P. 459, l. 7 onward.  Horace, Ode iv. 2, 1; ibid. 2, 27.

P. 462, l. 15.  ‘Walter Scott is not a careful composer,’ &c.  This recurs in Mr. Aubrey do Vere’s ‘Recollections’ (p. 487 onward).  I venture as a Scot to observe that for this one slight misquotation by Scott, on which so large a conclusion is built, the quotations by Wordsworth from others would furnish twenty-fold.  He was singularly inexact in quotation, as even these Notes and Illustrations will satisfy in the places—­scarcely in a single instance being verbally accurate.  ‘Sweet’ certainly was a perfectly fitting word for the sequestered lake of St. Mary in its serene summer beauty.  Moreover, swans are not usually found singly, but in pairs; and a pair surely differenced not greatly the symbol of loneliness.  The latter remark points to Wordsworth’s further objection, as stated to Mr. de Vere (as supra).

P. 492, l. 26.  ‘In the case of a certain poet since dead,’ &c.  I may record what his own son has not felt free to do, that this was Sir Aubrey de Vere, whose ‘Song of Faith, and other Poems,’ has not yet gathered its ultimate renown.  Wordsworth greatly admired the modest little volume.  See one of his Sonnets on page 495.  Nor with the Laureate’s poem-play of ‘Queen Mary’ (Tudor) winning inevitable welcome ought it to be forgotten—­as even prominent critics of it are sorrowfully forgetting—­that Sir Aubrey de Vere, so long ago as 1847, published his drama of ‘Mary Tudor.’  I venture to affirm that it takes its place—­a lofty one—­beside ‘Philip van Artevelde,’ and that it need fear no comparison with ‘Queen Mary.’  Early and comparatively modern supreme poetry somehow gets out of sight for long.

P. 497, 1. 15.  Read ‘no angel smiled.’  I can only offer the plea of an old Worthy, who said, ’Errata are inevitable, for we are human; and to have none would imply eyes behind as well as before, or the wallet of our errors all in front.’  G.

INDEX.

* * * As pointed out in the places, the ‘Contents’ of Vol.  III. give the details of topics in the ‘Notes and Illustrations of the Poems’ and of ‘Letters and Extracts of Letters’ so minutely, as to obviate their record here; thus lightening the Index.  G.

A.

Abuses, i. 284.

Acquiescence, not choice, i. 19.

Action, springs of, i. 160.

Addresses, Two, to the Freeholders of Westmoreland, i. 211-270;
  occasion of writing, i. 214.

Addison, i. 357, iii. 508.

Adventurers, i. 241.

Advice to the Young, i. 295-326.

Admiration, unqualified, i. 312.

Advancement and preferment of youth, i. 352.

‘Age, present,’ supposed moral inferiority of, i. 310.

Agitators, i. 249.

Alpedrinha, i. 56.

Allies, to be supported, i. 138;
  how, 138-9, et seqq.