The country is
idealised
rather than described in any one of its local
aspects.
aspects.
William Wordsworth
But Wordsworth is as yet too near us for
such an editorial treatment of his Works to be successful. The
fundamental objection to it is that scarcely two minds--even among the
most competent of contemporary judges--will agree as to what the best
text is. An edition arranged on this principle could not possibly be
acceptable to more than a few persons. Of course no arrangement of any
kind can escape adverse criticism: it would be most unfortunate if it
did. But this particular edition would fail in its main purpose, if
questions of individual taste were made primary, and not secondary; and
an arrangement, which gave scope for the arbitrary selection of
particular texts,--according to the wisdom, or the want of wisdom, of
the editor,--would deservedly meet with severe criticism in many
quarters. Besides, such a method of arrangement would not indicate the
growth of the Poet's mind, and the development of his genius. If an
editor wished to indicate his own opinion of the best text for each
poem--under the idea that his judgment might be of some use to other
people--it would be wiser to do so by means of some mark or marginal
note, than by printing his selected text in the main body of the work.
He could thus at once preserve the chronological order of the readings,
indicate his own preference, and leave it to others to select what they
preferred. Besides, the compiler of such an edition would often find
himself in doubt as to what the best text really was, the merit of the
different readings being sometimes almost equal, or very nearly
balanced; and, were he to endeavour to get out of the difficulty by
obtaining the judgments of literary men, or even of contemporary poets,
he would find that their opinions would in most cases be dissimilar, if
they did not openly conflict. Those who cannot come to a final decision
as to their own text would not be likely to agree as to the merits of
particular readings in the poems of their predecessors. Unanimity of
opinion on this point is indeed quite unattainable.
Nevertheless, it would be easy for an editor to show the unfortunate
result of keeping rigorously either to the latest or to the earliest
text of Wordsworth. If, on the one hand, the latest were taken, it could
be shown that many of the changes introduced into it were for the worse,
and some of them very decidedly so. For example, in the poem 'To a
Skylark'--composed in 1825--the second verse, retained in the
editions of 1827, 1832, 1836, and 1843, was unaccountably dropped out in
the editions of 1845 and 1849. The following is the complete poem of
1825, as published in 1827.
Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring Warbler! that love-prompted strain,
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.
Leave to the Nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with rapture more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
There is no doubt that the first and third stanzas are the finest, and
some may respect the judgment that cut down the Poem by the removal of
its second verse: but others will say, if it was right that such a verse
should be removed, why were many others of questionable merit allowed to
remain? Why was such a poem as 'The Glowworm', of the edition of 1807,
never republished; while 'The Waterfall and the Eglantine', and 'To the
Spade of a Friend', were retained? To give one other illustration, where
a score are possible. In the sonnet, belonging to the year 1807,
beginning:
"Beloved Vale! " I said, "when I shall con,"
we find, in the latest text, the lines--first adopted in 1827:
I stood, of simple shame the blushing Thrall;
So narrow seemed the brooks, the fields so small,
while the early edition of 1807 contains the far happier lines:
To see the Trees, which I had thought so tall,
Mere dwarfs; the Brooks so narrow, Fields so small.
On the other hand, if the earliest text be invariably retained, some of
the best poems will be spoiled (or the improvements lost), since
Wordsworth did usually alter for the better. For example, few persons
will doubt that the form in which the second stanza of the poem 'To the
Cuckoo' (written in 1802) appeared in 1845, is an improvement on all its
predecessors. I give the readings of 1807, 1815, 1820, 1827, and 1845.
While I am lying on the grass,
I hear thy restless shout:
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
About, and all about! 1807.
While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear! --
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near! 1815.
While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear!
It seems to fill the whole air's space,
At once far off and near. 1820.
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
That seems to fill the whole air's space,
As loud far off as near. 1827.
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near. 1845.
Similarly, in each of the three poems 'To the Daisy', composed in 1802,
and in the 'Afterthought, to the Duddon', the alterations introduced
into the latest editions were all improvements upon the early version.
It might be urged that these considerations would warrant the
interference of an editor, and justify him in selecting the text which
he thought the best upon the whole; but this must be left to posterity.
When editors can escape the bias of contemporary thought and feeling,
when their judgments are refined by distance and mellowed by the new
literary standards of the intervening years,--when in fact Wordsworth is
as far away from his critics as Shakespeare now is--it may be possible
to adjust a final text. But the task is beyond the power of the present
generation.
It may farther be urged that if this reasoning be valid,--and if, for
the present, one text must be retained uniformly throughout,--the
natural plan is to take the earliest, and not the latest; and this has
some recommendations. It seems more simple, more natural, and certainly
the easiest. We have a natural sequence, if we begin with the earliest
and go on to the latest readings. Then, all the readers of Wordsworth,
who care to possess or to consult the present edition, will doubtless
possess one or other of the complete copies of his works, which contain
his final text; while probably not one in twenty have ever seen the
first edition of any of his poems, with the exception of 'The Prelude'.
It is true that if the reader turns to a footnote to compare the
versions of different years, while he is reading for the sake of the
poetry, he will be so distracted that the effect of the poem as a whole
will be entirely lost; because the critical spirit, which judges of the
text, works apart from the spirit of sympathetic appreciation, in which
all poetry should be read. But it is not necessary to turn to the
footnotes, and to mark what may be called the literary growth of a poem,
while it is being read for its own sake: and these notes are printed in
smaller type, so as not to obtrude themselves on the eye of the reader.
Against the adoption of the earlier text, there is this fatal objection,
that if it is to be done at all, it must be done throughout; and, in the
earliest poems Wordsworth wrote--viz. 'An Evening Walk' and 'Descriptive
Sketches',--the subsequent alterations almost amounted to a cancelling
of the earlier version. His changes were all, or almost all,
unmistakably for the better. Indeed, there was little in these works--in
the form in which they first appeared--to lead to the belief that an
original poet had arisen in England. It is true that Coleridge saw in
them the signs of the dawn of a new era, and wrote thus of 'Descriptive
Sketches', before he knew its author, "Seldom, if ever, was the
emergence of a great and original poetic genius above the literary
horizon more evidently announced. " Nevertheless the earliest text of
these 'Sketches' is, in many places, so artificial, prosaic, and dull,
that its reproduction (except as an appendix, or in the form of
footnotes) would be an injustice to Wordsworth. [10] On the other hand,
the passages subsequently cancelled are so numerous, and so long, that
if placed in footnotes the latter would in some instances be more
extensive than the text. The quarto of 1793 will therefore be reprinted
in full as an Appendix to the first volume of this edition. The 'School
Exercise written at Hawkshead' in the poet's fourteenth year, will be
found in vol. viii. Passing over these juvenile efforts, there are
poems--such as 'Guilt and Sorrow', 'Peter Bell', and many others--in
which the earlier text is an inferior one, which was either corrected or
abandoned by Wordsworth in his maturer years. It would be a conspicuous
blunder to print--in the place of honour,--the crude original which was
afterwards repudiated by its author.
It may be remembered, in connection with Wordsworth's text, that he
himself said, "I am for the most part uncertain about my success in
altering poems; but, in this case" (he is speaking of an insertion) "I
am sure I have produced a great improvement. " ('Memoirs of Wordsworth',
vol. i. p. 174. ) [11] Again, in writing to Mr. Dyce in 1830, "You know
what importance I attach to following strictly the last copy of the text
of an author. "
It is also worthy of note that the study of their chronology casts some
light on the changes which the poems underwent. The second edition of
"Lyrical Ballads" appeared in 1800. In that edition the text of 1798 is
scarcely altered: but, in the year in which it was published, Wordsworth
was engrossed with his settlement at Grasmere; and, in the springtime of
creative work, he probably never thought of revising his earlier pieces.
In the year 1800, he composed at least twenty-five new poems. The third
edition of "Lyrical Ballads" appeared in 1802; and during that year he
wrote forty-three new poems, many of them amongst the most perfect of
his Lyrics. His critical instinct had become much more delicate since
1800: and it is not surprising to find--as we do find--that between the
text of the "Lyrical Ballads" of 1800, and that of 1802, there are many
important variations. This is seen, for example, in the way in which he
dealt with 'The Female Vagrant', which is altered throughout. Its early
redundance is pruned away; and, in many instances, the final text,
sanctioned in 1845, had been adopted in 1803. Without going into further
detail, it is sufficient to remark that in the year 1803 Wordsworth's
critical faculty, the faculty of censorship, had developed almost step
for step with the creative originality of his genius. In that prolific
year, when week by week, almost day by day, fresh poems were thrown off
with marvellous facility--as we see from his sister's Journal--he had
become a severe, if not a fastidious, critic of his own earlier work. A
further explanation of the absence of critical revision, in the edition
of 1800, may be found in the fact that during that year Wordsworth was
engaged in writing the "Preface" to his Poems; which dealt, in so
remarkable a manner, with the nature of Poetry in general, and with his
own theory of it in particular.
A further reference to the 'Evening Walk' will illustrate Wordsworth's
way of dealing with his earlier text in his later editions. This Poem
showed from the first a minute observation of Nature--not only in her
external form and colour, but also in her suggestiveness--though not in
her symbolism; and we also find the same transition from Nature to Man,
the same interest in rural life, and the same lingering over its
incidents that we see in his maturer poems. Nevertheless, there is much
that is conventional in the first edition of 'An Evening Walk',
published in 1793. I need only mention, as a sample, the use of the
phrase "silent tides" to describe the waters of a lake. When this poem
was revised, in the year 1815--with a view to its insertion in the first
edition of the collected works--Wordsworth merely omitted large portions
of it, and some of its best passages were struck out. He scarcely
amended the text at all. In 1820, however, he pruned and improved it
throughout; so that between this poem, as recast in 1820 (and reproduced
almost 'verbatim' in the next two editions of 1827 and 1832), and his
happiest descriptions of Nature in his most inspired moods, there is no
great difference. But, in 1836, he altered it still further in detail;
and in that state practically left it, apparently not caring to revise
it further. In the edition of 1845, however, there are several changes.
So far as I can judge, there is one alteration for the worse, and one
only. The reading, in the edition of 1793,
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Thin silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame;
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight,
is better than that finally adopted,
In these secluded vales, if village fame,
Confirmed by hoary hairs, belief may claim;
When up the hills, as now, retired the light,
Strange apparitions mocked the shepherd's sight.
It will be seen, however, from the changes made in the text of this
poem, how Wordsworth's observation of Nature developed, how thoroughly
dissatisfied he soon became with everything conventional, and discarded
every image not drawn directly or at first hand from Nature.
