Malham Cove (page 41).

Written 1818 or 1819; first published 1819 (with "Peter Bell"). See note on last sonnet. L. 13, "Thought's optic glass" (1837); previously "truth's mystic glass.' -ED.

Gordale (page 41).

Written 1818 or 1819; first published 1819 (with "Peter Bell"). See note on "Pure element of waters." No change of text except 1. 11, "yet" (1827); previously "and."-ED.

"Earth has not anything to show more fair" (page 42). Written on the roof of a coach, on my way to France. -I. F.

Written July 31, 1802; first published 1807. Text unchanged. Edd. 1807-37 give the date "Sept. 3, 1803;' edd. 1843-49, "Sept. 3, 1802." Professor Knight errs in giving the date as July 30. In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal we read: "We left London on Saturday morning at half past five or six, the 30th [should be 31st] of July. We mounted the Dover coach at Charing Cross. It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not over-hung_by_their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a fierce light, that there was something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles."-Ed.

Date uncertain; first published 1827. Text unchanged. -ED.

"Though the bold wings of Poesy," etc. (page 43). Date uncertain; first published 1842. Text unchanged. -ED.

"Ye sacred Nurseries," etc. (page 44).

Written 1820; first published 1820. Text unchanged. -ED.

"Shame on this faithless heart!" (page 44).

Written 1820; first published 1820. No change of text except "clove" and "sang" (1827) in l. 4 and l. 5 ; ' previously "cleaves," "sings."-ED.

Recollections of the Portrait, etc. (page 45).

Date uncertain; first published 1827. Text unchanged. -ED.

On the Death of his Majesty (page 45).

Written 1820 (George III. died Jan. 29, 1820); first published 1820. L. 5 (1827); in 1820, "Yet haply cheered with some faint glimmering."-ED.

June, 1820 (page 46).

Written 1820; first published 1820. L. 8 (1827); in 1820, “While I bethought me of a distant day.” Probably written before Wordsworth started for the Continent in 1820. Thomson is buried at Richmond.-ED.

A Parsonage in Oxfordshire (page 46).

This Parsonage was the residence of my friend Jones, and is particularly described in another note.-I. F.

Written 1820; first published in a note, p. 121 of "Ecclesiastical Sketches," 1822; included in Miscellaneous Sonnets, 1827. Mrs. Wordsworth writes in her Journal of Continental Tour, 1820. "July 14. Bruges... I joined W. in our carriage, and have here written down the sonnet Jones' Parsonage'; so I hope he will be at rest.” Lines 11, 12 (1827); in 1822:

"Meanwhile between these Poplars, as they wave
Their lofty summits,"

The note referred to in the Fenwick note is that on
Sonnet XVIII. of Part III. of Ecclesiastical Sonnets.
-ED.

Composed among the Ruins of a Castle (page 47).

Date uncertain; probably 1824, when Wordsworth, in September, visited Carnarvon Castle; first published 1827. Text unchanged, except 1. 2, "footsteps" (1837); previously "footstep."-ED.

To the Lady E. B. and the Hon. Miss P. (page 47). Composed in the grounds of Plass Newidd near Llangollen, 1824.

In this Vale of Meditation my friend Jones resided, having been allowed by his diocesan to fix himself there without resigning his Living in Oxfordshire. He was with my wife and daughter and me when we visited these celebrated ladies who had retired, as one may say, into notice in this vale. Their cottage lay directly in the road between London and Dublin, and they were of course visited by their Irish friends as well as innumerable strangers. They took much delight in passing jokes on our friend Jones's plumpness, ruddy cheeks, and smiling countenance, as little suited to a hermit living in the Vale of Meditation. We all thought there was ample room for retort on his part, so curious was the appearance of these ladies, so elaborately sentimental about themselves and their Caro Albergo, as they named it in an inscription on a tree that stood opposite, the endearing epithet being preceded by the word Ecco! calling upon the saunterer to look about him. So oddly was one of these ladies attired that we took her, at a little distance, for a Roman Catholic priest, with a crucifix and relics hung at his neck. They were without caps, their hair bushy and white as snow, which contributed to the mistake.-I. F.

