The question of the number, the character, and the length of the Notes, which a wise editor should append to the works of a great poet, (or to any classic), is perhaps still ‘sub judice’.  My own opinion is that, in all editorial work, the notes should be illustrative rather than critical; and that they should only bring out those points, which the ordinary reader of the text would not readily understand, if the poems were not annotated.  For this reason, topographical, historical, and antiquarian notes are almost essential.  The Notes which Wordsworth himself wrote to his Poems, are of unequal length and merit.  It was perhaps necessary for him to write—­at all events it is easy to understand, and to sympathise with, his writing—­the long note on the revered parson of the Duddon Valley, the Rev. Robert Walker, who will be remembered for many generations as the “Wonderful Walker.”  The Poet’s editors have also been occasionally led to add digressive notes, to clear up points which had been left by himself either dubious, or obscure.  I must plead guilty to the charge of doing so:  e.g. the identification of “The Muccawiss” (see ‘The Excursion’, book iii. l. 953) with the Whip-poor-Will involved a great deal of laborious correspondence years ago.  It was a question of real difficulty; and, although the result reached could now be put into two or three lines, I have thought it desirable that the opinions of those who wrote about it, and helped toward the solution, should be recorded.  What I print is only a small part of the correspondence that took place.

On the other hand, it would be quite out of place, in a note to the famous passage in the 4th book of ‘The Excursion’, beginning

  ...  I have seen
  A curious child applying to his ear

to enter on a discussion as to the extent of Wordsworth’s debt—­if any—­to the author of ‘Gebir’.  It is quite sufficient to print the relative passage from Landor’s poem at the foot of the page.

All the Notes written by Wordsworth himself in his numerous editions will be found in this one, with the date of their first appearance added.  Slight textual changes, however, or casual ‘addenda’, are not indicated, unless they are sufficiently important.  Changes in the text of notes have not the same importance to posterity, as changes in the text of poems.  In the preface to the Prose Works, reference will be made to Wordsworth’s alterations of his text.  At present I refer only to his own notes to his Poems.  When they were written as footnotes to the page, they remain footnotes still.  When they were placed by him as prefaces to his Poems, they retain that place in this edition; but when they were appendix notes—­as e.g. in the early editions of “Lyrical Ballads”—­they are now made footnotes to the Poems they illustrate.  In such a case, however, as the elaborate note to ‘The Excursion’, containing a reprint of the ’Essay upon Epitaphs’—­originally contributed to “The Friend”—­it is transferred to the Prose Works, to which it belongs by priority of date; and, as it would be inexpedient to print it twice over, it is omitted from the notes to ‘The Excursion’.