No More Learning

William Knight.



[Footnote 1: In addition to my own detection of errors in the text and
notes to the editions 1882-9, I acknowledge special obligation to the
late Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University, Principal Greenwood,
who went over every volume with laborious care, and sent me the result.
To the late Mr. J. Dykes Campbell, to Mr. J. R. Tutin, to the Rev.
Thomas Hutchinson of Kimbolton, and to many others, I am similarly
indebted. ]


[Footnote 2: See 'Memoirs of William Wordsworth', ii. pp. 113, 114. ]


[Footnote 3: It is however different with the fragments which were
published in all the editions issued in the poet's lifetime, and
afterwards in 'The Prelude', such as the lines on "the immortal boy" of
Windermere. These are printed in their chronological place, and also in
the posthumous poem. ]


[Footnote 4: 'Poems of Wordsworth selected and arranged by Matthew
Arnold'.
London: Macmillan and Co. ]


[Footnote 5: See the 'Life of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton', vol. ii. pp, 132,
135. ]


[Footnote 6: See the Preface to the American edition of 1837. ]


[Footnote 7: It need hardly be explained that, in the case of a modern
poet, these various readings are not like the conjectural guesses of
critics and commentators as to what the original text was (as in the
case of the Greek Poets, or of Dante, or even of Shakespeare). They are
the actual alterations, introduced deliberately as improvements, by the
hand of the poet himself. ]


[Footnote 8: The collection in the British Museum, and those in all the
University Libraries of the country, are incomplete. ]


[Footnote 9: The publication of this edition was superintended by Mr.
Carter, who acted as Wordsworth's secretary for thirty-seven years, and
was appointed one of his literary executors. ]


[Footnote 10: Let the indiscriminate admirer of "first editions" turn to
this quarto, and perhaps even he may wonder why it has been rescued from
oblivion. I am only aware of the existence of five copies of the edition
of 1793; and although it has a certain autobiographic value, I do not
think that many who read it once will return to it again, except as a
literary curiosity. Here--and not in "Lyrical Ballads" or 'The
Excursion'--was the quarry where Jeffrey or Gifford might have found
abundant material for criticism. ]


[Footnote 11: It is unfortunate that the 'Memoirs' do not tell us to
what poem the remark applies, or to whom the letter containing it was
addressed. ]


[Footnote 12: It is important to note that the printed text in several
of the editions is occasionally cancelled in the list of 'errata', at
the beginning or the end of the volume: also that many copies of the
early editions (notably those of 1800), were bound up without the full
'errata' list.