Written 1824; first published 1827. Text unchanged. This sonnet was sent in a letter to Sir G. Beaumont of Sept. 20, 1824. The ladies were the devoted friends, Lady Eleanor Butler and the Hon. Miss Ponsonby, who withdrew together to Plass Newidd and there died.-ED.

To the Torrent at the Devil's Bridge (page 48).

Written 1824; first published 1827. Text unchanged. Wordsworth in the letter of Sept. 24, 1824, to Sir. G. Beaumont tells of his visit to the waterfalls: While Dora was attempting to make a sketch from the chasm in the rain, I composed by her side the following address to the torrent."-ED.

"Wild Redbreast!" etc. (page 49).

This Sonnet, as Poetry, explains itself, yet the scene of the incident having been a wild wood, it may be doubted, as a point of natural history, whether the bird was aware

that his attentions were bestowed upon a human, or even a living, creature. But a Redbreast will perch upon the foot of a gardener at work, and alight on the handle of the spade when his hand is half upon it-this I have seen. And under my own roof I have witnessed affecting instances of the creature's friendly visits to the chambers of sick persons, as described in the verses to the Redbreast, p. 332, vol. i. One of these welcome intruders used frequently to roost upon a nail in the wall, from which a picture had hung, and was ready, as morning came, to pipe his song in the hearing of the invalid, who had been long confined to her room. These attachments to a particular person, when marked and continued, used to be reckoned ominous; but the superstition is passing away. -W. W.

Date uncertain; first published 1827. Ll. 1,2 (1837); previously:

66

Strange Visitation! at Jemima's lip

Thus hadst thou pecked, wild Redbreast, Love might say." The sonnet until 1837 had no title.-ED.

"When Philoctetes," etc. (page 49).

Date uncertain; first published 1827. Ll. 2, 3 (1837) ; previously:

"Lay couched; upon that breathless Monument,
On him, or on his fearful bow unbent."

Ll. 8, 9 (1837); previously:

"From home affections, and heroic toil.
Nor doubt."

In 1. 10 "which" (1837) replaced "that"; in 1. 11 “Yea, veriest” (1837); previously "And very.” Professor Knight notes that the original title of this sonnet in MS. was "Suggested by the same Incident" (i.e., as Sonnet XI.), and he gives from MS. an earlier and imperfect form of the sonnet.-Ed.

"While Anna's peers and early playmates tread"
(page 50).

This is taken from the account given by Miss Jewsbury of the pleasure she derived, when long confined to her bed

by sickness, from the inanimate object on which this Sonnet turns-I. F.

Date uncertain; first published 1827 : Ll. 1, 2 (1837); in 1827:

"While they, her playmates once, light-hearted tread The mountain turf and river's flowery marge;'

in 1832 the second of these lines remained, the first became-" While they, who once were Anna's playmates, tread." L. 5 (1832); in 1827,“ Is Anna doomed to press.' L. 9 (1837); previously "Yet Genius is no feeble comforter."-ED.

To the Cuckoo (page 50).

Date uncertain; first published 1827. Text unchanged. -ED.

"Wait, prithee, wait" (page 51).

The fate of this poor Dove, as described, was told to me at Brinsop Court, by the young lady to whom I have given the name of Lesbia.-I. F.

Date uncertain; first published 1835. Text unchanged. Professor Knight notes that "Lesbia's" real name was Miss Loveday Walker. She was daughter to the Rector of Brinsop.-ED.

The infant was Mary Monkhouse, the only daughter of my friend and cousin Thomas Monkhouse.-I. F. Date uncertain; first published 1827. Ll. 5, 6 (1837); previously "a trace . . . sullies not her cheek."-ED.

To

in her seventieth year (page 52).

Lady Fitzgerald, as described to me by Lady Beaumont.-I. F.

"To

Date uncertain; first published 1827 (with the title -"). Text unchanged except in l. 11" toward" (1832); "towards" (1827). Professor Knight (vol. vii. Appendix) gives a version from a MS. in Mrs. Wordsworth's handwriting (belonging to 1824, see "Coleorton Letters," ii. 235) which differs in the octave so widely from the published poem that it seems well to print the lines in full:

"Lady, what delicate graces may unite
In age-so often comfortless and bleak!