No More Learning

Comparatively few changes occur in the poems of early
years.

A copy of the 1814 (quarto) edition of 'The Excursion', now in the
possession of a grandson of the poet, the Rev. John Wordsworth, Gosforth
Rectory, Cumberland--which was the copy Wordsworth kept at Rydal Mount
for annotation and correction, much in the same way as he kept the
edition of 1836-7--has also been kindly sent to me by its present owner,
for examination and use in this edition; and, in it, I have found some
additional readings.


FOURTH. In the present edition all the Notes and Memoranda, explanatory
of the Poems, which Wordsworth dictated to Miss Fenwick, are given in
full. Miss Fenwick lived much at Rydal Mount, during the later years of
the Poet's life; and it is to their friendship, and to her inducing
Wordsworth to dictate these Notes, that we owe most of the information
we possess, as to the occasions and circumstances under which his poems
were composed. These notes were first made use of--although only in a
fragmentary manner--by the late Bishop of Lincoln, in the 'Memoirs' of
his uncle. They were afterwards incorporated in full in the edition of
1857, issued by Mr. Moxon, under the direction of Mr. Carter; and in the
centenary edition. They were subsequently printed in 'The Prose Works of
Wordsworth', edited by Dr. Grosart; and in my edition of 1882-6. I am
uncertain whether it was the original MS. , written by Miss Fenwick, or
the copy of it afterwards taken for Miss Quillinan, to which Dr. Grosart
had access.
The text of these Notes, as printed in the edition of 1857,
is certainly (in very many cases) widely different from what is given in
'The Prose Works' of 1876. I have made many corrections--from the MS.
which I have examined with care--of errors which exist in all previously
printed copies of these Notes, including my own.

What appears in this volume is printed from a MS. , which Miss Quillinan
gave me to examine and copy, and which she assured me was the original
one. The proper place for these Fenwick Notes is doubtless that which
was assigned to them by the editor of 1857, viz. before the poems which
they respectively illustrate.


FIFTH. Topographical Notes, explanatory of the allusions made by
Wordsworth to the localities in the English Lake District, and
elsewhere, are added throughout the volumes. This has already been
attempted to some extent by several writers, but a good deal more
remains to be done; and I may repeat what I wrote on this subject, in
1878.

Many of Wordsworth's allusions to Place are obscure, and the exact
localities difficult to identify. It is doubtful if he cared whether
they could be afterwards traced out or not; and in reference to one
particular rock, referred to in the "Poems on the Naming of Places,"
when asked by a friend to localise it, he declined; replying to the
question, "Yes, that--or any other that will suit! " There is no doubt
that, in many instances, his allusions to place are intentionally vague;
and, in some of his most realistic passages, he avowedly weaves together
a description of localities remote from each other.

It is true that "Poems of Places" are not meant to be photographs; and
were they simply to reproduce the features of a particular district, and
be an exact transcript of reality, they would be literary photographs,
and not poems. Poetry cannot, in the nature of things, be a mere
register of phenomena appealing to the eye or the ear. No imaginative
writer, however, in the whole range of English Literature, is so
peculiarly identified with locality as Wordsworth is; and there is not
one on the roll of poets, the appreciation of whose writings is more
aided by an intimate knowledge of the district in which he lived.