VALEDICTORY SONNET

1838

Serving no haughty Muse, my hands have here
Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from

spots
Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots),
Each kind in several beds of one parterre ;
Both to allure the Casual Loiterer,
And that, so placed, my Nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.
But metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,
Reader, farewell! My last words let them bem
If in this book Fancy and Truth agree ;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art
Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!

Streal

The present issue of Wordsworth's "Sonnets” has been edited by Mr G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge, Professor of English Literature in University College, Sheffield.

I. G. June 1st, 1899.

NOTE BY THE PRESENT

EDITOR

Ir any justification is needed for extracting Wordsworth's Sonnets from the mass of his work and publishing them by themselves, it is found in the fact that the poet himself, in 1838, published in separate form a collection of almost all the Sonnets he had written up to that time. Strange to say, although by the time of his death in 1850 he had vastly added to the number of his Sonnets, no more complete separate collection than that of 1838 has been made to this day.

In now at last preparing a comprehensive edition,

I have felt it my duty to fit the Sonnets, as far as ML possible, into the framework devised by the Poet

himself in 1838, but at the same time as regards the LA FAB? text and the order of the Sonnets within a given series,

to follow Wordsworth's wishes as shown in the final revision of his works.

I quite agree with Professor Dowden (“Wordsworth's Poetical Works,' vol. iii. pp. 327, 328) that the order in which Wordsworth finally arranged his Sonnets had been very carefully thought out. I have therefore dever departed from it but in a few cases where the plan of this book seemed to make it necessary. For example, I have kept at the end of this book the

Valedictory Sonnet' with which Wordsworth closed the Sonnets' of 1838, although in the later editions of his works it is classed with the Miscellaneous Sonnets.'

I owe some acknowledgment to Professor Dowden for the assistance I have derived from his edition. In conclusion, I would direct the reader to a very instructive Note on the Wordsworthian Sonnet' by that most accomplished of Wordsworthians, Mr Thomas Hutchinson. It is to be found in his edition of Poems in Two Volumes by William Wordsworth' (Nutt, 1897), vol. i. p. 208.

NOTES PAGE SONNET 3. 1. • Beloved Vale' Probably Hawkshead, where

the poet had been at school. 3. 2. Beaumont ! Sir George B. gave W. the place.

His friend Coleridge was then living at

Greta Hall, Keswick. 4. 2 W. and his sister Dorothy had rested by the

rill (where it fell into Windermere) on
their first visit to the district (perhaps in 2

1794).
5. 2. O friend. Rev. Sam. Tillbrook.
7. 1. Aerial rock. Holme-Scar, a projection of

Loughrigg facing Rydal Mount. It is the

rocky parapet of Sonnet 2, on page 22. ? 13. 1. On the marriage of Thos. Hutchinson to

Mary Monkhouse.
15. 1. “Suggested by my daughter Catherine long

after her death. -W. W.
1. Dear Sister! Sarah Hutchinson, sister of the

poet's wife.
19. 2. Calvert. Raisley Calvert left the poet £900

in 1795.

29. 1. The opening words are by Cowper.
31. 1. The first two lines are by Sir Philip Sidney,

( Astrophel and Stella,' Sonnet xxxi).
33. 2. The phrase set up my rest' is frequent in

Shakespeare. It is originally derived from
a game of cards, in which it signified make

up my hand,' am content.'
34. 2. That wide plain – between Preston and
2. Thomson, the author of the Seasons,' is

buried at Richmond, Surrey.
2. The castle was probably Carnarvon, visi

by the poet in 1824.

Lancaster.

41.

272

ted

chinen

PAGE SONNET
45. 1. Anna is Miss Jewsbury.
56. 2. Suggested by the mental decay of Mrs

Southcy.
58. 2. Written after reading Dr Chr. Wordsworth's

Theophilus Anglicanus. 73. The Beace of Amiens had been signed on

March 25, 1802. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy landed in Calais on Aug. I

following: 74 1. Bonaparte had been created First Consul for

life in May 1802. 2. Wordsworth and his college-friend Robert

Jones (whose parsonage is described in Sonnet 1, on page 42) had as undergraduates witnessed at Calais the Feast of the Federa

tion, July 14, 1790. See Prelude, Book VI. 75. 2. See preceding note. 76. 1. Venice had been ceded to Austria by the

treaty of Lunéville, Feb. 9, 1801. 76. 2. Gustavus IV. of Sweden had shown himself

the determined enemy of Bonaparte. 77. 1. Toussaint L'Ouverture was the leader of the

negroes of San Domingo, who had revolted against France, but had been conquered in May 1802, when L'Ouverture was sent to

France as a prisoner. He died in 1803. 79. 1. Bonaparte in 1802 had put down a civil war

in Switzerland and, by the Act of Mediation, promulgated Feb. 19, 1803, he was made Mediator of the Confederation of

Switzerland, 82. 1. War between England and France had again

broken out May 18, 1803, and Bonaparte

was planing the invasion of England, 87. 1. Flamininus proclaimed the freedom of Greece,

B.C. 196. 88. 1. The Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade

had been passed in March 1807.

Jerice la

w

77.

Seasons