Rev._, July 1808.] he was prepared to go a considerable step farther,
and claim that there was no essential difference between ancient
mythology and the theology of the Christians, that both were
interpretations, in more or less figurative language, of the great
mysteries of being, and indeed that the earlier interpretation,
precisely because it was more frankly figurative and poetical than the
later one, was better fitted to stimulate and to allay the sense of
wonder which ought to accompany a reverent and high-souled man
throughout his life-career.

In the earlier phase of Shelley's thought, this identification of the
ancient and the modern faiths was derogatory to both. The letter which
he had written in 1812 for the edification of Lord Ellenborough
revelled in the contemplation of a time 'when the Christian religion
shall have faded from the earth, when its memory like that of
Polytheism now shall remain, but remain only as the subject of
ridicule and wonder'. But as time went on, Shelley's views became less
purely negative. Instead of ruling the adversaries back to back out of
court, he bethought himself of venturing a plea in favour of the older
and weaker one. It may have been in 1817 that he contemplated an
'Essay in favour of polytheism'.[Footnote: Cf. our _Shelley's Prose in
the Bodleian MSS_., 1910, p. 124.] He was then living on the fringe of
a charmed circle of amateur and adventurous Hellenists who could have
furthered the scheme. His great friend, Thomas Love Peacock, 'Greeky
Peaky', was a personal acquaintance of Thomas Taylor 'the Platonist',
alias 'Pagan Taylor'. And Taylor's translations and commentaries of
Plato had been favourites of Shelley in his college days. Something at
least of Taylor's queer mixture of flaming enthusiasm and tortuous
ingenuity may be said to appear in the unexpected document we have now
to examine.