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PREFACE.

THIS Selection from the Poems of Wordsworth is the result of a suggestion made to "The Wordsworth Society" some years ago.

It seemed desirable that, in addition to the annual volume of Transactions, privately printed for its own members, the Society should issue a volume of Selections for general use, the choice and editing of which would be the joint work of those who had taken a chief part in the work of the Society. An earlier idea had been to ask some twenty or thirty of the members-whose critical opinion the rest might specially desire to have-to make out a list of the poems which they deemed of greatest value to the world, and to publish these lists in the Transactions. It was thought that, since the Society included several contemporary poets and men of letters, the selections made by them would have a permanent interest to students of literature. Had it been carried out, however, the result would probably have been more curious than useful, and it was found that difficulties stood in the way of its realisation.

That idea being abandoned, I undertook the responsibility of fixing on the poems to be included in a volume of Selections; and, sending the list to certain

members of the Society, I received their advice and cooperation in various ways. The names of those who have helped me are printed at pages xiv. and xv.

The following are the special features of this volume:— (1.) The poems are arranged chronologically, as in the library edition of the poet's works published at Edinburgh (1882-6.)1

(2.) Certain years have been assigned to those who have assisted in the work, and their opinion has been asked as to the wisdom of the selection made from the poems written during these years. In some cases, poems which have been omitted by me have been added by them; and in other instances, those selected by me have been cancelled.

(3.) Brief notes have been written by the editors, where they have deemed it necessary.

I am responsible for the selection of the text of the poems made use of in this edition. Every reader of Wordsworth knows that his text varied very considerably in the successive editions published during the poet's life-time; and that neither was the first text invariably the best, nor the later always an improvement on the earlier. Mr. Matthew Arnold, in his volume of Selections, has kept throughout to the edition of 1832. Were we limited to a single text I would prefer that of the stereotyped edition of 1836, or the final text of 1849. But we are not thus limited; and an attempt has been made in this volume to select the best text, in

1 Those referring to the tour in Scotland in 1803, however, are printed as if they all belonged to that year, although some were composed many years after.

the case of each poem included in it, although it would be impossible to state the grounds on which the selection has been made.

It is not with the view of adding to Wordsworth's fame that this little book has been prepared, or that any new selection from his works is desirable; but rather with the view of popularising him, and of extending his influence amongst the masses of the English-speaking Within a certain limited area that influence could scarcely be deeper than it is. By the suffrage of the wisest, and the ever-increasing recognition of the best of men, the place which he now fills, both as Teacher and Poet, is high up amongst the Immortals of Literature; and to praise him is almost an impertinence.

race.

But the masses do not know him. And yet why should not the masses both know and appreciate him, as much as they appreciate Scott and Burns? Hartley Coleridge once said of Wordsworth that "he alone, of all the followers of Milton, had a right to appropriate his 'fit audience may I find, though few.'" But why should the audience now be few? It has grown more numerous every year since the poet's death, and it should grow more numerous still. In one of his finest sonnets Wordsworth wrote of Milton

"Milton, thou should'st be living at this hour,
England hath need of thee."

The last of these two lines may certainly be applied to himself. We do not wish him back amongst us, but we desire that his influence should increase, for nothing is more needed in our time than the elevating and tranquillising influence of poetry of the first magnitude,

-such poetry as lifts us above ourselves to what is great, elemental, and enduring. The publication, in a convenient form, of the best things that Wordsworth has given us-issued with the sanction of representative members of a Society founded to promote the study of his works, and edited by several of them in concertshould help toward this end. Selection and compression are of course necessary, if the masses are to read Wordsworth, and find out the secret of his power; but I think that the masses may yet come to endorse Mr. Arnold's judgment as to "the great and ample body of powerful work which remains, after all his inferior work has been cleared away," greater in amount and quality, Mr. Arnold thinks-and I humbly endorse his opinion-than that of any other English poet except Shakespeare and Milton.

If this be so, Wordsworth's influence over the generations of the future is an assured influence. It will last, because it deals not with transient fashions but with abiding needs, because it touches the deepest springs of human life, and is therefore an inexhaustible fountain of inspiration, strength, and joy.

In further explanation of the order adopted in this volume, reference must be made to Wordsworth's own arrangement of his poems. It is an extremely artificial one, although many have come to like it from old association, and from the interest attaching to the main distinction which he drew between poems of the Fancy and those of the Imagination; but his groups were both arbitrary and very miscellaneous.1

1 Sir William Rowan Hamilton wrote to Mr. Aubrey de Vere in 1835, that Wordsworth's daughter had hinted to him that her father himself "was sometimes at a loss whether to refer her to the Poems of

Mr. Arnold-who has given us by far the best volume of "Selections" hitherto issued-has divided the poems into classes, which appear to me to labour under the same disadvantage as Wordsworth's own. We have (1) Ballads, (2) Narrative poems, (3) Lyrics, (4) Poems akin to the antique, (5) Sonnets, (6) Reflective and elegiac poems. I do not criticise the arrangement, we are so grateful to Mr. Arnold for the services he has rendered. It would be a mistake, however, to attempt another classification of the poems; it would be unwise to recast them in new groups, even were it possible to make the groups more adequate. It is in all respects more desirable to keep to the chronological order, which will be of use as exhibiting the growth of Wordsworth's genius, and enabling the reader to follow its successive stages.

As to previous volumes of Selections, Mr. Joseph Hine prepared a volume during the poet's life-time which he called Selections from the Poems of William Wordsworth, Esq., chiefly for the use of Schools and Young Persons. It was first published in 1831, and a new edition appeared in 1834. This was in many respects a praiseworthy selection. Mr. Hine followed an order of his own, and included portions of four books of The Excursion.

A short collection-(67 in all)-of Select Pieces from the Poems of William Wordsworth (illustrated) was published by Messrs. Moxon & Son during the poet's life, but the edition is undated-the motive, as explained in the "advertisement," being that it was "now high the Imagination or Poems of the Fancy for some particular passage;' and Aubrey de Vere, in reply to Hamilton, spoke of Wordsworth's arrangement as a "parade of system," and adds, "I cannot help thinking that in it he mistakes classification for method." (See the Life of Sir W. R. Hamilton, vol. ii. pp. 132 and 135.)

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