In regard to the remuneration he received, I do not bring forward the _particulars_ given by Mr. Stuart of his liberal dealing with Mr. Coleridge, simply because the rehearsal of them would be tedious, and could answer no end. Such details may be superseded by the general declaration, that I believe my Father to have received from Mr. Stuart far more than the market value of his contributions to the Papers which that gentleman was concerned in. Mr. Stuart says that he "paid at the time as highly as such writings were paid for," and to Mr. Coleridge's satisfaction, which my Father's own letters certainly testify; and concludes the account of sums advanced by him to Mr. C., when he was not writing for the paper, by saying that he had "at least £700 of him beside many acts of kindness." A considerable part of this was spent on stamps and paper for _The Friend_; two hundred of it was given after the publication of the _Biographia Literaria_.
Mr. Coleridge expressed his esteem for Mr. Stuart and sense of his kindness very strongly in letters to himself, but not more strongly than to others. He speaks of him in a letter written about the beginning of 1809, addressed to a gentleman of the Quaker persuasion at Leeds, as "a man of the most consummate knowledge of the world, managed by a thorough strong and sound judgment, and rendered innocuous by a good heart"--as a "most wise, disinterested, kind, and constant friend." In a letter to my Mother, written on his return from Malta, he says, "Stuart is a friend, and a friend indeed."
I have thought it right to bring forward these particulars,--(I and those equally concerned with myself)--not only out of a regard to truth and openness, that the language of this work respecting _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_ may not be interpreted in any way contrary to fact, which, I think, it _need_ not be; but also in gratitude to a man who was serviceable and friendly to my Father during many years of his life; who appreciated his merits as a prose writer when they were not generally known and acknowledged; and by whose aid his principal prose work, _The Friend_, was brought before the public. I do not complain in the least of his stating the facts of my Father's newspaper writings; in the _manner_ in which this was done--as was pointed out at the time--there _was_ something to complain of. Let me add that I consider his representation of my Father's feelings on certain occasions altogether incredible, and deeply regret these pieces of bad construing, dictated by resentment, in one who was once so truly his friend.