No More Learning

THE LIFE.

XVI. " " by Frederick Thrupp. Grasmere Church and Churchyard.

" " by Samuel Laurence.

" " by Benjamin R. Haydon.


All the etchings will be prepared by H. Manesse. The portraits, with
many others, will be described in detail in a subsequent volume.

In all editorial notes the titles given by Wordsworth to his Poems are
invariably printed in italics, not with inverted commas before and
after, as Wordsworth himself so often printed them: and when he gave no
title to a poem, its first line will be invariably placed within
inverted commas. This plan of using Italics, and not Roman letters,
applies also to the title of any book referred to by Wordsworth, or by
his sister in her Journals. Whether they put the title in italics, or
within commas, it is always italicised in this edition.

A subsidiary matter such as this becomes important when one finds that
many editors of parts of the Works of Wordsworth, or of Selections from
them, have invented titles of their own; and have sent their volumes to
press without the slightest indication to their readers that the titles
were not Wordsworth's; mixing up their own notion of what best described
the contents of the Poem, or the Letter, with those of the writer. Some
have suppressed Wordsworth's, and put their own title in its place!
Others have contented themselves (more modestly) with inventing a title
when Wordsworth gave none. I do not object to these titles in
themselves. Several, such as those by Archbishop Trench, are suggestive
and valuable. What I object to is that any editor--no matter who--should
mingle his own titles with those of the Poet, and give no indication to
the reader as to which is which. Dr. Grosart has been so devoted a
student of Wordsworth, and we owe him so much, that one regrets to find
in "The Prose Works of Wordsworth" (1876) the following title given to
his letter to the Bishop of Llandaff, 'Apology for the French
Revolution'. It is interesting to know that Dr. Grosart thought this a
useful description of the letter: but a clear indication should have
been given that it was not Wordsworth's. It is true that, in the general
preface to his volumes, Dr. Grosart takes upon himself the
responsibility for this title; but it should not have been printed as
the title in chief, or as the headline to the text. Similarly, with the
titles of the second and third of the three 'Essays on Epitaphs'.

As students of Wordsworth know, he issued a volume in 1838 containing
all his sonnets then written; and, at the close of that edition, he
added, "The six Sonnets annexed were composed as this Volume was going
through the Press, but too late for insertion in the class of
miscellaneous ones to which they belong. " In 1884, Archbishop Trench
edited the sonnets, with an admirable introductory "Essay on the History
of the English Sonnet"; but, while Wordsworth gave no title to the 3rd
and the 4th of the six, "composed as the Volume was going through the
Press,"--either in his edition of 1838, 'or in any subsequent issue' of
his Poems--his editor did so. He gave what are really excellent titles,
but he does not tell us that they are his own! He calls them
respectively 'The Thrush at Twilight', and 'The Thrush at Dawn'.
Possibly Wordsworth would have approved of both of those titles: but,
that they are not his, should have been indicated.