The text adopted in the present edition is, for the reasons stated, that
which was finally sanctioned by Wordsworth himself, in the last edition
of his Poems (1849-50). The earlier readings, occurring in previous
editions, are given in footnotes; and it may be desirable to explain the
way in which these are arranged. It will be seen that whenever the text
has been changed a date is given in the footnote, 'before' the other
readings are added. This date, which accompanies the reference number of
the footnote, indicates the year in which the reading finally retained
was first adopted by Wordsworth. The earlier readings then follow, in
chronological order, with the year to which they belong; [12] and it is
in every case to be assumed that the last of the changes indicated was
continued in all subsequent editions of the works. No direct information
is given as to how long a particular reading was retained, or through
how many editions it ran. It is to be assumed, however, that it was
retained in all intermediate editions till the next change of text is
stated. It would encumber the notes with too many figures if, in every
instance in which a change was made, the corresponding state of the text
in all the other editions was indicated. But if no new reading follows
the text quoted, it is to be taken for granted that the reading in
question was continued in every subsequent edition, until the date which
accompanies the reference figure.
Two illustrations will make this clear. The first is a case in which the
text was only altered once, the second an instance in which it was
altered six times. In the 'Evening Walk' the following lines occur--
The dog, loud barking, 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks.
And the footnote is as follows:
1836.
That, barking busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks; 1793.
In the light of what has been said above, and by reference to the
Bibliography, it will be seen from these two dates that the original
text of 1793--given in the footnote--was continued in the editions of
1820, 1827, and 1832 (it was omitted from the "extract" of 1815); that
it was changed in the year 1836; and that this reading was retained in
the editions of 1843, 1845, and 1849.
Again, in 'Simon Lee', the lines occur:
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?
And the following are the footnotes:
1845.
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer? 1798.
"But what," saith he, "avails the land,
Which I can till no longer? 1827.
But what avails it now, the land
Which he can till no longer? 1832.
'Tis his, but what avails the land
Which he can till no longer? 1837.
The time, alas! is come when he
Can till the land no longer. 1840.
The time is also come when he
Can till the land no longer. C.
From this it will be seen that the text adopted in the first edition of
"Lyrical Ballads" in 1798 was retained in the editions of 1800, 1802,
1805, 1815, and 1820; that it was altered in each of the editions of
1827, 1832, 1837, 1840, as also in the MS. readings in Lord Coleridge's
copy of the works, and in the edition of 1845; and that the version of
1845 was retained in the edition of 1849-50. It should be added that
when a verse, or stanza, or line--occurring in one or other of the
earlier editions--was omitted from that of 1849, the footnote simply
contains the extract along with the date of the year or years in which
it occurs; and that, in such cases, the date does not follow the
reference number of the footnote, but is placed for obvious reasons at
the end of the extract.
The same thing is true of 'Descriptive Sketches'. In the year 1827,
there were scarcely any alterations made on the text of the poem, as
printed in 1820; still fewer were added in 1832; but for the edition of
1836 the whole was virtually rewritten, and in that state it was finally
left, although a few significant changes were made in 1845.
Slight changes of spelling which occur in the successive editions, are
not mentioned. When, however, the change is one of transposition,
although the text remains unaltered,--as is largely the case in 'Simon
Lee', for example--it is always indicated.
It will be further observed that, at the beginning of every poem, two
dates are given; the first, on the left-hand side, is the date of
composition; the second, on the right-hand side, is the date of the
first publication. In what class the poem first appeared, and the
changes (if any) which subsequently occurred in its title, are mentioned
in the note appended.
THIRD. In the present edition several suggested changes of text, which
were written by Wordsworth on the margin of a copy of his edition of
1836-7, which he kept beside him at Rydal Mount, are published. These
MS. notes seem to have been written by himself, or dictated to others,
at intervals between the years 1836 and 1850, and they are thus a record
of passing thoughts, or "moods of his own mind," during these years.
Some of these were afterwards introduced into the editions of 1842,
1846, and 1849; others were not made use of. The latter have now a value
of their own, as indicating certain new phases of thought and feeling,
in Wordsworth's later years. I owe my knowledge of them, and the
permission to use them, to the kindness of the late Chief Justice of
England, Lord Coleridge. The following is an extract from a letter from
him:
"FOX GHYLL, AMBLESIDE, '4th October 1881'.
"I have been long intending to write you as to the manuscript notes
and alterations in Wordsworth's poems, which you have had the
opportunity of seeing, and, so far as you thought fit, of using for
your edition. They came into my possession in this way. I saw them
advertised in a catalogue which was sent me, and at my request the
book was very courteously forwarded to me for my inspection. It
appeared to me of sufficient interest and value to induce me to buy
it; and I accordingly became the purchaser.
"It is a copy of the edition in six volumes, the publication of which
began in the year 1836; and of the volume containing the collected
sonnets, which was afterwards printed uniformly with that edition. It
appears to have been the copy which Wordsworth himself used for
correcting, altering, and adding to the poems contained in it. As you
have seen, in some of the poems the Alterations are very large,
amounting sometimes to a complete rewriting of considerable passages.
Many of these alterations have been printed in subsequent editions;
some have not; two or three small poems, as far as I know, have not
been hitherto published. Much of the writing is Wordsworth's own; but
perhaps the larger portion is the hand-writing of others, one or more,
not familiar to me as Wordsworth's is.
"How the volumes came to be sold I do not know. . . . Such as they are,
and whatever be their interest or value, you are, as far as I am
concerned, heartily welcome to them; and I shall be glad indeed if
they add in the least degree to make your edition more worthy of the
great man for whom my admiration grows every day I live, and my deep
gratitude to whom will cease only with my life, and my reason. "
This precious copy of the edition of 1836-7 is now the property of Lady
Coleridge. I re-examined it in 1894, and added several readings, which I
had omitted to note twelve years ago, when Lord Coleridge first showed
it to me. I should add that, since the issue of the volumes of 1882-6,
many other MS. copies of individual Poems have come under my notice; and
that every important variation of text in them is incorporated in this
edition.
As it is impossible to discover the precise year in which the suggested
alterations of text were written by Wordsworth, on the margin of the
edition of 1836, they will be indicated, wherever they occur, by the
initial letter C. Comparatively few changes occur in the poems of early
years.
A copy of the 1814 (quarto) edition of 'The Excursion', now in the
possession of a grandson of the poet, the Rev. John Wordsworth, Gosforth
Rectory, Cumberland--which was the copy Wordsworth kept at Rydal Mount
for annotation and correction, much in the same way as he kept the
edition of 1836-7--has also been kindly sent to me by its present owner,
for examination and use in this edition; and, in it, I have found some
additional readings.
FOURTH. In the present edition all the Notes and Memoranda, explanatory
of the Poems, which Wordsworth dictated to Miss Fenwick, are given in
full. Miss Fenwick lived much at Rydal Mount, during the later years of
the Poet's life; and it is to their friendship, and to her inducing
Wordsworth to dictate these Notes, that we owe most of the information
we possess, as to the occasions and circumstances under which his poems
were composed. These notes were first made use of--although only in a
fragmentary manner--by the late Bishop of Lincoln, in the 'Memoirs' of
his uncle. They were afterwards incorporated in full in the edition of
1857, issued by Mr. Moxon, under the direction of Mr. Carter; and in the
centenary edition. They were subsequently printed in 'The Prose Works of
Wordsworth', edited by Dr. Grosart; and in my edition of 1882-6. I am
uncertain whether it was the original MS. , written by Miss Fenwick, or
the copy of it afterwards taken for Miss Quillinan, to which Dr. Grosart
had access. The text of these Notes, as printed in the edition of 1857,
is certainly (in very many cases) widely different from what is given in
'The Prose Works' of 1876. I have made many corrections--from the MS.
which I have examined with care--of errors which exist in all previously
printed copies of these Notes, including my own.
What appears in this volume is printed from a MS. , which Miss Quillinan
gave me to examine and copy, and which she assured me was the original
one. The proper place for these Fenwick Notes is doubtless that which
was assigned to them by the editor of 1857, viz. before the poems which
they respectively illustrate.
FIFTH. Topographical Notes, explanatory of the allusions made by
Wordsworth to the localities in the English Lake District, and
elsewhere, are added throughout the volumes. This has already been
attempted to some extent by several writers, but a good deal more
remains to be done; and I may repeat what I wrote on this subject, in
1878.
Many of Wordsworth's allusions to Place are obscure, and the exact
localities difficult to identify. It is doubtful if he cared whether
they could be afterwards traced out or not; and in reference to one
particular rock, referred to in the "Poems on the Naming of Places,"
when asked by a friend to localise it, he declined; replying to the
question, "Yes, that--or any other that will suit! " There is no doubt
that, in many instances, his allusions to place are intentionally vague;
and, in some of his most realistic passages, he avowedly weaves together
a description of localities remote from each other.
It is true that "Poems of Places" are not meant to be photographs; and
were they simply to reproduce the features of a particular district, and
be an exact transcript of reality, they would be literary photographs,
and not poems. Poetry cannot, in the nature of things, be a mere
register of phenomena appealing to the eye or the ear. No imaginative
writer, however, in the whole range of English Literature, is so
peculiarly identified with locality as Wordsworth is; and there is not
one on the roll of poets, the appreciation of whose writings is more
aided by an intimate knowledge of the district in which he lived. The
wish to be able to identify his allusions to those places, which he so
specially interpreted, is natural to every one who has ever felt the
spell of his genius; and it is indispensable to all who would know the
special charm of a region, which he described as "a national property,"
and of which he, beyond all other men, may be said to have effected the
literary "conveyance" to posterity.
But it has been asked--and will doubtless be asked again--what is the
use of a minute identification of all these places? Is not the general
fact that Wordsworth described this district of mountain, vale, and
mere, sufficient, without any further attempt at localisation? The
question is more important, and has wider bearings, than appears upon
the surface.
It must be admitted, on the one hand, that the discovery of the precise
point in every local allusion is not necessary to an understanding or
appreciation of the Poems. But, it must be remembered, on the other
hand, that Wordsworth was never contented with simply copying what he
saw in Nature. Of the 'Evening Walk'--written in his eighteenth year--he
says that the plan of the poem
"has not been confined to a particular walk or an individual place; a
proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to
submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance.
The country is idealised rather than described in any one of its local
aspects. "[13]
Again, he says of the 'Lines written while Sailing in a Boat at Evening':
"It was during a solitary walk on the banks of the Cam that I was
first struck with this appearance, and applied it to my own feelings
in the manner here expressed, changing the scene to the Thames, near
Windsor"; [14]
and of 'Guilt and Sorrow', he said,
"To obviate some distraction in the minds of those who are well
acquainted with Salisbury Plain, it may be proper to say, that of the
features described as belonging to it, one or two are taken from other
desolate parts of England. " [15]
In 'The Excursion' he passes from Langdale to Grasmere, over to
Patterdale, back to Grasmere, and again to Hawes Water, without warning;
and even in the case of the "Duddon Sonnets" he introduces a description
taken direct from Rydal. Mr. Aubrey de Vere tells of a conversation he
had with Wordsworth, in which he vehemently condemned the
ultra-realistic poet, who goes to Nature with
"pencil and note-book, and jots down whatever strikes him most,"
adding, "Nature does not permit an inventory to be made of her charms!
