I have not left room to subscribe myself more than

Affectionately yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[210]

[210] Memoirs, ii. 414-17.

142. ’Poems of Imagination:’  New Edition, &c.:  Portrait, &c.

LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.

Brinsop Court, Sept. 27 [1845].

MY DEAR MR. REED,

The sight of your letter was very welcome, and its contents proved most agreeable.  It was well that you did not forward my little poem to the party, he entertaining the opinions he holds, and being of the character you describe.  I shall therefore be gratified if you, as you propose, write him a note, expressing that I have nothing among my MSS. that would suit his purpose.  The verses are already printed in the new edition of my poems (double column), which is going through the press.  It will contain about 300 verses not found in the previous edition.  I do not remember whether I have mentioned to you that, following your example, I have greatly extended the class entitled ’Poems of the Imagination,’ thinking, as you must have done, that if imagination were predominant in the class, it was not indispensable that it should pervade every poem which it contained.  Limiting the class as I had done before seemed to imply, and to the uncandid or unobserving it did so, that the faculty, which is the primum mobile in poetry, had little to do, in the estimation of the author, with the pieces not arranged under that head.  I, therefore, feel much obliged to you for suggesting by your practice the plan which I have adopted.  In respect to the Prefaces, my own wish would be that now the Poems should be left to speak for themselves without them; but I know that this would not answer for the purposes of sale.  They will, therefore, be printed at the end of the volume; and to this I am in some degree reconciled by the matter they contain relating to poetry in general, and the principles they inculcate.  I hope that, upon the whole, the edition will please you.  In a very few instances I have altered the expression for the worse, on account of the same feeling or word occurring rather too near the passage.  For example, the Sonnet on Baptism begins ’Blest be the Church.’  But unfortunately the word occurs some three or four lines just before or after; I have, therefore, though reluctantly, substituted the less impressive word, ‘Dear be the Church.’  I mention this solely to prevent blame on your part in this and a few similar cases where an injurious change has been made.  The book will be off my hands I hope in about two weeks.

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