end of the volume.

From the accident of my having tried long ago--at Principal Shairp's
request--to do what he told me he wished to do, but had failed to carry
out, I have been supposed, quite erroneously, to be an 'authority' on
the subject of "The English Lake District, as interpreted in the Poems
of Wordsworth." The latter, it is true, is the title of one of the books
which I have written about Wordsworth: but, although I visited the Lakes
in 1860,--"as a pilgrim resolute"--and have re-visited the district
nearly every year for more than a quarter of a century, I may say that I
have only a partial knowledge of it. Others, such as Canon Rawnsley, Mr.
Harry Goodwin, and Mr. Rix, for example, know many parts of it much
better than I do; but, as I have often had to compare my own judgment
with that of such experts as the late Dr. Cradock, Principal of
Brasenose College, Oxford, and others, I may add that, when I differ
from them, it has been only after a re-examination of their evidence, at
the localities themselves.


SIXTH. Several Poems, and fragments of poems, hitherto unpublished--or
published in stray quarters, and in desultory fashion--will find a place
in this edition; but I reserve these fragments, and place them all
together, in an Appendix to the last volume of the "Poetical Works." If
it is desirable to print these poems, in such an edition as this, it is
equally desirable to separate them from those which Wordsworth himself
sanctioned in his final edition of 1849-50.

Every great author in the Literature of the World--whether he lives to
old age (when his judgment may possibly be less critical) or dies young
(when it may be relatively more accurate)--should himself determine what