He should have left his pencil and note-book at home; fixed his eye as
he walked with a reverent attention on all that surrounded him, and
taken all into a heart that could understand and enjoy. Afterwards he
would have discovered that while much of what he had admired was
preserved to him, much was also most wisely obliterated. _That which
remained, the picture surviving in his mind, would have presented the
ideal and essential truth of the scene, and done so in large part by
discarding much which, though in itself striking, was not
characteristic. _ In every scene, many of the most brilliant details
are but accidental. "
The two last sentences of this extract give admirable expression to one
feature of Wordsworth's interpretation of Nature. In the deepest poetry,
as in the loftiest music,--in Wordsworth's lyrics as in Beethoven's
sonatas--it is by what they unerringly suggest and not by what they
exhaustively express that their truth and power are known. "In what he
leaves unsaid," wrote Schiller, "I discover the master of style. " It
depends, no doubt, upon the vision of the "inward eye," and the
reproductive power of the idealising mind, whether the result is a
travesty of Nature, or the embodiment of a truth higher than Nature
yields. On the other hand, it is equally certain that the identification
of localities casts a sudden light in many instances upon obscure
passages in a poem, and is by far the best commentary that can be given.
It is much to be able to compare the actual scene, with the ideal
creation suggested by it; as the latter was both Wordsworth's reading of
the text of Nature, and his interpretation of it. In his seventy-third
year, he said, looking back on his 'Evening Walk', that there was not an
image in the poem which he had not observed, and that he "recollected
the time and place where most of them were noted. " In the Fenwick notes,
we constantly find him saying, "the fact occurred strictly as recorded,"
"the fact was as mentioned in the poem"; and the fact very often
involved the accessories of place.
Any one who has tried to trace out the allusions in the "Poems on the
Naming of Places," or to discover the site of "Michael's Sheepfold," to
identify "Ghimmer Crag," or "Thurston-Mere,"--not to speak of the
individual "rocks" and "recesses" near Blea Tarn at the head of Little
Langdale so minutely described in 'The Excursion',--will admit that
local commentary is an important aid to the understanding of Wordsworth.
If to read the 'Yew Trees' in Borrowdale itself,
in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves,
to read 'The Brothers' in Ennerdale, or "The Daffodils" by the shore of
Ullswater, gives a new significance to these "poems of the imagination,"
a discovery of the obscurer allusions to place or scene will deepen our
appreciation of those passages in which his idealism is most pronounced.
Every one knows Kirkstone Pass, Aira Force, Dungeon Ghyll, the Wishing
Gate, and Helm Crag: many persons know the Glowworm Rock, and used to
know the Rock of Names; but where is "Emma's Dell"? or "the meeting
point of two highways," so characteristically described in the twelfth
book of 'The Prelude'? and who will fix the site of the pool in Rydal
Upper Park, immortalised in the poem 'To M. H. '? or identify "Joanna's
Rock"? Many of the places in the English Lake District are undergoing
change, and every year the local allusions will be more difficult to
trace. Perhaps the most interesting memorial of the poet which existed,
viz. the "Rock of Names," on the shore of Thirlmere, is now sunk under
the waters of a Manchester reservoir. Other memorials are perishing by
the wear and tear of time, the decay of old buildings, the alteration of
roads, the cutting down of trees, and the modernising, or "improving,"
of the district generally. All this is inevitable. But it is well that
many of the natural objects, over and around which the light of
Wordsworth's genius lingers, are out of the reach of "improvements," and
are indestructible even by machinery.
If it be objected that several of the places which we try to
identify--and which some would prefer to leave for ever undisturbed in
the realm of imagination--were purposely left obscure, it may be
replied that Death and Time have probably now removed all reasons for
reticence, especially in the case of those poems referring to domestic
life and friendly ties. While an author is alive, or while those are
alive to whom he has made reference in the course of his allusions to
place, it may even be right that works designed for posterity should not
be dealt with after the fashion of the modern "interviewer. " But
greatness has its penalties; and a "fierce light" "beats around the
throne" of Genius, as well as round that of Empire. Moreover, all
experience shows that posterity takes a great and a growing interest in
exact topographical illustrations of the works of great authors. The
labour recently bestowed upon the places connected with Shakespeare,
Scott, and Burns sufficiently attests this.
The localities in Westmoreland, which are most permanently associated
with Wordsworth, are these: Grasmere, where he lived during the years of
his "poetic prime," and where he is buried; Lower Easdale, where he
passed so many days with his sister by the side of the brook, and on the
terraces at Lancrigg, and where 'The Prelude' was dictated; Rydal Mount,
where he spent the latter half of his life, and where he found one of
the most perfect retreats in England; Great Langdale, and Blea Tarn at
the head of Little Langdale, immortalised in 'The Excursion'; the upper
end of Ullswater, and Kirkstone Pass; and all the mountain tracks and
paths round Grasmere and Rydal, especially the old upper road between
them, under Nab Scar, his favourite walk during his later years, where
he "composed hundreds of verses. " There is scarcely a rock or mountain
summit, a stream or tarn, or even a well, a grove, or forest-side in all
that neighbourhood, which is not imperishably identified with this poet,
who at once interpreted them as they had never been interpreted before,
and added
the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.
It may be worthy of note that Wordsworth himself sanctioned the
principle of tracing out local allusions both by dictating the Fenwick
notes, and by republishing his Essay on the topography of the Lakes,
along with the Duddon Sonnets, in 1820--and also, by itself, in
1822--"from a belief that it would tend materially to illustrate" his
poems.
In this edition the topographical Notes usually follow the Poems to
which they refer. But in the case of the longer Poems, such as 'The
Prelude', 'The Excursion', and others, it seems more convenient to print
them at the foot of the page, than to oblige the reader to turn to the
end of the volume.
From the accident of my having tried long ago--at Principal Shairp's
request--to do what he told me he wished to do, but had failed to carry
out, I have been supposed, quite erroneously, to be an 'authority' on
the subject of "The English Lake District, as interpreted in the Poems
of Wordsworth. " The latter, it is true, is the title of one of the books
which I have written about Wordsworth: but, although I visited the Lakes
in 1860,--"as a pilgrim resolute"--and have re-visited the district
nearly every year for more than a quarter of a century, I may say that I
have only a partial knowledge of it. Others, such as Canon Rawnsley, Mr.
Harry Goodwin, and Mr. Rix, for example, know many parts of it much
better than I do; but, as I have often had to compare my own judgment
with that of such experts as the late Dr. Cradock, Principal of
Brasenose College, Oxford, and others, I may add that, when I differ
from them, it has been only after a re-examination of their evidence, at
the localities themselves.
SIXTH. Several Poems, and fragments of poems, hitherto unpublished--or
published in stray quarters, and in desultory fashion--will find a place
in this edition; but I reserve these fragments, and place them all
together, in an Appendix to the last volume of the "Poetical Works. " If
it is desirable to print these poems, in such an edition as this, it is
equally desirable to separate them from those which Wordsworth himself
sanctioned in his final edition of 1849-50.
Every great author in the Literature of the World--whether he lives to
old age (when his judgment may possibly be less critical) or dies young
(when it may be relatively more accurate)--should himself determine what
portions of his work ought, and what ought not to survive. At the same
time,--while I do not presume to judge in the case of writers whom I
know less fully than I happen to know Wordsworth and his
contemporaries,--it seems clear that the very greatest men have
occasionally erred as to what parts of their writings might, with most
advantage, survive; and that they have even more frequently erred as to
what MS. letters, etc. ,--casting light on their contemporaries--should,
or should not, be preserved. I am convinced, for example, that if the
Wordsworth household had not destroyed all the letters which Coleridge
sent to them, in the first decade of this century, the world would now
possess much important knowledge which is for ever lost. It may have
been wise, for reasons now unknown, to burn those letters, written by
Coleridge: but the students of the literature of the period would gladly
have them now.
Passing from the question of the preservation of Letters, it is evident
that Wordsworth was very careful in distinguishing between the Verses
which he sent to Newspapers and Magazines, and those Poems which he
included in his published volumes. His anxiety on this point may be
inferred from the way in which he more than once emphasised the fact of
republication, e. g. in 'Peter Bell' (1819) he put the following
prefatory note to four sonnets, which had previously appeared in
'Blackwood's Magazine', and which afterwards (1828) appeared in the
'Poetical Album' of Alaric Watts, "The following Sonnets having lately
appeared in Periodical Publications are here reprinted. "
Some of the poems (or fragments of poems), included in the 'addenda' to
Volume viii. of this edition, I would willingly have left out
(especially the sonnet addressed to Miss Maria Williams); but, since
they have appeared elsewhere, I feel justified in now reprinting even
that trivial youthful effusion, signed "Axiologus. " I rejoice, however,
that there is no likelihood that the "Somersetshire Tragedy" will ever
see the light. When I told Wordsworth's successor in the Laureateship
that I had burned a copy of that poem, sent to me by one to whom it had
been confided, his delight was great. It is the chronicle of a revolting
crime, with nothing in the verse to warrant its publication. The only
curious thing about it is that Wordsworth wrote it. With this exception,
there is no reason why the fragments which he did not himself republish,
and others which he published but afterwards suppressed, should not now
be printed. The suppression of some of these by the poet himself is as
unaccountable, as is his omission of certain stanzas in the earlier
poems from their later versions. Even the Cambridge 'Installation Ode',
which is so feeble, will be reprinted. [16] 'The Glowworm', which only
appeared in the edition of 1807, will be republished in full. 'Andrew
Jones',--also suppressed after appearing in "Lyrical Ballads" of 1800,
1802, and 1805,--will be replaced, in like manner. The youthful 'School
Exercise' written at Hawkshead, the translation from the 'Georgics' of
Virgil, the poem addressed 'To the Queen' in 1846, will appear in their
chronological place in vol. viii. There are also a translation of some
French stanzas by Francis Wrangham on 'The Birth of Love'-a poem
entitled 'The Eagle and the Dove', which was privately printed in a
volume, consisting chiefly of French fragments, and called 'La petite
Chouannerie, ou Historie d'un College Breton sous l'Empire'--a sonnet on
the rebuilding of a church at Cardiff--an Election Squib written during
the Lowther and Brougham contest for the representation of the county of
Cumberland in 1818--some stanzas written in the Visitors' Book at the
Ferry, Windermere, and other fragments. Then, since Wordsworth published
some verses by his sister Dorothy in his own volumes, other unpublished
fragments by Miss Wordsworth may find a place in this edition. I do not
attach much importance, however, to the recovery of these unpublished
poems. The truth is, as Sir Henry Taylor--himself a poet and critic of
no mean order--remarked [17],
"In these days, when a great man's path to posterity is likely to be
more and more crowded, there is a tendency to create an obstruction,
in the desire to give an impulse. To gather about a man's work all the
details that can be found out about it is, in my opinion, to put a
drag upon it; and, as of the Works, so of the Life. "
The industrious labour of some editors in disinterring the trivial works
of great men is not a commendable industry. All great writers have
occasionally written trifles--this is true even of Shakespeare--and if
they wished them to perish, why should we seek to resuscitate them?
