Fourth.  In the present edition all the Notes and Memoranda, explanatory of the Poems, which Wordsworth dictated to Miss Fenwick, are given in full.  Miss Fenwick lived much at Rydal Mount, during the later years of the Poet’s life; and it is to their friendship, and to her inducing Wordsworth to dictate these Notes, that we owe most of the information we possess, as to the occasions and circumstances under which his poems were composed.  These notes were first made use of—­although only in a fragmentary manner—­by the late Bishop of Lincoln, in the ‘Memoirs’ of his uncle.  They were afterwards incorporated in full in the edition of 1857, issued by Mr. Moxon, under the direction of Mr. Carter; and in the centenary edition.  They were subsequently printed in ’The Prose Works of Wordsworth’, edited by Dr. Grosart; and in my edition of 1882-6.  I am uncertain whether it was the original Ms., written by Miss Fenwick, or the copy of it afterwards taken for Miss Quillinan, to which Dr. Grosart had access.  The text of these Notes, as printed in the edition of 1857, is certainly (in very many cases) widely different from what is given in ‘The Prose Works’ of 1876.  I have made many corrections—­from the Ms. which I have examined with care—­of errors which exist in all previously printed copies of these Notes, including my own.

What appears in this volume is printed from a Ms., which Miss Quillinan gave me to examine and copy, and which she assured me was the original one.  The proper place for these Fenwick Notes is doubtless that which was assigned to them by the editor of 1857, viz. before the poems which they respectively illustrate.

Fifth.  Topographical Notes, explanatory of the allusions made by Wordsworth to the localities in the English Lake District, and elsewhere, are added throughout the volumes.  This has already been attempted to some extent by several writers, but a good deal more remains to be done; and I may repeat what I wrote on this subject, in 1878.

Many of Wordsworth’s allusions to Place are obscure, and the exact localities difficult to identify.  It is doubtful if he cared whether they could be afterwards traced out or not; and in reference to one particular rock, referred to in the “Poems on the Naming of Places,” when asked by a friend to localise it, he declined; replying to the question, “Yes, that—­or any other that will suit!” There is no doubt that, in many instances, his allusions to place are intentionally vague; and, in some of his most realistic passages, he avowedly weaves together a description of localities remote from each other.