be the printer's. I have made no changes without noting them, here as elsewhere. As the book is a curiosity in virtue of its scarceness, the present reproduction of it is completed by the record, in foot-notes, of the several mistakes corrected in the list of errata. Shelley's notes, in whatever language, are given verbatim et literatim from his own edition, ex. cept that he has not been followed in the accidental omission of the word wroth from the passage which he quotes at p. 46 from the 31st chapter of Numbers.-H. B. F.] 66 A REFUTATION OF DEISM: IN A DIALOGUE. ΣΥΝΕΤΟΙΣΙΝ. London: PRINTED BY SCHULZE AND DEAN, 13, POLAND STREET. 1814. PREFACE. [BY SHELLEY.] THE object of the following Dialogue is to prove that the system of Deism is untenable. It is attempted to shew that there is no alternative between Atheism and Christianity; that the evidences of the Being of a God are to be deduced from no other principles than those of Divine Revelation. The Author endeavours to shew how much the cause of natural and revealed Religion has suffered from the mode of defence adopted by Theosophistical Christians. How far he will accomplish what he proposed to himself, in the composition of this Dialogue, the world will finally determine. PROSE. VOL. II. D |