Besides, this labour--whether due to the industry of admiring friends,
or to the ambition of the literary resurrectionist--is futile; because
the verdict of Time is sure, and posterity is certain to consign the
recovered trivialities to kindly oblivion. The question which should
invariably present itself to the editor of the fragments of a great
writer is, "_Can these bones live_? " If they cannot, they had better
never see the light. Indeed the only good reason for reprinting the
fragments which have been lost (because the author himself attached no
value to them), is that, in a complete collection of the works of a
great man, some of them may have a biographic or psychological value.
But have we any right to reproduce, from an antiquarian motive, what--in
a literary sense--is either trivial, or feeble, or sterile?
We must, however, distinguish between what is suitable for an edition
meant either to popularise an author, or to interpret him, and an
edition intended to bring together all that is worthy of preservation
for posterity. There is great truth in what Mr. Arnold has lately said
of Byron:
"I question whether by reading everything which he gives us, we are so
likely to acquire an admiring sense, even of his variety and
abundance, as by reading what he gives us at his happier moments.
Receive him absolutely without omission and compromise, follow his
whole outpouring, stanza by stanza, and line by line, from the very
commencement to the very end, and he is capable of being tiresome. "
[18]
This is quite true; nevertheless, English literature demands a complete
edition of all the works of Byron: and it may be safely predicted that,
for weightier reasons and with greater urgency, it will continue to call
for the collected works of Wordsworth.
It should also be noted that the fact of Wordsworth's having dictated to
Miss Fenwick (so late as 1843) a stanza from 'The Convict' in his note
to 'The Lament of Mary Queen of Scots' (1817), justifies the inclusion
of the whole of that (suppressed) poem in such an edition as this.
The fact that Wordsworth did not republish all his Poems, in his final
edition of 1849-50, is not conclusive evidence that he thought them
unworthy of preservation, and reproduction. It must be remembered that
'The Prelude' itself was a posthumous publication; and also that the
fragmentary canto of 'The Recluse', entitled "Home at Grasmere"--as well
as the other canto published in 1886, and entitled (most prosaically)
"Composed when a probability existed of our being obliged to quit Rydal
Mount as a residence"--were not published by the poet himself. I am of
opinion that his omission of the stanzas beginning:
Among all lovely things my Love had been,
and of the sonnet on his 'Voyage down the Rhine', was due to sheer
forgetfulness of their existence. Few poets remember all their past,
fugitive, productions. At the same time, there are other
fragments,--written when he was experimenting with his theme, and when
the inspiration of genius had forsaken him,--which it is unfortunate
that he did not himself destroy.
Among the Poems which Wordsworth suppressed, in his final edition, is
the Latin translation of 'The Somnambulist' by his son. This will be
republished, more especially as it was included by Wordsworth himself in
the second edition of his "Yarrow Revisited. "
It may be well to mention the 'repetitions' which are inevitable in this
edition,
(1) As already explained, those fragments of 'The Recluse'--which were
issued in all the earlier volumes, and afterwards incorporated in 'The
Prelude'--are printed as they originally appeared.
(2) Short Notes are extracted from Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Recollections
of a Tour made in Scotland' (1803), which illustrate the Poems composed
during that Tour, while the whole text of that Tour will be printed in
full in subsequent volumes.
(3) Other fragments, including the lines beginning,
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe,
will be printed both by themselves in their chronological place, and in
the longer poem of which they form a part, according to the original
plan of their author.
A detail, perhaps not too trivial to mention, is that, in this
edition--at the suggestion of several friends--I have followed the
example of Professor Dowden in his Aldine edition, and numbered the
lines of almost all the poems--even the sonnets. When I have not done
so, the reason will be obvious; viz. either the structure, or the
brevity, of the poem. [19]
In giving the date of each poem, I have used the word "composed," rather
than "written," very much because Wordsworth himself,--and his sister,
in her Journals--almost invariably use the word "composed"; although he
criticised the term as applied to the creation of a poem, as if it were
a manufactured article. In his Chronological Table, Mr. Dowden adopts
the word "composed"; but, in his edition of the Poems, he has made use
of the term" written. " [20]
No notice (or almost none) of misprints in Wordsworth's own text is
taken, in the notes to this edition. Sometimes an error occurred, and
was carried on through more than one edition, and corrected in the next:
e. g. , in 'The Childless Father', the editions of 1827, 1832, and 1836
have the line:
Fresh springs of green boxwood, not six months before.
In the 'errata' of the edition of 1836 this is corrected to "fresh
sprigs. " There are other 'errata', which remained in the edition of
1849-50, e. g. , in 'Rob Roy's Grave', "Vools" for "Veols," and mistakes
in quotations from other poets, such as "invention" for "instruction,"
in Wither's poem on the Daisy. These are corrected without mention.
I should perhaps add that, while I have included, amongst the
illustrative notes, extracts from Henry Crabb Robinson's 'Diary', etc. ,
many of them are now published for the first time. These voluminous MSS.
of Robinson's have been re-examined with care; and the reader who
compares the three volumes of the 'Diary', etc. --edited by Dr.
Sadler--with the extracts now printed from the original MS. , will see
where sentences omitted by the original editor have been included.
As this edition proceeds, my debt to many--who have been so kind as to
put their Wordsworth MSS. and memoranda at my disposal--will be
apparent.
It is difficult to acknowledge duly my obligation to collectors of
autograph Letters--Mr. Morrison, the late Mr. Locker Lampson, the late
Mr. Mackay, of the Grange, Trowbridge, and a score of others--but, I
may say in general, that the kindness of those who possess Wordsworth
MSS. in allowing me to examine them, has been a very genuine evidence of
their interest in the Poet, and his work.
My special thanks are due to Mr. Gordon Wordsworth, who has, in the
kindest manner and for many years, placed everything at my disposal,
which could further my labour on his grandfather's Works.
Finally, I wish to express the great debt I owe to the late Mr. J. Dykes
Campbell, for many suggestions, and for his unwearied interest in this
work,--which I think was second only to his interest in Coleridge--and
also to Mr. W. B. Kinghorn for his valuable assistance in the revision
of proof sheets.
If there are any desiderata, in reference to Wordsworth--in addition to
a new Life, a critical Essay, and such a Bibliography of Criticism as
will be adequate for posterity--a 'Concordance' to his works is one of
them. A correspondent once offered to prepare this for me, if I found a
publisher: and another has undertaken to compile a volume of 'parallel
passages' from the earlier poets of England, and of the world. A
Concordance might very well form part of a volume of 'Wordsworthiana',
and be a real service to future students of the poet.
William Knight.
[Footnote 1: In addition to my own detection of errors in the text and
notes to the editions 1882-9, I acknowledge special obligation to the
late Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University, Principal Greenwood,
who went over every volume with laborious care, and sent me the result.
To the late Mr. J. Dykes Campbell, to Mr. J. R. Tutin, to the Rev.
Thomas Hutchinson of Kimbolton, and to many others, I am similarly
indebted. ]
[Footnote 2: See 'Memoirs of William Wordsworth', ii. pp. 113, 114. ]
[Footnote 3: It is however different with the fragments which were
published in all the editions issued in the poet's lifetime, and
afterwards in 'The Prelude', such as the lines on "the immortal boy" of
Windermere. These are printed in their chronological place, and also in
the posthumous poem. ]
[Footnote 4: 'Poems of Wordsworth selected and arranged by Matthew
Arnold'. London: Macmillan and Co. ]
[Footnote 5: See the 'Life of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton', vol. ii. pp, 132,
135. ]
[Footnote 6: See the Preface to the American edition of 1837. ]
[Footnote 7: It need hardly be explained that, in the case of a modern
poet, these various readings are not like the conjectural guesses of
critics and commentators as to what the original text was (as in the
case of the Greek Poets, or of Dante, or even of Shakespeare). They are
the actual alterations, introduced deliberately as improvements, by the
hand of the poet himself. ]
[Footnote 8: The collection in the British Museum, and those in all the
University Libraries of the country, are incomplete. ]
[Footnote 9: The publication of this edition was superintended by Mr.
Carter, who acted as Wordsworth's secretary for thirty-seven years, and
was appointed one of his literary executors. ]
[Footnote 10: Let the indiscriminate admirer of "first editions" turn to
this quarto, and perhaps even he may wonder why it has been rescued from
oblivion. I am only aware of the existence of five copies of the edition
of 1793; and although it has a certain autobiographic value, I do not
think that many who read it once will return to it again, except as a
literary curiosity. Here--and not in "Lyrical Ballads" or 'The
Excursion'--was the quarry where Jeffrey or Gifford might have found
abundant material for criticism. ]
[Footnote 11: It is unfortunate that the 'Memoirs' do not tell us to
what poem the remark applies, or to whom the letter containing it was
addressed. ]
[Footnote 12: It is important to note that the printed text in several
of the editions is occasionally cancelled in the list of 'errata', at
the beginning or the end of the volume: also that many copies of the
early editions (notably those of 1800), were bound up without the full
'errata' list. In this edition there were two such lists, one of them
very brief. But the cancelled words in these 'errata' lists, must be
taken into account, in determining the text of each edition. ]
[Footnote 13: I. F. note. See vol. i. p. 5. ]
[Footnote 14: I. F. note. See vol. i. p. 32. ]
[Footnote 15: Advertisement. See vol. i. p. 78. ]
[Footnote 16: How much of this poem was Wordsworth's own has not been
definitely ascertained. I am of opinion that very little, if any of it,
was his. It has been said that his nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln,
wrote most of it; but more recent evidence tends to show that it was the
work of his son-in-law, Edward Quillinan. ]
[Footnote 17: In a letter to the writer in 1882. ]
[Footnote 18: 'The Poetry of Byron, chosen and arranged by Matthew
Arnold'. London: Macmillan and Co. ]
[Footnote 19: It may not be too trivial a fact to mention that
Wordsworth numbered the lines of his earliest publication, 'An Evening
Walk, in 1793. --Ed.
such an editorial treatment of his Works to be successful. The
fundamental objection to it is that scarcely two minds--even among the
most competent of contemporary judges--will agree as to what the best
text is. An edition arranged on this principle could not possibly be
acceptable to more than a few persons. Of course no arrangement of any
kind can escape adverse criticism: it would be most unfortunate if it
did. But this particular edition would fail in its main purpose, if
questions of individual taste were made primary, and not secondary; and
an arrangement, which gave scope for the arbitrary selection of
particular texts,--according to the wisdom, or the want of wisdom, of
the editor,--would deservedly meet with severe criticism in many
quarters. Besides, such a method of arrangement would not indicate the
growth of the Poet's mind, and the development of his genius. If an
editor wished to indicate his own opinion of the best text for each
poem--under the idea that his judgment might be of some use to other
people--it would be wiser to do so by means of some mark or marginal
note, than by printing his selected text in the main body of the work.
