text in Wordsworth's poem are few. For the last four lines of the fourth stanza he substituted the following—

"Remote from sheltered village-green,

On a hill's northern side she dwelt,

Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean,

And hoary dews are slow to melt."

PAGE 95.-Lines written at a small distance, &c. Composed, 1798, in front of Alfoxden House. Afterwards named "To my Sister." The little boy was the son of Basil Montagu. The text was scarcely altered.

In the seventh stanza the second line became

"Than years of toiling reason."

PAGE 98.-Simon Lee.

Composed, 1798. "This old man had been huntsman to the squires of Alfoxden." His cottage stood a little way from the entrance to Alfoxden Park. "The expression when the hounds were out 'I dearly love their voices' was word for word from his own lips.”—Fenwick note. The alterations of text are very numerous.

They are chiefly directed to attaining a better sequence in the stanzas which describe Simon Lee, and in making that description less grotesque in its details.

PAGE 105.-Anecdote for Fathers.

Composed, 1798. The scene is in front of Alfoxden; the boy, a son of Basil Montagu. Kilve is a village on the Bristol Channel, near Alfoxden. The name of Liswyn Farm was taken from a spot on the Wye, where Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Wordsworth's sister had visited John Thelwall. In later texts there are several changes, and the order of some stanzas is altered. In place of the one stanza beginning " The young lambs ran a pretty race the two following appear (1827):—

"The green earth echoed to the feet

Of lambs that bounded through the glade,

From shade to sunshine, and as fleet

From sunshine back to shade.

"Birds warbled round me-and each trace

Of inward sadness had its charm;

Kilve, thought I, was a favoured place,

And so is Liswyn farm."

PAGE IIO. We are Seven.

Composed while walking in the grove at Alfoxden, spring of 1798. Wordsworth met the little girl within the area of Goodrich Castle, 1793. The last stanza was composed first, Wordsworth having begun with the last line. Coleridge threw off the first stanza on Wordsworth's mentioning the substance of what he wished to be expressed. "I objected to the rhyme dear brother Jim' as being ludicrous; but we all enjoyed the joke of hitching in our friend James T―'s name,"Fenwick note. The was hardly at all altered in the later texts, except that "dear brother Jim" was omitted from the first line, which remains imperfect and rhymeless—

6

poem

"A simple child."

66

PAGE 115.-Lines written in Early Spring.

'Actually composed [1798] while I was sitting by the side of the brook that runs down from the Comb, in which stands the village of Alford, through the grounds of Alfoxden."-Fenwick note. The only change of import

ance is in the last stanza, where the awkward first and

second lines are replaced by

"If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature's holy plan."

PAGE 117.-The Thorn.

Written at Alfoxden, 1798. "Arose out of my observing on the ridge of Quantock Hill, on a stormy day, a thorn which I had often past in calm and bright weather, without noticing it. I said to myself' Cannot I by some invention, do as much to make this Thorn permanently an impressive object as the storm has made it to my eyes at this moment.'"-Fenwick note. Several changes of text were made. The lines

"I've measured it from side to side:

'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide."

were retained until 1815, but in 1820 Wordsworth substituted for them the following

"Though but of compass small, and bare

To thirsty suns, and parching air."

The lines" Nay rack your brain" (stanza x) to "I'll tell you all I know" (stanza xi) were omitted. The close of stanza xii was made more dignified. "Old Farmer Simpson" became "Grey-haired Wilfred of the Glen."

PAGE 133.-The Last of the Flock.

Composed, 1798. "The incident," says Wordsworth, “occurred in the village of Holford, close by Alfoxden.” The only change of text which need be noted is that the recurring last line of stanzas 6, 7, 8, “For me it was a woeful day," is given only once (in st. 6). The close of st. 7 in the later text is

"Reckless of what might come at last
Were but the bitter struggle past;"

and that of st. 8

"And oft was moved to flee from home,

And hide my head where wild beasts roam.'

PAGE 139.-The Dungeon.

This, like The Foster-Mother's Tale, is a fragment from Coleridge's Osorio. It is retained in Remorse, where the soliloquy opens the fifth act of the play.