The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1. (of 2) / With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England; to which is added a Sketch of Paine by William Cobbett

In the Preface to the first edition of this work, it was my painful duty to remark with severity on the dissemination of libels on Paine in a work of such importance as Mr. Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. The necessity of doing so was impressed on me by the repetition of some of Mr. Stephen's unfounded disparagements in Mr. O. B. Frothingham's Recollections and Impressions. I have now the satisfaction of introducing this edition with retractations by both of those authors. Mr. Frothingham, in a letter which he authorizes me to use, says: Your charge is true, and I hasten to say peccavi The truth is that I never made a study of Paine, but took Stephen's estimates. Now my mistake is clear, and I am willing to stand in the cold with nothing on but a hair shirt Your vindication of Paine is complete. Mr. Frothingham adds that in any future edition of his work the statements shall be altered. The note of Mr. Leslie Stephen appeared in The National Reformer, September 11, 1892, to which it was sent by a correspondent, at his desire; for it equally relates to strictures in a pamphlet by the editor of that journal, Mr. John M. Robertson.
The account which I gave of Paine in the book upon the Eighteenth Century was, I have no doubt, erroneous. My only excuse, if it be an excuse, was the old one, 'pure ignorance.' I will not ask whether or how far the ignorance was excusable.
It is indeed to be hoped that Mr. Stephen will write the Life in the Dictionary, whose list of subjects for the coming volume, inserted in the Athenæum since his above retraction, designates Thomas Paine as an infidel writer. Mr. Stephen can do much to terminate the carefully fostered ignorance of which he has found himself a victim. In advance of his further treatment of the subject, and with perfect confidence in his justice, I here place by the side of my original criticism a retraction of anything that may seem to include him among authors who have shown a lack of magnanimity towards Paine.