He could thus at once preserve the chronological order of the readings,
indicate his own preference, and leave it to others to select what they
preferred. Besides, the compiler of such an edition would often find
himself in doubt as to what the best text really was, the merit of the
different readings being sometimes almost equal, or very nearly
balanced; and, were he to endeavour to get out of the difficulty by
obtaining the judgments of literary men, or even of contemporary poets,
he would find that their opinions would in most cases be dissimilar, if
they did not openly conflict. Those who cannot come to a final decision
as to their own text would not be likely to agree as to the merits of
particular readings in the poems of their predecessors. Unanimity of
opinion on this point is indeed quite unattainable.
Nevertheless, it would be easy for an editor to show the unfortunate
result of keeping rigorously either to the latest or to the earliest
text of Wordsworth. If, on the one hand, the latest were taken, it could
be shown that many of the changes introduced into it were for the worse,
and some of them very decidedly so. For example, in the poem 'To a
Skylark'--composed in 1825--the second verse, retained in the
editions of 1827, 1832, 1836, and 1843, was unaccountably dropped out in
the editions of 1845 and 1849. The following is the complete poem of
1825, as published in 1827.
Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
To the last point of vision, and beyond,
Mount, daring Warbler! that love-prompted strain,
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond)
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing
All independent of the leafy spring.
Leave to the Nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with rapture more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
There is no doubt that the first and third stanzas are the finest, and
some may respect the judgment that cut down the Poem by the removal of
its second verse: but others will say, if it was right that such a verse
should be removed, why were many others of questionable merit allowed to
remain? Why was such a poem as 'The Glowworm', of the edition of 1807,
never republished; while 'The Waterfall and the Eglantine', and 'To the
Spade of a Friend', were retained? To give one other illustration, where
a score are possible. In the sonnet, belonging to the year 1807,
beginning:
"Beloved Vale! " I said, "when I shall con,"
we find, in the latest text, the lines--first adopted in 1827:
I stood, of simple shame the blushing Thrall;
So narrow seemed the brooks, the fields so small,
while the early edition of 1807 contains the far happier lines:
To see the Trees, which I had thought so tall,
Mere dwarfs; the Brooks so narrow, Fields so small.
On the other hand, if the earliest text be invariably retained, some of
the best poems will be spoiled (or the improvements lost), since
Wordsworth did usually alter for the better. For example, few persons
will doubt that the form in which the second stanza of the poem 'To the
Cuckoo' (written in 1802) appeared in 1845, is an improvement on all its
predecessors. I give the readings of 1807, 1815, 1820, 1827, and 1845.
While I am lying on the grass,
I hear thy restless shout:
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
About, and all about! 1807.
While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear! --
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near! 1815.
While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear!
It seems to fill the whole air's space,
At once far off and near. 1820.
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
That seems to fill the whole air's space,
As loud far off as near. 1827.
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near. 1845.
Similarly, in each of the three poems 'To the Daisy', composed in 1802,
and in the 'Afterthought, to the Duddon', the alterations introduced
into the latest editions were all improvements upon the early version.
It might be urged that these considerations would warrant the
interference of an editor, and justify him in selecting the text which
he thought the best upon the whole; but this must be left to posterity.
When editors can escape the bias of contemporary thought and feeling,
when their judgments are refined by distance and mellowed by the new
literary standards of the intervening years,--when in fact Wordsworth is
as far away from his critics as Shakespeare now is--it may be possible
to adjust a final text. But the task is beyond the power of the present
generation.
It may farther be urged that if this reasoning be valid,--and if, for
the present, one text must be retained uniformly throughout,--the
natural plan is to take the earliest, and not the latest; and this has
some recommendations. It seems more simple, more natural, and certainly
the easiest. We have a natural sequence, if we begin with the earliest
and go on to the latest readings. Then, all the readers of Wordsworth,
who care to possess or to consult the present edition, will doubtless
possess one or other of the complete copies of his works, which contain
his final text; while probably not one in twenty have ever seen the
first edition of any of his poems, with the exception of 'The Prelude'.
It is true that if the reader turns to a footnote to compare the
versions of different years, while he is reading for the sake of the
poetry, he will be so distracted that the effect of the poem as a whole
will be entirely lost; because the critical spirit, which judges of the
text, works apart from the spirit of sympathetic appreciation, in which
all poetry should be read. But it is not necessary to turn to the
footnotes, and to mark what may be called the literary growth of a poem,
while it is being read for its own sake: and these notes are printed in
smaller type, so as not to obtrude themselves on the eye of the reader.
Against the adoption of the earlier text, there is this fatal objection,
that if it is to be done at all, it must be done throughout; and, in the
earliest poems Wordsworth wrote--viz. 'An Evening Walk' and 'Descriptive
Sketches',--the subsequent alterations almost amounted to a cancelling
of the earlier version. His changes were all, or almost all,
unmistakably for the better. Indeed, there was little in these works--in
the form in which they first appeared--to lead to the belief that an
original poet had arisen in England. It is true that Coleridge saw in
them the signs of the dawn of a new era, and wrote thus of 'Descriptive
Sketches', before he knew its author, "Seldom, if ever, was the
emergence of a great and original poetic genius above the literary
horizon more evidently announced. " Nevertheless the earliest text of
these 'Sketches' is, in many places, so artificial, prosaic, and dull,
that its reproduction (except as an appendix, or in the form of
footnotes) would be an injustice to Wordsworth. [10] On the other hand,
the passages subsequently cancelled are so numerous, and so long, that
if placed in footnotes the latter would in some instances be more
extensive than the text. The quarto of 1793 will therefore be reprinted
in full as an Appendix to the first volume of this edition. The 'School
Exercise written at Hawkshead' in the poet's fourteenth year, will be
found in vol. viii. Passing over these juvenile efforts, there are
poems--such as 'Guilt and Sorrow', 'Peter Bell', and many others--in
which the earlier text is an inferior one, which was either corrected or
abandoned by Wordsworth in his maturer years. It would be a conspicuous
blunder to print--in the place of honour,--the crude original which was
afterwards repudiated by its author.
It may be remembered, in connection with Wordsworth's text, that he
himself said, "I am for the most part uncertain about my success in
altering poems; but, in this case" (he is speaking of an insertion) "I
am sure I have produced a great improvement. " ('Memoirs of Wordsworth',
vol. i. p. 174. ) [11] Again, in writing to Mr. Dyce in 1830, "You know
what importance I attach to following strictly the last copy of the text
of an author. "
It is also worthy of note that the study of their chronology casts some
light on the changes which the poems underwent. The second edition of
"Lyrical Ballads" appeared in 1800. In that edition the text of 1798 is
scarcely altered: but, in the year in which it was published, Wordsworth
was engrossed with his settlement at Grasmere; and, in the springtime of
creative work, he probably never thought of revising his earlier pieces.
In the year 1800, he composed at least twenty-five new poems. The third
edition of "Lyrical Ballads" appeared in 1802; and during that year he
wrote forty-three new poems, many of them amongst the most perfect of
his Lyrics. His critical instinct had become much more delicate since
1800: and it is not surprising to find--as we do find--that between the
text of the "Lyrical Ballads" of 1800, and that of 1802, there are many
important variations. This is seen, for example, in the way in which he
dealt with 'The Female Vagrant', which is altered throughout. Its early
redundance is pruned away; and, in many instances, the final text,
sanctioned in 1845, had been adopted in 1803. Without going into further
detail, it is sufficient to remark that in the year 1803 Wordsworth's
critical faculty, the faculty of censorship, had developed almost step
for step with the creative originality of his genius. In that prolific
year, when week by week, almost day by day, fresh poems were thrown off
with marvellous facility--as we see from his sister's Journal--he had
become a severe, if not a fastidious, critic of his own earlier work. A
further explanation of the absence of critical revision, in the edition
of 1800, may be found in the fact that during that year Wordsworth was
engaged in writing the "Preface" to his Poems; which dealt, in so
remarkable a manner, with the nature of Poetry in general, and with his
own theory of it in particular.
A further reference to the 'Evening Walk' will illustrate Wordsworth's
way of dealing with his earlier text in his later editions. This Poem
showed from the first a minute observation of Nature--not only in her
external form and colour, but also in her suggestiveness--though not in
her symbolism; and we also find the same transition from Nature to Man,
the same interest in rural life, and the same lingering over its
incidents that we see in his maturer poems. Nevertheless, there is much
that is conventional in the first edition of 'An Evening Walk',
published in 1793. I need only mention, as a sample, the use of the
phrase "silent tides" to describe the waters of a lake. When this poem
was revised, in the year 1815--with a view to its insertion in the first
edition of the collected works--Wordsworth merely omitted large portions
of it, and some of its best passages were struck out. He scarcely
amended the text at all. In 1820, however, he pruned and improved it
throughout; so that between this poem, as recast in 1820 (and reproduced
almost 'verbatim' in the next two editions of 1827 and 1832), and his
happiest descriptions of Nature in his most inspired moods, there is no
great difference. But, in 1836, he altered it still further in detail;
and in that state practically left it, apparently not caring to revise
it further. In the edition of 1845, however, there are several changes.
So far as I can judge, there is one alteration for the worse, and one
only. The reading, in the edition of 1793,
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Thin silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame;
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight,
is better than that finally adopted,
In these secluded vales, if village fame,
Confirmed by hoary hairs, belief may claim;
When up the hills, as now, retired the light,
Strange apparitions mocked the shepherd's sight.
It will be seen, however, from the changes made in the text of this
poem, how Wordsworth's observation of Nature developed, how thoroughly
dissatisfied he soon became with everything conventional, and discarded
every image not drawn directly or at first hand from Nature.
