No More Learning

Sometimes the date is given vaguely; as in the case of the "Sonnets
dedicated to Liberty," where the note runs, "from the year 1807 to
1813. " At other times, the entry of the year of publication is
inaccurate; for example, the 'Inscription for the spot where the
Hermitage stood on St. Herbert's Island, Derwentwater', is put down as
belonging to the year 1807; but this poem does not occur in the volumes
of 1807, but in the second volume of "Lyrical Ballads" (1800). It will
thus be seen that it is only by comparing Wordsworth's own lists of the
years to which his Poems belong, with the contents of the several
editions of his Works, with the Fenwick Notes, and with his sister's
Journal, that we can approximately reconstruct the true chronology. To
these sources of information must be added the internal evidence of the
Poems themselves, incidental references in letters to friends, and stray
hints gathered from various quarters.

Many new sources of information as to the date of the composition of the
Poems became known to me during the publication of my previous edition,
and after its issue; the most important being the Journals of Dorothy
Wordsworth. These discoveries showed that my chronological table of
1882--although then, relatively, "up to date"--was incomplete. The
tables constructed by Mr. Tutin and by Professor Dowden are both more
accurate than it was. It is impossible to attain to finality in such a
matter; and several facts, afterwards discovered, and mentioned in the
later volumes of my previous edition, have been used against the
conclusions come to in the earlier ones. I have thus supplied the
feathers for a few subsequent critical arrows. The shots have not been
unkindly ones; and I am glad of the result, viz. that our knowledge of
the dates--both as to the composition and first publication of the poems
--is now much more exact than before. When a conjectural one is given in
this edition, the fact is always mentioned.

This chronological method of arrangement, however, has its limits.
It is
not possible always to adopt it: nor is it invariably 'necessary', even
in order to obtain a true view of the growth of Wordsworth's mind. In
this--as in so many other things--wisdom lies in the avoidance of
extremes; the extreme of rigid fidelity to the order of time on the one
hand, and the extreme of an irrational departure from it on the other.
While an effort has been made to discover the exact order of the
composition of the poems--and this is shown, not only in the
Chronological Table, but at the beginning of each separate poem--it has
been considered expedient to depart from that order in printing some of
the poems. In certain cases a poem was begun and laid aside, and again
resumed at intervals; and it is difficult to know to what year the
larger part of it should be assigned. When we know the date at which a
poem was commenced, and that it was finished "long afterwards," but have
no clue as to the year, it is assigned to the year in which it was
begun. For example, the 'Address to Kilchurn Castle' was begun in 1803,
but only the first three lines were written then. Wordsworth tells us
that "the rest was added many years after," but when we know not; and
the poem was not published till 1827. In such a case, it is placed in
this edition as if it belonged chronologically to 1803, and retains its
place in the series of Poems which memorialise the Tour in Scotland of
that year. On a similar principle, 'The Highland Girl' is placed in the
same series; although Dorothy Wordsworth tells us, in her Journal of the
Tour, that it was composed "not long after our return from Scotland";
and 'Glen Almain'--although written afterwards at Rydal--retains its
published place in the memorial group. Again the 'Departure from the
Vale of Grasmere, August 1803', is prefixed to the same series; although
it was not written till 1811, and first published in 1827. To give
symmetry to such a Series, it is necessary to depart from the exact
chronological order--the departure being duly indicated.

On the same principle I have followed the 'Address to the Scholars of
the Village School of----', by its natural sequel--'By the Side of the
Grave some Years after', the date of the composition of which is
unknown: and the 'Epistle to Sir George Beaumont' (1811) is followed by
the later Lines, to which Wordsworth gave the most prosaic title--he was
often infelicitous in his titles--'Upon perusing the foregoing Epistle
thirty years after its composition'. A like remark applies to the poem
'Beggars', which is followed by its own 'Sequel', although the order of
date is disturbed; while all the "Epitaphs," translated from Chiabrera,
are printed together.

It is manifestly appropriate that the poems belonging to a series--such
as the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," or those referring to the
"Duddon"--should be brought together, as Wordsworth finally arranged
them; even although we may be aware that some of them were written
subsequently, and placed in the middle of the series. The sonnets
referring to "Aspects of Christianity in America"--inserted in the 1845
and 1849-50 editions of the collected Works--are found in no previous
edition or version of the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets. " These, along with
some others on the Offices of the English Liturgy, were suggested to
Wordsworth by an American prelate, Bishop Doane, and by Professor Henry
Reed; [2] but we do not know in what year they were written.