VOL.  III.

CRITICAL AND ETHICAL.

I. Notes and Illustrations of the Poems, incorporating: 

(a) The Notes originally added to the first and successive editions.

(b) The whole of the I.F.  MSS.

This division of the Prose has cost the Editor more labour and thought than any other, from the scattered and hitherto unclassified semi-publication of these Notes.  Those called ‘original’ are from the first and successive editions of the Poems, being found in some and absent in other collections.  An endeavour has been made to include everything, even the briefest; for judging by himself, the Editor believes that to the reverent and thoughtful student of WORDSWORTH the slightest thing is of interest; e.g. one turns to the most commonplace book of topography or contemporary verse in any way noticed by him, just because it is WORDSWORTH who has noticed it, while an old ballad, a legend, a bit of rural usage, takes a light of glory from the page in which it is found.  Hence as so much diamond-dust or filings of gold the published Notes are here brought together.  Added, and far exceeding in quantity and quality alike, it is the privilege of the Editor to print completely and in integrity the I.F.  MSS., as written down to the dictation of WORDSWORTH by Miss FENWICK.  These have been hitherto given with tantalising and almost provoking fragmentariness in the ‘Memoirs’ and in the centenary edition of the Poems—­again withdrawn in the recent Rossetti edition.  In these Notes—­many of which in both senses are elaborate and full—­are some of the deepest and daintiest-worded things from WORDSWORTH.  The I.F.  MSS. are delightfully chatty and informal, and ages hence will be treasured and studied in relation to the Poems by the (then) myriad millions of the English-speaking races.

Miss FENWICK, to whom the world is indebted for these MSS., is immortalised in two Sonnets by WORDSWORTH, which surely long ere this ought to have been included in the Poetical Works; and they may fitly reappear here (from the ’Memoirs’): 

   ’On a Portrait of I.F., painted by Margaret Gillies.

    We gaze—­nor grieve to think that we must die,
    But that the precious love this friend hath sown
    Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown
    Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,
    Will pass so soon from human memory;
    And not by strangers to our blood alone,
    But by our best descendants be unknown,
    Unthought of—­this may surely claim a sigh. 
    Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection;
    Thou against Time so feelingly dost strive: 
    Where’er, preserved in this most true reflection,
    An image of her soul is kept alive,
    Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection,
    Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.