The text adopted in the present edition is, for the reasons stated, that
which was finally sanctioned by Wordsworth himself, in the last edition
of his Poems (1849-50). The earlier readings, occurring in previous
editions, are given in footnotes; and it may be desirable to explain the
way in which these are arranged. It will be seen that whenever the text
has been changed a date is given in the footnote, 'before' the other
readings are added. This date, which accompanies the reference number of
the footnote, indicates the year in which the reading finally retained
was first adopted by Wordsworth. The earlier readings then follow, in
chronological order, with the year to which they belong; [12] and it is
in every case to be assumed that the last of the changes indicated was
continued in all subsequent editions of the works. No direct information
is given as to how long a particular reading was retained, or through
how many editions it ran. It is to be assumed, however, that it was
retained in all intermediate editions till the next change of text is
stated. It would encumber the notes with too many figures if, in every
instance in which a change was made, the corresponding state of the text
in all the other editions was indicated. But if no new reading follows
the text quoted, it is to be taken for granted that the reading in
question was continued in every subsequent edition, until the date which
accompanies the reference figure.
Two illustrations will make this clear. The first is a case in which the
text was only altered once, the second an instance in which it was
altered six times. In the 'Evening Walk' the following lines occur--
The dog, loud barking, 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks.
And the footnote is as follows:
1836.
That, barking busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks; 1793.
In the light of what has been said above, and by reference to the
Bibliography, it will be seen from these two dates that the original
text of 1793--given in the footnote--was continued in the editions of
1820, 1827, and 1832 (it was omitted from the "extract" of 1815); that
it was changed in the year 1836; and that this reading was retained in
the editions of 1843, 1845, and 1849.
Again, in 'Simon Lee', the lines occur:
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?
And the following are the footnotes:
1845.
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer? 1798.
"But what," saith he, "avails the land,
Which I can till no longer? 1827.
But what avails it now, the land
Which he can till no longer? 1832.
'Tis his, but what avails the land
Which he can till no longer? 1837.
The time, alas! is come when he
Can till the land no longer. 1840.
The time is also come when he
Can till the land no longer. C.
From this it will be seen that the text adopted in the first edition of
"Lyrical Ballads" in 1798 was retained in the editions of 1800, 1802,
1805, 1815, and 1820; that it was altered in each of the editions of
1827, 1832, 1837, 1840, as also in the MS. readings in Lord Coleridge's
copy of the works, and in the edition of 1845; and that the version of
1845 was retained in the edition of 1849-50. It should be added that
when a verse, or stanza, or line--occurring in one or other of the
earlier editions--was omitted from that of 1849, the footnote simply
contains the extract along with the date of the year or years in which
it occurs; and that, in such cases, the date does not follow the
reference number of the footnote, but is placed for obvious reasons at
the end of the extract.
The same thing is true of 'Descriptive Sketches'. In the year 1827,
there were scarcely any alterations made on the text of the poem, as
printed in 1820; still fewer were added in 1832; but for the edition of
1836 the whole was virtually rewritten, and in that state it was finally
left, although a few significant changes were made in 1845.
Slight changes of spelling which occur in the successive editions, are
not mentioned. When, however, the change is one of transposition,
although the text remains unaltered,--as is largely the case in 'Simon
Lee', for example--it is always indicated.
It will be further observed that, at the beginning of every poem, two
dates are given; the first, on the left-hand side, is the date of
composition; the second, on the right-hand side, is the date of the
first publication. In what class the poem first appeared, and the
changes (if any) which subsequently occurred in its title, are mentioned
in the note appended.
THIRD. In the present edition several suggested changes of text, which
were written by Wordsworth on the margin of a copy of his edition of
1836-7, which he kept beside him at Rydal Mount, are published. These
MS. notes seem to have been written by himself, or dictated to others,
at intervals between the years 1836 and 1850, and they are thus a record
of passing thoughts, or "moods of his own mind," during these years.
Some of these were afterwards introduced into the editions of 1842,
1846, and 1849; others were not made use of. The latter have now a value
of their own, as indicating certain new phases of thought and feeling,
in Wordsworth's later years. I owe my knowledge of them, and the
permission to use them, to the kindness of the late Chief Justice of
England, Lord Coleridge. The following is an extract from a letter from
him:
"FOX GHYLL, AMBLESIDE, '4th October 1881'.
"I have been long intending to write you as to the manuscript notes
and alterations in Wordsworth's poems, which you have had the
opportunity of seeing, and, so far as you thought fit, of using for
your edition. They came into my possession in this way. I saw them
advertised in a catalogue which was sent me, and at my request the
book was very courteously forwarded to me for my inspection. It
appeared to me of sufficient interest and value to induce me to buy
it; and I accordingly became the purchaser.
"It is a copy of the edition in six volumes, the publication of which
began in the year 1836; and of the volume containing the collected
sonnets, which was afterwards printed uniformly with that edition. It
appears to have been the copy which Wordsworth himself used for
correcting, altering, and adding to the poems contained in it. As you
have seen, in some of the poems the Alterations are very large,
amounting sometimes to a complete rewriting of considerable passages.
Many of these alterations have been printed in subsequent editions;
some have not; two or three small poems, as far as I know, have not
been hitherto published. Much of the writing is Wordsworth's own; but
perhaps the larger portion is the hand-writing of others, one or more,
not familiar to me as Wordsworth's is.
"How the volumes came to be sold I do not know. . . . Such as they are,
and whatever be their interest or value, you are, as far as I am
concerned, heartily welcome to them; and I shall be glad indeed if
they add in the least degree to make your edition more worthy of the
great man for whom my admiration grows every day I live, and my deep
gratitude to whom will cease only with my life, and my reason. "
This precious copy of the edition of 1836-7 is now the property of Lady
Coleridge. I re-examined it in 1894, and added several readings, which I
had omitted to note twelve years ago, when Lord Coleridge first showed
it to me. I should add that, since the issue of the volumes of 1882-6,
many other MS. copies of individual Poems have come under my notice; and
that every important variation of text in them is incorporated in this
edition.
As it is impossible to discover the precise year in which the suggested
alterations of text were written by Wordsworth, on the margin of the
edition of 1836, they will be indicated, wherever they occur, by the
initial letter C. Comparatively few changes occur in the poems of early
years.
A copy of the 1814 (quarto) edition of 'The Excursion', now in the
possession of a grandson of the poet, the Rev. John Wordsworth, Gosforth
Rectory, Cumberland--which was the copy Wordsworth kept at Rydal Mount
for annotation and correction, much in the same way as he kept the
edition of 1836-7--has also been kindly sent to me by its present owner,
for examination and use in this edition; and, in it, I have found some
additional readings.
FOURTH. In the present edition all the Notes and Memoranda, explanatory
of the Poems, which Wordsworth dictated to Miss Fenwick, are given in
full. Miss Fenwick lived much at Rydal Mount, during the later years of
the Poet's life; and it is to their friendship, and to her inducing
Wordsworth to dictate these Notes, that we owe most of the information
we possess, as to the occasions and circumstances under which his poems
were composed. These notes were first made use of--although only in a
fragmentary manner--by the late Bishop of Lincoln, in the 'Memoirs' of
his uncle. They were afterwards incorporated in full in the edition of
1857, issued by Mr. Moxon, under the direction of Mr. Carter; and in the
centenary edition. They were subsequently printed in 'The Prose Works of
Wordsworth', edited by Dr. Grosart; and in my edition of 1882-6. I am
uncertain whether it was the original MS. , written by Miss Fenwick, or
the copy of it afterwards taken for Miss Quillinan, to which Dr. Grosart
had access. The text of these Notes, as printed in the edition of 1857,
is certainly (in very many cases) widely different from what is given in
'The Prose Works' of 1876. I have made many corrections--from the MS.
which I have examined with care--of errors which exist in all previously
printed copies of these Notes, including my own.
What appears in this volume is printed from a MS. , which Miss Quillinan
gave me to examine and copy, and which she assured me was the original
one. The proper place for these Fenwick Notes is doubtless that which
was assigned to them by the editor of 1857, viz. before the poems which
they respectively illustrate.
FIFTH. Topographical Notes, explanatory of the allusions made by
Wordsworth to the localities in the English Lake District, and
elsewhere, are added throughout the volumes. This has already been
attempted to some extent by several writers, but a good deal more
remains to be done; and I may repeat what I wrote on this subject, in
1878.
Many of Wordsworth's allusions to Place are obscure, and the exact
localities difficult to identify. It is doubtful if he cared whether
they could be afterwards traced out or not; and in reference to one
particular rock, referred to in the "Poems on the Naming of Places,"
when asked by a friend to localise it, he declined; replying to the
question, "Yes, that--or any other that will suit! " There is no doubt
that, in many instances, his allusions to place are intentionally vague;
and, in some of his most realistic passages, he avowedly weaves together
a description of localities remote from each other.
It is true that "Poems of Places" are not meant to be photographs; and
were they simply to reproduce the features of a particular district, and
be an exact transcript of reality, they would be literary photographs,
and not poems. Poetry cannot, in the nature of things, be a mere
register of phenomena appealing to the eye or the ear. No imaginative
writer, however, in the whole range of English Literature, is so
peculiarly identified with locality as Wordsworth is; and there is not
one on the roll of poets, the appreciation of whose writings is more
aided by an intimate knowledge of the district in which he lived. The
wish to be able to identify his allusions to those places, which he so
specially interpreted, is natural to every one who has ever felt the
spell of his genius; and it is indispensable to all who would know the
special charm of a region, which he described as "a national property,"
and of which he, beyond all other men, may be said to have effected the
literary "conveyance" to posterity.
But it has been asked--and will doubtless be asked again--what is the
use of a minute identification of all these places? Is not the general
fact that Wordsworth described this district of mountain, vale, and
mere, sufficient, without any further attempt at localisation? The
question is more important, and has wider bearings, than appears upon
the surface.
It must be admitted, on the one hand, that the discovery of the precise
point in every local allusion is not necessary to an understanding or
appreciation of the Poems. But, it must be remembered, on the other
hand, that Wordsworth was never contented with simply copying what he
saw in Nature. Of the 'Evening Walk'--written in his eighteenth year--he
says that the plan of the poem
"has not been confined to a particular walk or an individual place; a
proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to
submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance.
The country is idealised rather than described in any one of its local
aspects. "[13]
Again, he says of the 'Lines written while Sailing in a Boat at Evening':
"It was during a solitary walk on the banks of the Cam that I was
first struck with this appearance, and applied it to my own feelings
in the manner here expressed, changing the scene to the Thames, near
Windsor"; [14]
and of 'Guilt and Sorrow', he said,
"To obviate some distraction in the minds of those who are well
acquainted with Salisbury Plain, it may be proper to say, that of the
features described as belonging to it, one or two are taken from other
desolate parts of England. " [15]
In 'The Excursion' he passes from Langdale to Grasmere, over to
Patterdale, back to Grasmere, and again to Hawes Water, without warning;
and even in the case of the "Duddon Sonnets" he introduces a description
taken direct from Rydal. Mr. Aubrey de Vere tells of a conversation he
had with Wordsworth, in which he vehemently condemned the
ultra-realistic poet, who goes to Nature with
"pencil and note-book, and jots down whatever strikes him most,"
adding, "Nature does not permit an inventory to be made of her charms!
