Against the adoption of the earlier text, there is this fatal objection, that if it is to be done at all, it must be done throughout; and, in the earliest poems Wordsworth wrote—­viz.  ‘An Evening Walk’ and ’Descriptive Sketches’,—­the subsequent alterations almost amounted to a cancelling of the earlier version.  His changes were all, or almost all, unmistakably for the better.  Indeed, there was little in these works—­in the form in which they first appeared—­to lead to the belief that an original poet had arisen in England.  It is true that Coleridge saw in them the signs of the dawn of a new era, and wrote thus of ’Descriptive Sketches’, before he knew its author, “Seldom, if ever, was the emergence of a great and original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced.”  Nevertheless the earliest text of these ‘Sketches’ is, in many places, so artificial, prosaic, and dull, that its reproduction (except as an appendix, or in the form of footnotes) would be an injustice to Wordsworth. [10] On the other hand, the passages subsequently cancelled are so numerous, and so long, that if placed in footnotes the latter would in some instances be more extensive than the text.  The quarto of 1793 will therefore be reprinted in full as an Appendix to the first volume of this edition.  The ’School Exercise written at Hawkshead’ in the poet’s fourteenth year, will be found in vol. viii.  Passing over these juvenile efforts, there are poems—­such as ‘Guilt and Sorrow’, ‘Peter Bell’, and many others—­in which the earlier text is an inferior one, which was either corrected or abandoned by Wordsworth in his maturer years.  It would be a conspicuous blunder to print—­in the place of honour,—­the crude original which was afterwards repudiated by its author.

It may be remembered, in connection with Wordsworth’s text, that he himself said, “I am for the most part uncertain about my success in altering poems; but, in this case” (he is speaking of an insertion) “I am sure I have produced a great improvement.” (’Memoirs of Wordsworth’, vol. i. p. 174.) [11] Again, in writing to Mr. Dyce in 1830, “You know what importance I attach to following strictly the last copy of the text of an author.”

It is also worthy of note that the study of their chronology casts some light on the changes which the poems underwent.  The second edition of “Lyrical Ballads” appeared in 1800.  In that edition the text of 1798 is scarcely altered:  but, in the year in which it was published, Wordsworth was engrossed with his settlement at Grasmere; and, in the springtime of creative work, he probably never thought of revising his earlier pieces.  In the year 1800, he composed at least twenty-five new poems.  The third edition of “Lyrical Ballads” appeared in 1802; and during that year he wrote forty-three new poems, many of them amongst the most perfect of his Lyrics.  His critical instinct had become much more delicate since 1800:  and it is not surprising