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. In this edition there were two such lists, one of them
very brief. But the cancelled words in these 'errata' lists, must be
taken into account, in determining the text of each edition.]

[Footnote 13: I. F. note. See vol. i. p. 5.]

[Footnote 14: I. F. note. See vol. i. p. 32.]

[Footnote 15: Advertisement. See vol. i. p. 78.]

[Footnote 16: How much of this poem was Wordsworth's own has not been
definitely ascertained. I am of opinion that very little, if any of it,
was his. It has been said that his nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln,
wrote most of it; but more recent evidence tends to show that it was the
work of his son-in-law, Edward Quillinan.]

[Footnote 17: In a letter to the writer in 1882.]

[Footnote 18: 'The Poetry of Byron, chosen and arranged by Matthew
Arnold'. London: Macmillan and Co.]

[Footnote 19: It may not be too trivial a fact to mention that
Word