to select one, out of different samples to be submitted to him, as that
which he, as a printer, thought the best. This was explained to Mr. C. It
will be perceived, that Mr. Coleridge's two proposals were virtually one:
as, if I ordered the paper for myself or for another, the responsibility
would rest with me. The plain fact is, I purchased the whole of the paper
for the "Watchman," allowing Mr. C. to have it at prime cost, and
receiving small sums from him occasionally, in liquidation. I became
responsible, also, to Mr. B. for printing the work, by which means I
reduced the price per sheet, as a bookseller, (1000) from fifty shillings
to thirty five shillings. Mr. C. paid me for the paper in fractions, as
he found it convenient, but from the falling off of his own receipts, I
never received the whole. It was a losing concern altogether, and I was
willing to bear, uncomplaining, my proportion of the loss. There is some
difference between this statement, and that of Mr. Coleridge in his
"Biographia Literaria."[18] A defect of memory must have existed, arising
out of the lapse of twenty two years; but my notices, made at that time,
did not admit of mistake.

My loss was also augmented from another cause. Mr. C. states in the above
work, that his London publisher never paid him "one farthing," but "set
him at defiance." I also was more than his equal companion in this
misfortune. The thirty copies of Mr. C.'s poems, and the six "Joans of
Arc" (referred to in the preceding letter) found a ready sale, by this
said "indefatigable London publisher," and large and fresh orders were
received, so that Mr. Coleridge and myself participated in two very
opposite feelings, the one of exultation that our publications had found
_so good a sale_; and the other of _depression_, that the time of
_payment_ never arrived!

All the copies also, of Mr. C.'s Poems, and the "Joan's of Arc," which