s political pamphlets, fled
to America, and an edition of the "Age of Reason" was issued under a new
title; no publisher appears; it is said to be "printed for, and sold by
all the Booksellers in Great Britain and Ireland." It is also said to
be "By Thomas Paine, author of several remarkable performances." I have
never found any copy of this anonymous edition except the one in my
possession. It is evidently the edition which was suppressed by the
prosecution of Williams for selling a copy of it.

A comparison with Paine's revised edition reveals a good many clerical
and verbal errors in Symonds, though few that affect the sense. The
worst are in the preface, where, instead of "1793," the misleading
date "1790" is given as the year at whose close Paine completed Part
First,--an error that spread far and wide and was fastened on by his
calumnious American "biographer," Cheetham, to prove his inconsistency.
The editors have been fairly demoralized by, and have altered in
different ways, the following sentence of the preface in Symonds: "The
intolerant spirit of religious persecution had transferred itself into
politics; the tribunals, styled Revolutionary, supplied the place of the
Inquisition; and the Guillotine of the State outdid the Fire and Faggot
of the Church." The rogue who copied this little knew the care with
which Paine weighed words, and that he would never call persecution
"religious," nor connect the guillotine with the "State," nor concede
that with all its horrors it had outdone the history of fire and faggot.
What Paine wrote was: "The intolerant spirit of church persecution had
transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, styled Revolutionary,
supplied the place of an Inquisition and the Guillotine, of the Stake."

An original letter of Paine, in the possession of Joseph Cowen, ex-M.P.,
which that gentleman permits me to bring to light, besides being one
of general interest makes clear the circumstances of the original
publication. Although the name of the correspondent does not appear on
the letter, it was certainly written to Col. John Fellows of New
York, who copyrighted Part I. of the "Age of Reason." He published the
pamphlets of Joel Barlow, to whom Paine confided his manuscript on his
way to prison. Fellows was afterwards Paine's intimate friend in New
York, and it was chiefly due to him that some portions of the author's
writings, left in manuscript to Madame Bonneville while she was a
freeth