portions of his work ought, and what ought not to survive. At the same
time,--while I do not presume to judge in the case of writers whom I
know less fully than I happen to know Wordsworth and his
contemporaries,--it seems clear that the very greatest men have
occasionally erred as to what parts of their writings might, with most
advantage, survive; and that they have even more frequently erred as to
what MS. letters, etc.,--casting light on their contemporaries--should,
or should not, be preserved. I am convinced, for example, that if the
Wordsworth household had not destroyed all the letters which Coleridge
sent to them, in the first decade of this century, the world would now
possess much important knowledge which is for ever lost. It may have
been wise, for reasons now unknown, to burn those letters, written by
Coleridge: but the students of the literature of the period would gladly
have them now.

Passing from the question of the preservation of Letters, it is evident
that Wordsworth was very careful in distinguishing between the Verses
which he sent to Newspapers and Magazines, and those Poems which he
included in his published volumes. His anxiety on this point may be
inferred from the way in which he more than once emphasised the fact of
republication, e.g. in 'Peter Bell' (1819) he put the following
prefatory note to four sonnets, which had previously appeared in
'Blackwood's Magazine', and which afterwards (1828) appeared in the
'Poetical Album' of Alaric Watts, "The following Sonnets having lately
appeared in Periodical Publications are here reprinted."

Some of the poems (or fragments of poems), included in the 'addenda' to
Volume viii. of this edition, I would willingly have left out
(especially the sonnet addressed to Miss Maria Williams); but, since
they have appeared elsewhere, I feel justified in now reprinting even