Wordsworth's Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, and his Two Letters to the Morning Post on "The Kendal and Windermere Railway," are included in this volume,-on the same principle that the Prefaces and Appendices to his Poems were published in previous ones, viz., from the close relation in which they stand to the Poetical Works, and the light which they cast upon them. These prose fragments will be further referred to in the Life of the poet. Materials for this Life have accumulated, which, if published as they stand, would more than fill another volume of equal size to those already issued; and the importance of presenting the Life by itself, apart from the Works, will justify the slight extension of this edition beyond the limit originally proposed. Through the kindness of Mr William Wordsworth, Elphinstone College, Bombay, and Mr Gordon Wordsworth, -grandsons of the poet,-I shall be able to include in the next volume the unpublished canto of The Recluse, entitled "Home at Grasmere." A portrait of the poet will be given in the same volume. Several Poems now published have not appeared in any previous edition of the Works. I am indebted to the Bishop of St Andrews for most kindly revising the proof-sheets of the first hundred pages of volume seven, containing the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, and for making some valuable suggestions. The etching in volume seven is of Alfoxden, in Somersetshire, where Wordsworth lived with his sister from August 1797 to September 1798. November 1895. WILLIAM KNIGHT. CONTENTS. EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH OF JAMES HOGG. Wordsworth's Description of the Scenery of the Lakes to in the Life of the poet. Materials for this Life have accumulated, which, if pub- Through the kindness of Mr William Wordsworth, Several Poems now published have not appeared in any I am indebted to the Bishop of St Andrews for most The etching in volume seven is of Alfoxden, in Somerset- November 1885. WILLIAM KNIGHT. VI. YE BROOD OF CONSCIENCE-SPECTRES! THAT FREQUENT. VII. BEFORE THE WORLD HAD PASSED HER TIME OF YOUTH. VIII. FIT RETRIBUTION, BY THE MORAL CODE. IX. THOUGH TO GIVE TIMELY WARNING AND DETER. THE CRESCENT-MOON, THE STAR OF LOVE. A POET-HE HATH PUT HIS HEART TO SCHOOL. |