No More Learning

[7]

A knowledge of these changes of text can only be obtained in one or
other of two ways. Either the reader must have access to all the
thirty-two editions of Poems, the publication of which Wordsworth
personally supervised; or, he must have all the changes in the
successive editions, exhibited in the form of footnotes, and appended to
the particular text that is selected and printed in the body of the
work. It is extremely difficult--in some cases quite impossible--to
obtain the early editions. The great public libraries of the country do
not possess them all. [8] It is therefore necessary to fall back upon the
latter plan, which seems the only one by which a knowledge of the
changes of the text can be made accessible, either to the general
reader, or to the special student of English Poetry.

The text which--after much consideration--I have resolved to place
throughout, in the body of the work, is Wordsworth's own final 'textus
receptus', i. e. the text of 1849-50, reproduced in the posthumous
edition of 1857; [9] and since opinion will doubtless differ as to the
wisdom of this selection, it may be desirable to state at some length
the reasons which have led me to adopt it.

There are only three possible courses open to an editor, who wishes to
give--along with the text selected--all the various readings
chronologically arranged as footnotes. Either, 1st, the earliest text
may be taken, or 2nd, the latest may be chosen, or 3rd, the text may be
selected from different editions, so as to present each poem in its best
state (according to the judgment of the editor), in whatever edition it
is found. A composite text, made up from two or more editions, would be
inadmissible.

Now, most persons who have studied the subject know that Wordsworth's
best text is to be found, in one poem in its earliest edition, in
another in its latest, and in a third in some intermediate edition. I
cannot agree either with the statement that he always altered for the
worse, or that he always altered for the better. His critical judgment
was not nearly so unerring in this respect as Coleridge's was, or as
Tennyson's has been. It may be difficult, therefore, to assign an
altogether satisfactory reason for adopting either the earliest or the
latest text; and at first sight, the remaining alternative plan may seem
the wisest of the three.
There are indeed difficulties in the way of the
adoption of any one of the methods suggested; and as I adopt the latest
text--not because it is always intrinsically the best, but on other
grounds to be immediately stated--it may clear the way, if reference be
made in the first instance to the others, and to the reasons for
abandoning them.

As to a selection of the text from various editions, this would
doubtless be the best plan, were it a practicable one; and perhaps it
may be attainable some day. But Wordsworth is as yet too near us for
such an editorial treatment of his Works to be successful. The
fundamental objection to it is that scarcely two minds--even among the
most competent of contemporary judges--will agree as to what the best
text is. An edition arranged on this principle could not possibly be
acceptable to more than a few persons. Of course no arrangement of any
kind can escape adverse criticism: it would be most unfortunate if it
did. But this particular edition would fail in its main purpose, if
questions of individual taste were made primary, and not secondary; and
an arrangement, which gave scope for the arbitrary selection of
particular texts,--according to the wisdom, or the want of wisdom, of
the editor,--would deservedly meet with severe criticism in many
quarters. Besides, such a method of arrangement would not indicate the
growth of the Poet's mind, and the development of his genius. If an
editor wished to indicate his own opinion of the best text for each
poem--under the idea that his judgment might be of some use to other
people--it would be wiser to do so by means of some mark or marginal
note, than by printing his selected text in the main body of the work.
He could thus at once preserve the chronological order of the readings,
indicate his own preference, and leave it to others to select what they
preferred. Besides, the compiler of such an edition would often find
himself in doubt as to what the best text really was, the merit of the
different readings being sometimes almost equal, or very nearly
balanced; and, were he to endeavour to get out of the difficulty by
obtaining the judgments of literary men, or even of contemporary poets,
he would find that their opinions would in most cases be dissimilar, if
they did not openly conflict. Those who cannot come to a final decision
as to their own text would not be likely to agree as to the merits of
particular readings in the poems of their predecessors. Unanimity of
opinion on this point is indeed quite unattainable.

Nevertheless, it would be easy for an editor to show the unfortunate
result of keeping rigorously either to the latest or to the earliest
text of Wordsworth. If, on the one hand, the latest were taken, it could
be shown that many of the changes introduced into it were for the worse,
and some of them very decidedly so. For example, in the poem 'To a
Skylark'--composed in 1825--the second verse, retained in the
editions of 1827, 1832, 1836, and 1843, was unaccountably dropped out in
the editions of 1845 and 1849.