He should have left his pencil and note-book at home; fixed his eye as
he walked with a reverent attention on all that surrounded him, and
taken all into a heart that could understand and enjoy. Afterwards he
would have discovered that while much of what he had admired was
preserved to him, much was also most wisely obliterated. _That which
remained, the picture surviving in his mind, would have presented the
ideal and essential truth of the scene, and done so in large part by
discarding much which, though in itself striking, was not
characteristic. _ In every scene, many of the most brilliant details
are but accidental. "
The two last sentences of this extract give admirable expression to one
feature of Wordsworth's interpretation of Nature. In the deepest poetry,
as in the loftiest music,--in Wordsworth's lyrics as in Beethoven's
sonatas--it is by what they unerringly suggest and not by what they
exhaustively express that their truth and power are known. "In what he
leaves unsaid," wrote Schiller, "I discover the master of style. " It
depends, no doubt, upon the vision of the "inward eye," and the
reproductive power of the idealising mind, whether the result is a
travesty of Nature, or the embodiment of a truth higher than Nature
yields. On the other hand, it is equally certain that the identification
of localities casts a sudden light in many instances upon obscure
passages in a poem, and is by far the best commentary that can be given.
It is much to be able to compare the actual scene, with the ideal
creation suggested by it; as the latter was both Wordsworth's reading of
the text of Nature, and his interpretation of it. In his seventy-third
year, he said, looking back on his 'Evening Walk', that there was not an
image in the poem which he had not observed, and that he "recollected
the time and place where most of them were noted. " In the Fenwick notes,
we constantly find him saying, "the fact occurred strictly as recorded,"
"the fact was as mentioned in the poem"; and the fact very often
involved the accessories of place.
Any one who has tried to trace out the allusions in the "Poems on the
Naming of Places," or to discover the site of "Michael's Sheepfold," to
identify "Ghimmer Crag," or "Thurston-Mere,"--not to speak of the
individual "rocks" and "recesses" near Blea Tarn at the head of Little
Langdale so minutely described in 'The Excursion',--will admit that
local commentary is an important aid to the understanding of Wordsworth.
If to read the 'Yew Trees' in Borrowdale itself,
in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves,
to read 'The Brothers' in Ennerdale, or "The Daffodils" by the shore of
Ullswater, gives a new significance to these "poems of the imagination,"
a discovery of the obscurer allusions to place or scene will deepen our
appreciation of those passages in which his idealism is most pronounced.
Every one knows Kirkstone Pass, Aira Force, Dungeon Ghyll, the Wishing
Gate, and Helm Crag: many persons know the Glowworm Rock, and used to
know the Rock of Names; but where is "Emma's Dell"? or "the meeting
point of two highways," so characteristically described in the twelfth
book of 'The Prelude'? and who will fix the site of the pool in Rydal
Upper Park, immortalised in the poem 'To M. H. '? or identify "Joanna's
Rock"? Many of the places in the English Lake District are undergoing
change, and every year the local allusions will be more difficult to
trace. Perhaps the most interesting memorial of the poet which existed,
viz. the "Rock of Names," on the shore of Thirlmere, is now sunk under
the waters of a Manchester reservoir. Other memorials are perishing by
the wear and tear of time, the decay of old buildings, the alteration of
roads, the cutting down of trees, and the modernising, or "improving,"
of the district generally. All this is inevitable. But it is well that
many of the natural objects, over and around which the light of
Wordsworth's genius lingers, are out of the reach of "improvements," and
are indestructible even by machinery.
If it be objected that several of the places which we try to
identify--and which some would prefer to leave for ever undisturbed in
the realm of imagination--were purposely left obscure, it may be
replied that Death and Time have probably now removed all reasons for
reticence, especially in the case of those poems referring to domestic
life and friendly ties. While an author is alive, or while those are
alive to whom he has made reference in the course of his allusions to
place, it may even be right that works designed for posterity should not
be dealt with after the fashion of the modern "interviewer. " But
greatness has its penalties; and a "fierce light" "beats around the
throne" of Genius, as well as round that of Empire. Moreover, all
experience shows that posterity takes a great and a growing interest in
exact topographical illustrations of the works of great authors. The
labour recently bestowed upon the places connected with Shakespeare,
Scott, and Burns sufficiently attests this.
The localities in Westmoreland, which are most permanently associated
with Wordsworth, are these: Grasmere, where he lived during the years of
his "poetic prime," and where he is buried; Lower Easdale, where he
passed so many days with his sister by the side of the brook, and on the
terraces at Lancrigg, and where 'The Prelude' was dictated; Rydal Mount,
where he spent the latter half of his life, and where he found one of
the most perfect retreats in England; Great Langdale, and Blea Tarn at
the head of Little Langdale, immortalised in 'The Excursion'; the upper
end of Ullswater, and Kirkstone Pass; and all the mountain tracks and
paths round Grasmere and Rydal, especially the old upper road between
them, under Nab Scar, his favourite walk during his later years, where
he "composed hundreds of verses. " There is scarcely a rock or mountain
summit, a stream or tarn, or even a well, a grove, or forest-side in all
that neighbourhood, which is not imperishably identified with this poet,
who at once interpreted them as they had never been interpreted before,
and added
the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.
It may be worthy of note that Wordsworth himself sanctioned the
principle of tracing out local allusions both by dictating the Fenwick
notes, and by republishing his Essay on the topography of the Lakes,
along with the Duddon Sonnets, in 1820--and also, by itself, in
1822--"from a belief that it would tend materially to illustrate" his
poems.
In this edition the topographical Notes usually follow the Poems to
which they refer. But in the case of the longer Poems, such as 'The
Prelude', 'The Excursion', and others, it seems more convenient to print
them at the foot of the page, than to oblige the reader to turn to the
end of the volume.
From the accident of my having tried long ago--at Principal Shairp's
request--to do what he told me he wished to do, but had failed to carry
out, I have been supposed, quite erroneously, to be an 'authority' on
the subject of "The English Lake District, as interpreted in the Poems
of Wordsworth. " The latter, it is true, is the title of one of the books
which I have written about Wordsworth: but, although I visited the Lakes
in 1860,--"as a pilgrim resolute"--and have re-visited the district
nearly every year for more than a quarter of a century, I may say that I
have only a partial knowledge of it. Others, such as Canon Rawnsley, Mr.
Harry Goodwin, and Mr. Rix, for example, know many parts of it much
better than I do; but, as I have often had to compare my own judgment
with that of such experts as the late Dr. Cradock, Principal of
Brasenose College, Oxford, and others, I may add that, when I differ
from them, it has been only after a re-examination of their evidence, at
the localities themselves.
SIXTH. Several Poems, and fragments of poems, hitherto unpublished--or
published in stray quarters, and in desultory fashion--will find a place
in this edition; but I reserve these fragments, and place them all
together, in an Appendix to the last volume of the "Poetical Works. " If
it is desirable to print these poems, in such an edition as this, it is
equally desirable to separate them from those which Wordsworth himself
sanctioned in his final edition of 1849-50.
Every great author in the Literature of the World--whether he lives to
old age (when his judgment may possibly be less critical) or dies young
(when it may be relatively more accurate)--should himself determine what
portions of his work ought, and what ought not to survive. At the same
time,--while I do not presume to judge in the case of writers whom I
know less fully than I happen to know Wordsworth and his
contemporaries,--it seems clear that the very greatest men have
occasionally erred as to what parts of their writings might, with most
advantage, survive; and that they have even more frequently erred as to
what MS. letters, etc. ,--casting light on their contemporaries--should,
or should not, be preserved. I am convinced, for example, that if the
Wordsworth household had not destroyed all the letters which Coleridge
sent to them, in the first decade of this century, the world would now
possess much important knowledge which is for ever lost. It may have
been wise, for reasons now unknown, to burn those letters, written by
Coleridge: but the students of the literature of the period would gladly
have them now.
Passing from the question of the preservation of Letters, it is evident
that Wordsworth was very careful in distinguishing between the Verses
which he sent to Newspapers and Magazines, and those Poems which he
included in his published volumes. His anxiety on this point may be
inferred from the way in which he more than once emphasised the fact of
republication, e. g. in 'Peter Bell' (1819) he put the following
prefatory note to four sonnets, which had previously appeared in
'Blackwood's Magazine', and which afterwards (1828) appeared in the
'Poetical Album' of Alaric Watts, "The following Sonnets having lately
appeared in Periodical Publications are here reprinted. "
Some of the poems (or fragments of poems), included in the 'addenda' to
Volume viii. of this edition, I would willingly have left out
(especially the sonnet addressed to Miss Maria Williams); but, since
they have appeared elsewhere, I feel justified in now reprinting even
that trivial youthful effusion, signed "Axiologus. " I rejoice, however,
that there is no likelihood that the "Somersetshire Tragedy" will ever
see the light. When I told Wordsworth's successor in the Laureateship
that I had burned a copy of that poem, sent to me by one to whom it had
been confided, his delight was great. It is the chronicle of a revolting
crime, with nothing in the verse to warrant its publication. The only
curious thing about it is that Wordsworth wrote it. With this exception,
there is no reason why the fragments which he did not himself republish,
and others which he published but afterwards suppressed, should not now
be printed. The suppression of some of these by the poet himself is as
unaccountable, as is his omission of certain stanzas in the earlier
poems from their later versions. Even the Cambridge 'Installation Ode',
which is so feeble, will be reprinted. [16] 'The Glowworm', which only
appeared in the edition of 1807, will be republished in full. 'Andrew
Jones',--also suppressed after appearing in "Lyrical Ballads" of 1800,
1802, and 1805,--will be replaced, in like manner. The youthful 'School
Exercise' written at Hawkshead, the translation from the 'Georgics' of
Virgil, the poem addressed 'To the Queen' in 1846, will appear in their
chronological place in vol. viii. There are also a translation of some
French stanzas by Francis Wrangham on 'The Birth of Love'-a poem
entitled 'The Eagle and the Dove', which was privately printed in a
volume, consisting chiefly of French fragments, and called 'La petite
Chouannerie, ou Historie d'un College Breton sous l'Empire'--a sonnet on
the rebuilding of a church at Cardiff--an Election Squib written during
the Lowther and Brougham contest for the representation of the county of
Cumberland in 1818--some stanzas written in the Visitors' Book at the
Ferry, Windermere, and other fragments. Then, since Wordsworth published
some verses by his sister Dorothy in his own volumes, other unpublished
fragments by Miss Wordsworth may find a place in this edition. I do not
attach much importance, however, to the recovery of these unpublished
poems. The truth is, as Sir Henry Taylor--himself a poet and critic of
no mean order--remarked [17],
"In these days, when a great man's path to posterity is likely to be
more and more crowded, there is a tendency to create an obstruction,
in the desire to give an impulse. To gather about a man's work all the
details that can be found out about it is, in my opinion, to put a
drag upon it; and, as of the Works, so of the Life. "
The industrious labour of some editors in disinterring the trivial works
of great men is not a commendable industry. All great writers have
occasionally written trifles--this is true even of Shakespeare--and if
they wished them to perish, why should we seek to resuscitate them?
