In 1820 "May" became "June." This and the next following stanza ("The staff, &c.") were omitted 1802, 1805. Stanza xxvi, originally told of a grasping and avaricious landlord:

"The suns of twenty summers danced along, -
Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:
Then rose a mansion proud our woods among,
And cottage after cottage owned its sway,
No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray
Through pastures not his own, the master took;
My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;
He loved his old hereditary nook,

And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook."

The "mansion proud" becomes in 1800 "a stately hall." The present text substantially was reached in 1820. There follows in 1798 a stanza given, with alterations, in 1800-1805, and subsequently omitted :

"But, when he had refused the proffered gold,
To cruel injuries he became a prey,
Sore traversed in whate'er he bought and sold:
His troubles grew upon him day by day,
Till all his substance fell into decay.
His little range of water was denied;
All but the bed where his old body lay,
All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,
We sought a home where we uninjured might abide."

A note explains that "several of the lakes in the north of England are let out to different fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines drawn from rock to rock." In 1802, 1805, this reference to the "range of water" was omitted, and other words substituted. The last line of stanza xxvii,

"Glimmered our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!" is a return to text of 1798, in place of the reading 1802

1805:

" I saw our own dear home, that was no longer ours." Many improvements in detail were effected in stanzas xxviii-xxxiii. Between stanzas xxxiii and xxxiv the following appeared in 1798 and 1800:

"Oh! dreadful price of being to resign All that is dear in being! better far

In Want's most lonely cave till death to pine,

Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star;
Or in the streets and walks where proud men are,
Better our dying bodies to obtrude,

Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war,
Protract a curst existence, with the brood

That lap (their very nourishment!) their brother's

blood."

Stanza xxxviii underwent many changes; the last six lines stood thus in 1798:

"The very ocean has its hour of rest,

That comes not to the human mourner's breast.
Remote from man, and storms of mortal care,
A heavenly silence did the waves invest;
I looked and looked along the silent air,
Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair."

Between stanzas xxxix and xl the following stanza appeared in 1798:

"Yet does that burst of woe congeal my frame,
When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape,
While like a sea the storming army came,
And Fire from Hell reared his gigantic shape,
And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape
Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child !
But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!
-For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,
And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled."

This was recast in 1802, and was omitted in 1815 and later editions.

In stanza xliv the seventh line (describing the hospital service) was originally :

"Of service done with careless cruelty."

Instead of "The Travellers" (stanza xlv, 1. 8) edition 1798 has "the wild brood." Between xlv and xlvi appeared in 1798 a stanza omitted 1815 and later editions :

"My heart is touched to think that men like these,
The rude earth's tenants, were my first relief:
How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease !
And their long holiday that feared not grief,
For all belonged to all, and each was chief.

No plough their sinews strained; on grating road
No wain they drove, and yet, the yellow sheaf
In every vale for their delight was stowed:

For them, in nature's meads, the milky udder flowed."

In 1802 "The rude earth's tenants" becomes "Wild houseless Wanderers," and the poetic diction of the last line is got rid of by the substituted line :

"In every field, with milk their dairy overflow'd." The first three lines of stanza xlix in 1798 were :

"I lived upon the mercy of the fields,
And oft of cruelty the sky accused;
On hazard, or what general bounty yields."-ED.

"And, hovering, round it often did a raven fly" (page 52). From a short MS. poem read to me when an undergraduate, by my schoolfellow and friend, Charles Farish, long since deceased. The verses were by a brother of his, a man of promising genius, who died young.-W. W.

The Borderers (page 76).

This Dramatic Piece, as noticed in its title-page, was composed in 1795-6. It lay nearly from that time till within the last two or three months unregarded among my papers, without beir being mentioned even to my most intimate friends. Having, however, impressions upon my mind which made me unwilling to destroy the MS., I determined to undertake the responsibility of publishing it during my own life, rather than impose upon my successors the task of deciding its fate. Accordingly it has been revised with some care; but, as it was at first written, and is now published, without any view to its exhibition upon the stage, not the slightest alteration has been made in the conduct of the story, or the composition of the characters; above all, in respect to the two leading Persons of the Drama, I felt no inducement to make any change. The study of human nature suggests this awful truth, that, as in the trials to which life subjects us, sin and crime are apt to start from their very opposite qualities, so are there no limits to the hardening of the heart, and the perversion of the understanding to which they may carry their slaves. During my long residence in France, while the revolution was rapidly advancing to its extreme of wickedness, I had frequent opportunities of being an eye-witness of this process, and it was while that knowledge was fresh upon my memory, that the Tragedy of "The Borderers" was composed.-W. W.

