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 possible, into the framework devised by the Poet himself in 1838, but at the same time as regards the 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 never 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.

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PAGE SONNET

88. 2. After the Peace of Tilsit, July 1807, Bavaria
under its king, Maximilian Joseph, became

89. 2.

90.

1.

91.

a member of the Confederation of the
Rhine.

The first mighty Hunter-Nimrod.

Genesis

x. 9, and Paradise Lost xii. 30.
Spain rose in arms after Napoleon had given
the Spanish Crown to his brother Joseph,
June 6, 1808.

1. The rising of the Tyrolese peasants under
Andreas Hofer was rendered ineffectual by
the battle of Wagram, July 6, 1809, and
the Treaty of Vienna made between the
Emperor Francis and Napoleon on October
14, following. See page 95, Sonnet 2.
1. After an obstinate resistance Saragossa was
captured by the French, Feb. 21, 1809.
96. 1. Friedrich Schill, one of the leaders of a
German rising against Napoleon, fell in the
streets of Stralsund, May 31, 1809.

93.

97.

96. 2. Gustavus IV. of Sweden was forced by his
people to abdicate, March 29, 1809.
2. Professor Knight conjectures that the Sonnet
refers to Palafox, the defender of Saragossa,
who became a prisoner of the French in
Feb. 1809, though this—as it would seem
from the next Sonnet-was not known to
Wordsworth.

104.

105.

2. Relates to the effect made by the sight of
the Rhine on the Austrian army under
Schwartzenberg, before the invasion of
France by the Allies in 1814.

1.

105. 2.

After the battle of Leipsic, Oct. 16 to 19.
1813.
The Duke d'Enghien, of the House of
Bourbon, had been lawlessly seized and (on
March 21, 1804) shot at Vincennes in re-
taliation for a plot against the life of Bona-

PAGE SONNET

109.

110.

115.

129.

134.

148.

162.

parte.

He was disinterred in 1816 after the Restoration.

1. The Fast was occasioned by the Cholera of 1832.

1. Professor Dowden says that the blank in the last line takes the place of the name 'Grote.'

1. Young England was the name given to the party headed by Mr Disraeli and Lord John Manners, which revolted from Peel in 1844, in consequence of Peel's tendency towards Corn Law Repeal.

1. Refers to the spring at Donaschingen in the Black Forest.

2. Refers to the 'Cato St. Conspiracy' to assassinate members of the Cabinet, and the disorders attending the return of Queen Caroline.

Sir W. S. left Abbotsford, Sept. 23, 1831. Wordsworth had arrived to bid his friend good-bye on Sept. 21. Scott reached Naples on Dec. 17.

1. like Cocytus. W. refers to the notion that the word Greta' is from the Northern '

to weep.

'greet,'

167. 1. Hillary. Sir W. Hillary aided in founding the Tower of Refuge and the life-boat establishment at Douglas.

168. 1. timely aid furnished by the Poet's son. 172. 1. See p. 152 Sonnet 1.

175. 2. The concluding lines are 'from a sonnet of Russel.'

192.

220.

1. The quotation in line 1, is from the poet Daniel.

a Gospel Teacher, the Rev. Robert Walker, whose devoted life Wordsworth has described at length in a note on this poem. 1. Wordsworth here referred to the story of Pope