Besides, this labour--whether due to the industry of admiring friends,
or to the ambition of the literary resurrectionist--is futile; because
the verdict of Time is sure, and posterity is certain to consign the
recovered trivialities to kindly oblivion. The question which should
invariably present itself to the editor of the fragments of a great
writer is, "_Can these bones live_? " If they cannot, they had better
never see the light. Indeed the only good reason for reprinting the
fragments which have been lost (because the author himself attached no
value to them), is that, in a complete collection of the works of a
great man, some of them may have a biographic or psychological value.
But have we any right to reproduce, from an antiquarian motive, what--in
a literary sense--is either trivial, or feeble, or sterile?
We must, however, distinguish between what is suitable for an edition
meant either to popularise an author, or to interpret him, and an
edition intended to bring together all that is worthy of preservation
for posterity. There is great truth in what Mr. Arnold has lately said
of Byron:
"I question whether by reading everything which he gives us, we are so
likely to acquire an admiring sense, even of his variety and
abundance, as by reading what he gives us at his happier moments.
Receive him absolutely without omission and compromise, follow his
whole outpouring, stanza by stanza, and line by line, from the very
commencement to the very end, and he is capable of being tiresome. "
[18]
This is quite true; nevertheless, English literature demands a complete
edition of all the works of Byron: and it may be safely predicted that,
for weightier reasons and with greater urgency, it will continue to call
for the collected works of Wordsworth.
It should also be noted that the fact of Wordsworth's having dictated to
Miss Fenwick (so late as 1843) a stanza from 'The Convict' in his note
to 'The Lament of Mary Queen of Scots' (1817), justifies the inclusion
of the whole of that (suppressed) poem in such an edition as this.
The fact that Wordsworth did not republish all his Poems, in his final
edition of 1849-50, is not conclusive evidence that he thought them
unworthy of preservation, and reproduction. It must be remembered that
'The Prelude' itself was a posthumous publication; and also that the
fragmentary canto of 'The Recluse', entitled "Home at Grasmere"--as well
as the other canto published in 1886, and entitled (most prosaically)
"Composed when a probability existed of our being obliged to quit Rydal
Mount as a residence"--were not published by the poet himself. I am of
opinion that his omission of the stanzas beginning:
Among all lovely things my Love had been,
and of the sonnet on his 'Voyage down the Rhine', was due to sheer
forgetfulness of their existence. Few poets remember all their past,
fugitive, productions. At the same time, there are other
fragments,--written when he was experimenting with his theme, and when
the inspiration of genius had forsaken him,--which it is unfortunate
that he did not himself destroy.
Among the Poems which Wordsworth suppressed, in his final edition, is
the Latin translation of 'The Somnambulist' by his son. This will be
republished, more especially as it was included by Wordsworth himself in
the second edition of his "Yarrow Revisited. "
It may be well to mention the 'repetitions' which are inevitable in this
edition,
(1) As already explained, those fragments of 'The Recluse'--which were
issued in all the earlier volumes, and afterwards incorporated in 'The
Prelude'--are printed as they originally appeared.
(2) Short Notes are extracted from Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Recollections
of a Tour made in Scotland' (1803), which illustrate the Poems composed
during that Tour, while the whole text of that Tour will be printed in
full in subsequent volumes.
(3) Other fragments, including the lines beginning,
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe,
will be printed both by themselves in their chronological place, and in
the longer poem of which they form a part, according to the original
plan of their author.
A detail, perhaps not too trivial to mention, is that, in this
edition--at the suggestion of several friends--I have followed the
example of Professor Dowden in his Aldine edition, and numbered the
lines of almost all the poems--even the sonnets. When I have not done
so, the reason will be obvious; viz. either the structure, or the
brevity, of the poem. [19]
In giving the date of each poem, I have used the word "composed," rather
than "written," very much because Wordsworth himself,--and his sister,
in her Journals--almost invariably use the word "composed"; although he
criticised the term as applied to the creation of a poem, as if it were
a manufactured article. In his Chronological Table, Mr. Dowden adopts
the word "composed"; but, in his edition of the Poems, he has made use
of the term" written. " [20]
No notice (or almost none) of misprints in Wordsworth's own text is
taken, in the notes to this edition. Sometimes an error occurred, and
was carried on through more than one edition, and corrected in the next:
e. g. , in 'The Childless Father', the editions of 1827, 1832, and 1836
have the line:
Fresh springs of green boxwood, not six months before.
In the 'errata' of the edition of 1836 this is corrected to "fresh
sprigs. " There are other 'errata', which remained in the edition of
1849-50, e. g. , in 'Rob Roy's Grave', "Vools" for "Veols," and mistakes
in quotations from other poets, such as "invention" for "instruction,"
in Wither's poem on the Daisy. These are corrected without mention.
I should perhaps add that, while I have included, amongst the
illustrative notes, extracts from Henry Crabb Robinson's 'Diary', etc. ,
many of them are now published for the first time. These voluminous MSS.
of Robinson's have been re-examined with care; and the reader who
compares the three volumes of the 'Diary', etc. --edited by Dr.
Sadler--with the extracts now printed from the original MS. , will see
where sentences omitted by the original editor have been included.
As this edition proceeds, my debt to many--who have been so kind as to
put their Wordsworth MSS. and memoranda at my disposal--will be
apparent.
It is difficult to acknowledge duly my obligation to collectors of
autograph Letters--Mr. Morrison, the late Mr. Locker Lampson, the late
Mr. Mackay, of the Grange, Trowbridge, and a score of others--but, I
may say in general, that the kindness of those who possess Wordsworth
MSS. in allowing me to examine them, has been a very genuine evidence of
their interest in the Poet, and his work.
My special thanks are due to Mr. Gordon Wordsworth, who has, in the
kindest manner and for many years, placed everything at my disposal,
which could further my labour on his grandfather's Works.
Finally, I wish to express the great debt I owe to the late Mr. J. Dykes
Campbell, for many suggestions, and for his unwearied interest in this
work,--which I think was second only to his interest in Coleridge--and
also to Mr. W. B. Kinghorn for his valuable assistance in the revision
of proof sheets.
If there are any desiderata, in reference to Wordsworth--in addition to
a new Life, a critical Essay, and such a Bibliography of Criticism as
will be adequate for posterity--a 'Concordance' to his works is one of
them. A correspondent once offered to prepare this for me, if I found a
publisher: and another has undertaken to compile a volume of 'parallel
passages' from the earlier poets of England, and of the world. A
Concordance might very well form part of a volume of 'Wordsworthiana',
and be a real service to future students of the poet.
William Knight.
[Footnote 1: In addition to my own detection of errors in the text and
notes to the editions 1882-9, I acknowledge special obligation to the
late Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University, Principal Greenwood,
who went over every volume with laborious care, and sent me the result.
To the late Mr. J. Dykes Campbell, to Mr. J. R. Tutin, to the Rev.
Thomas Hutchinson of Kimbolton, and to many others, I am similarly
indebted. ]
[Footnote 2: See 'Memoirs of William Wordsworth', ii. pp. 113, 114. ]
[Footnote 3: It is however different with the fragments which were
published in all the editions issued in the poet's lifetime, and
afterwards in 'The Prelude', such as the lines on "the immortal boy" of
Windermere. These are printed in their chronological place, and also in
the posthumous poem. ]
[Footnote 4: 'Poems of Wordsworth selected and arranged by Matthew
Arnold'. London: Macmillan and Co. ]
[Footnote 5: See the 'Life of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton', vol. ii. pp, 132,
135. ]
[Footnote 6: See the Preface to the American edition of 1837. ]
[Footnote 7: It need hardly be explained that, in the case of a modern
poet, these various readings are not like the conjectural guesses of
critics and commentators as to what the original text was (as in the
case of the Greek Poets, or of Dante, or even of Shakespeare). They are
the actual alterations, introduced deliberately as improvements, by the
hand of the poet himself. ]
[Footnote 8: The collection in the British Museum, and those in all the
University Libraries of the country, are incomplete. ]
[Footnote 9: The publication of this edition was superintended by Mr.
Carter, who acted as Wordsworth's secretary for thirty-seven years, and
was appointed one of his literary executors. ]
[Footnote 10: Let the indiscriminate admirer of "first editions" turn to
this quarto, and perhaps even he may wonder why it has been rescued from
oblivion. I am only aware of the existence of five copies of the edition
of 1793; and although it has a certain autobiographic value, I do not
think that many who read it once will return to it again, except as a
literary curiosity. Here--and not in "Lyrical Ballads" or 'The
Excursion'--was the quarry where Jeffrey or Gifford might have found
abundant material for criticism. ]
[Footnote 11: It is unfortunate that the 'Memoirs' do not tell us to
what poem the remark applies, or to whom the letter containing it was
addressed. ]
[Footnote 12: It is important to note that the printed text in several
of the editions is occasionally cancelled in the list of 'errata', at
the beginning or the end of the volume: also that many copies of the
early editions (notably those of 1800), were bound up without the full
'errata' list. In this edition there were two such lists, one of them
very brief. But the cancelled words in these 'errata' lists, must be
taken into account, in determining the text of each edition. ]
[Footnote 13: I. F. note. See vol. i. p. 5. ]
[Footnote 14: I. F. note. See vol. i. p. 32. ]
[Footnote 15: Advertisement. See vol. i. p. 78. ]
[Footnote 16: How much of this poem was Wordsworth's own has not been
definitely ascertained. I am of opinion that very little, if any of it,
was his. It has been said that his nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln,
wrote most of it; but more recent evidence tends to show that it was the
work of his son-in-law, Edward Quillinan. ]
[Footnote 17: In a letter to the writer in 1882. ]
[Footnote 18: 'The Poetry of Byron, chosen and arranged by Matthew
Arnold'. London: Macmillan and Co. ]
[Footnote 19: It may not be too trivial a fact to mention that
Wordsworth numbered the lines of his earliest publication, 'An Evening
Walk, in 1793. --Ed.
