This version of the Apologetic Preface is taken from The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge (London, William Pickering, volume 1, page 280).

... But if it be asked why I re-published it ["Fire, Famine, and Slaughter"] at all, I answer, that the poem had been attributed at different times to different other persons; and I had dared beget, I thought it neither manly nor honourable not to dare father. From the same motives I should have published perfect copies of two poems, the one entitled The Devil's Thoughts, and the other, The Two round Spaces on the Tomb-Stone,* but that the first three stanzas of the former, which were worth all the rest of the poem, and the best stanza of the remainder, were written by a friend of deserved celebrity; and because there are passages in both, which might have given offence to the religious feelings of certain readers.