Theosophus (the derider of Christianity who affects to be a Deist) having done his best to demolish Christianity, Eusebes (the Atheist who affects to be a Christian) directs the fire of his polemical guns against the belief in a supreme Deity; and it is in this later portion of the dialogue that the reader comes upon the most important of the arguments, that are mere developments of the reasonings of _The Necessity of Atheism_ and the Atheistical Note to _Queen Mab_. It has been observed how Shelley reproduced in the _Letter_ to _Lord Ellenborough_ one of the prime doctrines of _The Necessity of Atheism_,--viz., that belief is independent, and beyond the control of volition. Hence, Shelley reproduced the reasoning of _The Necessity of Atheism_ in three successive publications, (1) the _Letter to Lord Ellenborough_, (2) _Queen Mab_, (3) the _Refutation of Deism_. Yet Mr. Garnett requires us to believe that in writing _The Necessity of Atheism_, Shelley was merely throwing off a squib, that did not express his serious convictions. It is needful for the present biographer to call attention to another cluster of inaccuracies in Mr. Kegan Paul’s _William Godwin; his Friends and Contemporaries_, wherein it is written,-- ‘In 1813 Shelley was again in London for _a short time during the summer, but Mary was absent in Scotland_. She was not strong, and as a growing girl needed purer air than Skinner Street could offer; she had therefore gone to Dundee with her father’s friends, Mr. Baxter and his daughter; and remained with them for six months. It was not until the summer of 1814 that Shelley and Mary Godwin became really acquainted, when he found the child _whom he had scarcely noticed two years_ before had grown into the woman of nearly seventeen summers.... _Shelley came to London on May 18th_, leaving his wife at Binfield, certainly without the least idea that it was to be _a final separation from him_, though the relations between husband and wife had for some time been increasingly unhappy. _He was of course received in Godwin’s house on the old footing of close intimacy, and rapidly fell in love with Mary._ Fanny Godwin was away from home visiting some of the Wollstonecrafts, or she, three years older than Mary, might have discouraged the romantic attachment which sprang up between her sister and their friend. _Jane Clairmont’s influence was neither then, nor at any other time, used, or likely to be used, judiciously._’ I have ventured to print certain words of the above extract in italics. (1) As Mr. Kegan Paul ought to have known that Shelley was in London from an early time of April till after the middle of July, 1813, he should not have written, ‘In 1813 Shelley was again in London for a short time during the summer;’--words implying that the poet was in London _only_ for a short time.