Of this dramatic work I have little to say in addition to the short note which will be found at the end of the volume. It was composed at Racedown in Dorsetshire during the latter part of the year 1795, and in the course of the following year. Had it been the work of a later period of life, it would have been different in some respects from what it is now. The plot would have been something more complex, and a greater variety of characters introduced to relieve the mind from the pressure of incidents so mournful. The manners also would have been more attended to. My care was almost exclusively given to the passions and the characters, and the position in which the persons in the Drama stood relatively to each other, that the reader (for I had then no thought of the Stage) might be moved, and to a degree instructed, by lights penetrating somewhat into the depths depths of our nature. In this endeavour, 1 cannot think, upon a very late review, that I have failed. As to the scene and period of action, little more was required for my purpose than the absence of established law and government; so that the agents might be at liberty to act on their own impulses. Nevertheless I do remember that, having a wish to colour the manners in some degree from local history more than my knowledge enabled me to do, I read Redpath's History of the Borderers, but found there nothing to my purpose. I once made an observation to Sir Walter Scott, in which he concurred, that it was difficult to conceive how so dull a book could be written on such a subject. Much about the same time, but a little after, Coleridge was employed in writing his tragedy of "Remorse," and it happened that soon after, through one of the Mr. Pooles, Mr. Knight the actor heard that we had been engaged in writing Plays, and upon his suggestion mine was curtailed, and I believe Coleridge's also was offered to Mr. Harris, manager of Covent Garden. For myself, I had no hope nor even a wish (though a successful play would, in the then state of my finances, have been a most welcome piece of good fortune) that he should accept my performance; so that I incurred no disappointment when the piece was judiciously returned as not calculated for the Stage. In this judgment I entirely concurred, and had it been otherwise, it was so natural for me to shrink from public notice, that any hope I might have had of success would not have reconciled me altogether to such an exhibition. Mr. C.'s Play was, as is well known, brought forward several years after through the kindness of Mr. Sheridan. In conclusion I may observe that while I was composing this Play I wrote a short essay illustrative of that constitution and those tendencies of human nature which make the apparently motiveless actions of bad men intelligible to careful observers. This was partly done with reference to the character of Oswald, and his persevering endeavour to lead the man he disliked into so heinous a crime; but still more to preserve in my distinct remembrance what I had observed of transition in character, and the reflections I had been led to make during the time I was a witness of the changes through which the French Revolution passed.-I. F.

"The Borderers" was first published in "Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years," 1842.-ED.

"My heart leaps up when I behold" (page 170).

Written at Town-end, Grasmere.-I. F. Written March 26, 1802; first published 1807, one of the group of poems entitled "Moods of my own Mind." In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, March 26, 1802, we read: "While I was getting into bed he wrote 'The Rainbow." On the same day Wordsworth worked at "The Cuckoo" ("O blithe new-comer"), which in idea may be said to be a companion piece to "My heart leaps up," both poems being occupied with the carrying on of the feelings of boyhood into mature years. The printed text was never altered; but Dorothy notes in her Journal May 14, 1802, "William very nervous. After he was in bed, haunted with altering 'The Rainbow.'"-ED.

To a Butterfly (page 170).

Written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere. My sister and I were parted immediately after the death of our mother, who died in 1778, both being very young.I. F.

Written on Sunday, March 14, 1802; first published 1807, one of the group of poems entitled "Moods of my own Mind." "Emmeline" is Dorothy Wordsworth. In her Journal, March 14, 1802, she writes: "While we were at breakfast he wrote the poem 'To a Butterfly. He ate not a morsel, but sate with his neck

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