XIII. Dora Wordsworth, by Margaret Gillies. Wyon. VIGNETTES. Bolton Abbey. Blea Tarn. by Thomas Woolner. Peele Castle. All the etchings will be prepared by H. Manesse. The portraits, with many others, will be described in detail in a subsequent volume. In all editorial notes the titles given by Wordsworth to his Poems are invariably printed in italics, not with inverted commas before and after, as Wordsworth himself so often printed them: and when he gave no title to a poem, its first line will be invariably placed within inverted commas. This plan of using Italics, and not Roman letters, applies also to the title of any book referred to by Wordsworth, or by his sister in her Journals. Whether they put the title in italics, or within commas, it is always italicised in this edition. A subsidiary matter such as this becomes important when one finds that many editors of parts of the Works of Wordsworth, or of Selections from them, have invented titles of their own; and have sent their volumes to press without the slightest indication to their readers that the titles were not Wordsworth's; mixing up their own notion of what best described the contents of the Poem, or the Letter, with those of the writer. Some have suppressed Wordsworth's, and put their own title in its place! others have contented themselves (more modestly) with inventing a title when Wordsworth gave none. I do not object to these titles in themselves. Several, such as those by Archbishop Trench, are suggestive and valuable. What I object to is that any editor—no matter who-should mingle his own titles with those of the Poet, and give no indication to the reader as to which is which. Dr. Grosart has been so devoted a student of Wordsworth, and we owe him so much, that one regrets to find in "The Prose Works of Wordsworth" (1876) the following title given to his letter to the Bishop of Llandaff, Apology for the French Revolution. It is interesting to know that Dr. Grosart thought this a useful description of the letter: but a clear indication should have been given that it was not Wordsworth's. It is true that, in the general preface to his volumes, Dr. Grosart takes upon himself the responsibility for this title; but it should not have been printed as the title in chief, or as the headline to the text. Similarly, with the titles of the second and third of the three Essays on Epitaphs. As students of Wordsworth know, he issued a volume in 1838 containing all his sonnets then written; and, at the close of that edition, he added, "The six Sonnets annexed were composed as this Volume was going through the Press, but too late for insertion in the class of miscellaneous ones to which they belong." In 1884, Archbishop Trench edited the sonnets, with an admirable introductory "Essay on the History of the English Sonnet "; but, while Wordsworth gave no title to the 3rd and the 4th of the six, "composed as the Volume was going through the Press," either in his edition of 1838, or in any subsequent issue of his Poems-his editor did so. He gave what are really excellent titles, but he does not tell us that they are his own! He calls them respectively The Thrush at Twilight, and The Thrush at Dawn. Possibly Wordsworth would have approved of both of those titles: but, that they are not his, should have been indicated. I do not think it wise, from an editorial point of view, even to print in a "Chronological Table"as Professor Dowden has done, in his admirable Aldine edition-titles which were not Wordsworth's, without some indication to that effect. But, in the case of Selections from Wordsworth-such as those of Mr. Hawes Turner, and Mr. A. J. Symington,— every one must feel that the editor should have informed his readers when the title was Wordsworth's, and when it was his own coinage. In the case of a much greater man-and one of Wordsworth's most illustrious successors in the great hierarchy of English poesy, Matthew Arnold-it may be asked why should he have put Margaret, or the Ruined Cottage, as the title of a poem written in 1795-7, when Wordsworth never once published it under that name? It was an extract from the first book of The Excursionwritten, it is true, in these early years,—but only issued as part of the latter poem, first published in 1814. The question of the number, the character, and the length of the Notes, which a wise editor should append to the works of a great poet, (or to any classic), is perhaps still sub judice. My own opinion is that, in all editorial work, the notes should be illustrative rather than critical; and that they should only bring out those points, which the ordinary reader of the text would not readily understand, if the poems were not annotated. For this reason, topographical, historical, and antiquarian notes are almost essential. The Notes which Wordsworth himself wrote to his Poems, are of unequal length and merit. It was perhaps necessary for him to write-at all events it is easy to understand, and to sympathise with, his writing the long note on the revered parson of the Duddon Valley, the Rev. Robert Walker, who will be remembered for many, generations as the "Wonderful Walker." The Poet's editors have also been occasionally led to add digressive notes, to clear up points which had been left by himself either dubious, or obscure. I must plead guilty to the charge of doing so: eg. the identification of "The Muccawiss" (see The Excursion, book iii. 1. 953) with the Whip-poor-Will involved a great deal of laborious correspondence years ago. It was a question of real difficulty; and, although the result reached could now be put into two or three lines, I have thought it desirable that the opinions of those who wrote about it, and helped toward the solution, should be recorded. What I print is only a small part of the correspondence that took place. On the other hand, it would be quite out of place, in a note to the famous passage in the 4th book of The Excursion, beginning I have seen A curious child applying to his ear to enter on a discussion as to the extent of Wordsworth's debt-if any—to the author of Gebir. It is quite sufficient to print the relative passage from Landor's poem at the foot of the page. All the Notes written by Wordsworth himself in his numerous editions will be found in this one, with the date of their first appearance added. Slight textual changes, however, or casual addenda, are not indicated, unless they are sufficiently important. Changes in the text of notes have not the same importance to posterity, as changes in the text of poems. In the preface to the Prose Works, reference will be made to Wordsworth's alterations of his text. At present I refer only to his own notes to his Poems. When they were written as footnotes to the page, they remain footnotes still. When they were placed by him as prefaces to his Poems, they retain that place in this edition; but when they were appendix notes -as e.g. in the early editions of "Lyrical Ballads " -they are now made footnotes to the Poems they illustrate. In such a case, however, as the elaborate note to The Excursion, containing a reprint of the Essay upon Epitaphs-originally contributed to "The Friend"—it is transferred to the Prose Works, to which it belongs by priority of date; and, as it would be inexpedient to print it twice over, it is omitted from the notes to The Excursion. As to the place which Notes to a poet's works should occupy, there is no doubt that numerous and lengthy ones-however valuable, or even necessary, by way of illustration,-disfigure the printed page; and some prefer that they should be thrown all together at the end of each volume, or at the close of a series; such as-in Wordsworth's case- "The River Duddon," "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," The Prelude, The White Doe of Rylstone, etc. I do not think, however, that many care to turn repeatedly to the close of a series of poems, or the end of a volume, to find an explanatory note, helped only by an index number, and when perhaps even that does not meet his eye at the foot of the page. I do not find that even ardent Wordsworth students like to search for notes in "appendices"; and perhaps the more ardent they are the less desirable is it for them thus "to hunt the waterfalls." VOL. I b |